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Arch, James Wille Faust |
Wille in the Wild.
Within a few days of each other earlier this month, I came across two works by James Wille Faust from the early 2000s. First I stumbled across a framed print of his at the Southport Antique Mall on the city's south side, and then a few days later, when going to the Peg Fierke's show at Herron Galleries, I couldn't help but see his public sculpture at a corner outside the art school.
What struck me was the close relation of the vocabulary of imagery and color between the two pieces – triangles, circles, arcs, teardrop shapes and bright poster colors. A little research revealed that the two works were indeed related in time and impulse, and to a concurrent event, the relocation of the Herron School of Art and Design from 16th Street to the IUPUI campus (as it was called at the time).
A Sculpture is Born.
In February 2003, Faust had an exhibition at the Domont Studio Gallery near the Eli Lilly campus on the city's near south side. The show was called Earth Air Fire and Water and contained both new paintings and sculptures and was previewed by S. L. Berry in The Indianapolis Star on February 3.
The art feature writer discussed the show with both Faust and gallery owner, John Domont, in a long pictorial column that discussed the inspiration for the paintings, and a background to Faust's 3D works included in the show. Berry relays Faust's explanation that preparation for the paintings began with sketching clouds, quoting the artist,
“While I was drawing, a horizon line came into play...Then the shapes started working together. I began moving the horizon line forward and the cloud shapes back. I tried out different arrangements.”
Berry writers further,
“To the shapes, Faust then began adding patterns. By the time he began painting, what he had created was a series of images that evoke the elements, sometimes individually, sometimes in various combinations.
...The pieces...display his love and concern for the natural world.”
Again, Berry quotes Faust,
“From the cloud shapes, I started working with plumes...That led me to think about fires...Pretty soon, I realized that what I was dealing with were the elements.”
The article provides background to the sculptural works,
“In addition to the paintings, Earth Air Fire and Water features several sculptures. Actually models for larger-scale works that Faust dreams of constructing someday, they incorporate some of the same shapes and patterns that appear in the paintings.
Though he has earned a reputation as a painter, Faust majored in sculpture as an undergraduate at Herron...(class of 1971).”
Faust is photographed peering through the negative space of one such model that appears of an overall horizontal design.
When looking at Faust's work from this show, it is hard not to think of Robert Indiana and his colorful, if not pop, signage-inspired works that often include circles and triangles and arrows. But whereas Indiana often imposed words and images to jar the emotions, and confront placidity, in the otherwise somewhat staid geometric compositions, Faust's abstractions with neo-geo colors and shapes seem an opposite performance. Although they are incredibly brightly colored, there is a soothing pattern to his shapes and harmony to his hues, as they distribute across his surfaces.
A year later, Faust would have another show in October 2004, again at Domont Studio Gallery, Painting and Building Visions. A September 9 preview in The Indianapolis Star included an image of Faust's Being Part of the Moment, which was included in that show.
And one year following, in an A&E (Arts and Entertainment) section front page that featured news of Herron's move to the IUPUI campus, S. L. Berry covered Faust's dream come true, with the permanent installation of his large-scale outdoor piece Arch.
Appearing in the May 29, 2005, Indianapolis Star, Berry's article begins,
“For James Wille Faust, the payoff came when a young girl leaned out of a passing car and yelled, 'Hey, that's cool!'
She was referring to Arch, a 20-foot-tall brightly-colored aluminum sculpture that Faust and a work crew had just spent eight hours installing on cold, windy day. The sculpture, which stands outside the new Herron School of Art and Design...is Faust's first permanent piece of public sculpture.”
Berry explains the genesis of the piece, which cost $145,000 for fabrication and installation,
“Faust...has been creating maquettes (models) of sculptures he'd like to build for several years. When Valerie Eickmeier, Herron's dean, saw some of them in an exhibition, she asked if he'd be interested in creating a full-scale piece for installation in front of the art school's new facility...”
Originally, additional outdoor pieces by local, national and international artists were placed around the grounds of the new building in a temporary invitational exhibit. Artists included Herron faculty members Greg Hull, Eric Nordgulen and Katrin Asbury. Other artists included Tom Otterness, Don Gummer, Judith Shea and Wim Delvoye. Those pieces were up for 18 months, whereas Arch remains to this day.
Time Capsules, Either Way.
Both antique malls and public art spaces share the characteristic of preserving the past. They both seem a counterweight to the inexorable heft of time's push forward.
And so, James Willie Faust's Arch stands today as it did 21 years ago at the corner of Blackford and New York streets.
Physically, it presents as nearly new, still fresh and eye-catching, a monument to not only Faust's vision, but the fabrication techniques or the expertise of its maintenance. And perhaps, also as a monument to Herron's arc in time, from 16th Street to IU Indianapolis.
Being Part of the Moment, a signed, 3/4 printers proof copy, similarly, is well preserved under its glass within its frame. It loses something being amid all the homely clutter of the antique mall booth. But it is easy to imagine it more free and less confined, in its natural element, with some adequate light and a modicum of plain wall around it.
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Being Part of the Moment, James Wille Faust |
Mark Diekhoff, July 2026
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