Events on October 15, 2025

Image: Lamar Richcreek (American, 1947–2018), Untitled from the Series Ideal Farm, 2004, chromogenic color print, gift of Jean Richcreek, 2024.006.011.

September 18 – December 19, 2025

Ball State alumnus Lamar Richcreek (1947–2018) earned a degree in business administration in 1969. After a 24-year career in banking, he launched a second career in photography. In his 50s, he returned to school, earned an MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and taught for 20 years as an adjunct professor of photography at the Herron School of Art + Design in Indianapolis. His success as a fine art photographer resulted in a solo exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 2002.

Like the pastoral genre in literature, art, and music, Lamar Richcreek’s photographs often present nostalgic visual stories of Indiana’s agricultural landscape inflected by his business perspective. He once wrote in an artist’s statement, “My views of the landscape, agriculture and the family farm are romanticized ones, originating from childhood experiences and visits to my grandfather’s farm in Central Indiana. In the aftermath of World War II and during the Cold War years, the Midwest saw the creation of global markets for farm products and the development of technological advances that were invented to increase production for improved and insured profitability, all of which transformed American farming. These transformations favored agri-businesses and multi-national corporations, thereby altering the viability of the traditional family farm. This change occurred over time without my realizing its impact.”

Lamar Richcreek’s photography testifies to the effects of the post-war economic-agricultural boom in the Midwest through his images with surreal settings, witty juxtapositions, and sublime scenery. A recent donation of art from his wife, Jean Richcreek (1948–2025), to the David Owsley Museum of Art allows subsequent generations to view the corporatization of farming in Indiana through Lamar Richcreek’s creative lens. We are also grateful to Ball State alumnus Thomas Murphy (‘69) for his recent philanthropic investment in DOMA in memory of Lamar and Jean Richcreek.  

Image: Pierre Daura (American, born Spain, 1896–1976), designs for Cercle et Carré logo, 1929. Pen and ink on paper, 9 3/4 × 6 inches. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of Martha Randolph Daura. 2011.125.

September 18 – December 19, 2025

Hours: 9 a.m.–4:30 p.m. (Tuesday–Friday)
           1:30–4:30 p.m. (Saturday)

In Paris in 1929, Belgian painter and critic Michel Seuphor (1901–1999), Uruguayan painter and theorist Joaquín Torres-García (1874–1949), and Catalan-American artist Pierre Daura (1896–1976) founded an influential but short-lived artistic group named Circle and Square, after the geometric shapes fundamental to abstract art.  The group attracted more than eighty international artists including Jean Arp (1886–1966), Le Corbusier (1887–1965), Alexandra Exter (1882–1949), Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), Nadia Khodasevich Léger (1904–1987), Fernand Léger (1881–1955), and Sophie Täuber-Arp (1889–1943), among other famous and lesser-known personalities in the Parisian art world. Cercle et Carré and the International Spirit of Abstract Art showcases more than sixty works by thirty of Cercle et Carré’s participants, as well as outlines the formation of the group and its artistic legacy.

The exhibition was organized by the Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, with the addition of works from the collection of the David Owsley Museum of Art. Generous support for the exhibition was provided by the Daura Foundation.

Visitors will feel like they are stepping into a beloved children’s storybook as they encounter whimsical scenes and engaging sensory activities in this nature-inspired experience. Designed to help build confidence and cultivate scientific curiosity, children will discover and learn about animals that emerge in their neighborhoods and local forests after the sun goes down.

June 7 through November 2, 2025

Location: Center Building, Gallery 1 & 2

Cost: Included with your admission ticket

Good Night Forest is organized and produced by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, with support from Ball Brothers Foundation and George and Frances Ball Foundation.

This is a Weekly Recurring Event

Runs from Jun 7, 2025 to Nov 2, 2025 and happens every:

Wednesdays: 9:00am - 12:00pm Timezone: EDT

Thursdays: 9:00am - 5:00pm Timezone: EDT

Fridays: 9:00am - 5:00pm Timezone: EDT

Saturdays: 9:00am - 5:00pm Timezone: EDT

Sundays: 12:00pm - 5:00pm Timezone: EDT

E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center

Wednesday, October 15, 6 - 7:30 p.m.
Held at the E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center
No Charge—Reservations Required
Please register online at: https://commerce.cashnet.com/BALL_EMS057   (under “History”)

In early 1900s Indiana, John Terrell was the wealthiest man in Wells County, thanks to oil discovered on his farm. But when his youngest daughter, Lucy, became pregnant and was forced into marriage with the abusive Melvin Wolfe, Terrell’s life and fortune began to unravel in a tumultuous spiral of murder, a dramatic trial, and madness.

On a summer Sunday afternoon in 1903, Terrell ambushed Wolfe along a roadside. He then followed the wounded man to a doctor’s office, broke into the operating room, placed a shotgun to Wolfe’s head, and pulled the trigger. The next day, the murder made headlines in hundreds of newspapers across the country, including the front page of The New York Times.

But the murder was only the beginning. Over the next decade, the case divided a community and drew in five judges, two Indiana governors, a prominent priest, and the Indiana Supreme Court.

Presenter: Stephen Terrell is a retired Indianapolis lawyer and Muncie native who now lives and writes in his hometown. A graduate of Muncie Central and Ball State University, he is the author of The Madness of John Terrell: Revenge and Insanity on Trial in the Heartland (Kent State University Press, 2024), as well as three novels, including two legal thrillers and Last Train to Stratton, an excerpt of which will appear in the 2025 edition of So It Goes, the Kurt Vonnegut Library’s literary journal.

Stephen’s short stories appear regularly in Speed City Sisters in Crime anthologies. His work has earned honors including a place on the Best Mystery Stories of the Year Honor Roll, the Manny Award for short fiction, and induction into the Indiana State Bar’s General Practice Hall of Fame. He also writes the column On Second Thought for the ABA’s Experience Magazine.