A call went out to the local community, and the answer was incredible! CertaPro Painters of Indianapolis asked for help painting Ernie Taylor’s sculptures at his home, 10985 E. State Road 32 – just west of the Hamilton-Boone County line – and the outpouring of support brought 200 people to Taylor’s home Friday morning. The youngest person in the photo above is 2 years old. Ernie, who is as hard to spot as a “Where’s Waldo” picture in this crowd (hint: look for the cowboy hat), is 94. The before and after photos will astound you. Read more about the journey to this day in the column below.
200 friends, new and old, come to help
If you have driven on State Road 32 west of Hamilton County, you have probably noticed Ernie Taylor’s sculptures. Next time you drive down that stretch of road, you definitely will. Everything is now more eye-catching than it has been in a long time. Friday morning saw professionals from CertaPro Painters of Indianapolis and Sherwin Williams plus 100 families worth of enthusiastic amateurs flock to Ernie’s house to repaint as much as humanly possible in one day. Here are some before and during shots.
Reporter photos by Stu Clampitt / Photos provided by Rachel Johnson, CertaPro
Giving back never looked so good!
You’ve read the stories. You’ve seen the photos of everyone who came to help Ernie Taylor preserve his lifetime of artwork. Now you see what can happen when people come together for a common purpose. Just a few hours of work by a couple hundred people have truly transformed Ernie’s property and put smiles of pride and appreciation on the faces of everyone present Friday. Their volunteerism will also bring smiles to countless more people who drive by, who stop in to see the art for themselves, and who read The Reporter. Well done, everyone! This is one of the things that makes our community special.
Reporter photos by Stu Clampitt / Photos provided by Rachel Johnson, CertaPro
Community makes this writer proud
People painting with a purpose
By STU CLAMPITT
Chasing Wisdom
Friday found me humbled, impressed, and – gasp! – more than moderately happy with our little corner of the world. A total of 200 people showed up during business hours on a weekday to help an old man most of them had never met.
That man is Ernie Taylor, 94, of Zionsville. He lives west on State Road 32 past the Indianapolis Executive Airport just across the county line. Ernie, who still won’t let me call him Mr. Taylor, has lived at 10985 E. State Road 32, Zionsville, since 1962.
This is where I should say Ernie is a … (insert one or two words to sum him up). But I can’t do him the disservice of cramming his life into just a couple descriptive nouns.
Ernie is a veteran who served his country at the age of 17 when he went to fight in Italy during World War II.
Ernie is a man who says his simple, quiet life is a good one.
Ernie lived through the Great Depression in the early 20th century and counts every big thing he thinks about buying in cheeseburgers. In early July he told me, “Everybody tells me I need a new car, or I need a new truck. I think about how many cheeseburgers that would buy you. I’d rather have the cheeseburgers!”
Ernie has a dry sense of humor and a repertoire of jokes, many of which cannot be printed. OK, I can give you one of the clean ones. Friday morning, Ernie told a crowd of people he and his wife were married by a justice of the peace. “After that,” he said, “there was no justice AND no peace.”
Ernie is also an artist. His yard is filled with a lifetime of metal sculptures ranging in size from a few inches to T-Rex sized. And that art is part of why 200 people showed up at his house Friday morning.
On July 5 of this year, I stopped by his house to talk about his amazing art. You can read that story at this link if you missed it two months ago.
This is where the snowball effect begins.
After leaving his house, I went to lunch with Lisa Brandenburg, a New York City transplant into the Westfield community who started a social media group called Women Building Friendships In Westfield. It is a group that exists to do exactly what it says in the name.
I told Lisa about Ernie and how he simply doesn’t have the energy to keep up with the maintenance on all his art.
Lisa went home and told her group about Ernie. She saw an immediate outpouring of offers to help.
One of those members was Rachel Johnson, the Chief Marketing Officer at CertaPro Painters of Indianapolis.
Rachel spoke to CertaPro President JJ Darr about Ernie, his art, and the need to help.
JJ jumped into action. He arranged for many of his own professional painters to take Ernie’s art on as a community service project. He also reached out to friends at Sherwin Williams, and they offered to donate as much paint as needed.
Once the paint was ready, the call went out to the community and 100 families signed up to come paint.
I started this saying I was humbled, impressed, and happy with our corner of the world.
Humbled because all The Little Newspaper That Could did was write a short article about someone who needed a little help.
Impressed because 200 people showed up for a single purpose and no one cared about anything but getting the job done. There was no talk of politics, cultural differences, ego, or anything other than “Let’s all help Ernie.”
Happy with our corner of the world because this is the kind of organic community project growth that makes one think, “Today was a good day.”
People walked away proud of the thing they did, smiling at having painted some repurposed metal in an old man’s yard.
They will tell that story to their friends and neighbors and families. The story of Friday at Ernie’s house will grow organically, and more people will stop by to see him, probably as unannounced as I was on July 5. And he will welcome them like old friends because that’s why he and his late wife Dot did this in the first place: to make a place people could come explore and enjoy.
Now go on. Get out there. Enjoy it. You cannot see half of it from the road, so stop and spend some time wandering around.