The Oil City Main Street Program’s Public Art Committee has launched a community input survey to gather opinions about public art in the city. The survey will be open through August 31 and is available both online and in paper form at various locations around town.

The Public Art Committee was originally formed by the Oil City Main Street Program in 2014 as a Mural Review Panel. It developed and launched a Downtown Murals program that has since resulted in nine mural projects. Led by Marcy Hall (pictured), a National Transit Studio Artist and painter known for her whimsical interpretations of the world, the group began working on the survey in the spring as a step in establishing a thoughtful plan for public art in town.

The launch of the survey was timed in conjunction with Hall’s recent completion of her own public art project at the Oil City Library in early July. The project transformed the steps of the library’s main entrance along Central Avenue into a vivid, colorful stack of well-known classic books, both children’s and adult titles.

The books were selected with input from the community earlier this year. “The most important part of Public Art is the public part. I loved that library patrons voted for the books that ended up on the steps,” stated Hall. “That’s why our Public Art Survey is so important to us– we want to hear what the community wants to see in the way of Public Art.”

The survey can be found online at surveymonkey.com/r/OCMS_PublicArt. Paper copies are available at the Oil City Library, the City of Oil City, Oil Region Alliance office, and Karma Coffee, and may be delivered to the Oil City Main Street Program (Oil Region Alliance office) at 217 Elm Street, Oil City, by August 31. The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete.

The survey and work of the Public Art Committee are among the various arts-based initiatives on the Main Street Program’s current five-year revitalization strategy. Questions about the Public Art Committee’s projects or the survey may be directed to the Oil City Main Street Program office at (814) 677-3152.

This article was published in the Venango Chamber’s August 2022 VenangoWorks! Newsletter.