Art by the
tonnage was not exactly how the Oil City Arts Council intended to enhance
its mission aimed at stimulating the local economy by promoting the arts.
Earlier this
week, a tractor trailer filled nearly to the brim with art supplies,
tools, furniture, kilns, pottery wheels, paint, clay, beads and much more
rumbled into Seneca Street and stopped at the National Transit Annex.
Inside the
48-foot-long trailer were the entire contents of a well-established
artists’ center located in Jamestown, N.Y. A group of volunteers,
including young people from the county’s juvenile court supervision
services, worked with Hanna Transfer to load and schlep the studio
inventory to Oil City.
For an
$18,600 fee, one paid gladly by a local anonymous donor, the Arts Council
purchased the ArtsCenter at Dave Poulin Studios. The arts center was owned
by the same artist who helped Oil City elementary students create the
widely admired “The River” sculptures recently installed throughout the
city.
All of
Poulin’s wares, minus metal sculpturing materials which he intends to keep
using, are stacked in the National Transit Annex. It is, said Arts Council
member and lead art supply hoister Lee Mehlburger, an enormous boost to
the local arts scene.
“We now have
a whole other dimension for arts revitalization. It took (Poulin) ten
years to build that business and yet we were able to get it all at once,”
an ebullient Mehlburger said, adding “I even took the clock off the wall
of his studio – we got everything.”
The new
purchase is a hodgepodge of artistic equipment, supplied and related
items. Large kilns rest beside potter’s wheels, boxes of paint, crates of
brushes, stacks of easels, wooden looms and more.
All of it is
inside the Transit Annex, a building in the midst of being transformed
into a mix of art incubator, museum and art studios
The building
is owned by the Oil City Civic Center, proprietor of the larger National
Transit Building next door, and leased to the Oil City Arts Council.
“We now have
the equipment as well as the space to actually ‘get dirty’ – arts require
that you do ‘get dirty’,” said Joann Wheeler, downtown arts revitalization
coordinator. “We can now offer almost every form of art class. At this
point, we need to organize what we have and find instructors.”
Wheeler said
the Arts Council is preparing to lease space in the annex as artists’
studios. Three artists, she said, have indicated strong intentions to sign
up for work space. In addition, an area will be set up as a co-op retail
site for area artists.
Once the
treasure trove of art materials is inventoried and set up, Arts Council
members and other volunteers expect to vigorously launch their campaign to
sign up artist tenants, schedule classes and offer art studio access to
the public. That could take a few months, said Libby Williams, president
of the Arts Council.
Mehlburger is
anxious to start.
“Encouraging
the arts all has to do with economic development,” Mehlburger said.
“Buying three floors full of art products and tools is a step in the right
direction.”