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Artists Sunday: Think about gifting art this holiday season

11/19/2023

Have a friend or family member with a big blank wall that makes you mutter under your breath “for the love of everything holy, don’t you have any pictures?”

Or do you know someone who wears dime-a-dozen earrings likely purchased at a big box store in a buy-one-get-one deal?

Or how about a loved one who relishes the idea of receiving a one-of-a-kind gift?

The Sunday after Thanksgiving is an opportunity to shop for those folks and purchase truly unique items while supporting regional artists and their work.

Oil City hosts a citywide Artists Sunday event from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on November 26.

The nationally recognized Artists Sunday is purposely sandwiched in among the giant Thanksgiving weekend marketing successes of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

Among the goals of the program listed on the national website is uniting artists and the community.

In Oil City, this is done by partnering artists who don’t necessarily have public locations, with a known business where they can show off their work.

The potential is drawing in potential clients to the area, according to Barbara Pierce, the Arts Oil City and local Artist Sunday coordinator.

This will be Oil City’s fourth year participating.

“Last year we made it a full community event with businesses participating by hosting artists,” she said. “This year we have even larger participation.”

Pierce said they have some regional artists coming into the city to increase the offerings from last year.

Writers, jewelry makers, artists, photographers and several unique crafters will be in locations on both the north and south side of the city.

Participating businesses are Williams Travel, Core Goods, Woods and River Coffee, Clifford’s Carpets, Collect 76, Oil City Art and Frame, The Artist Attic, Baked Goods from Heaven, Wye Bridge and the Transit Art Gallery. Art studios on the second floor of the National Transit building and the Graffiti Gallery on Seneca Street will be open.

There are over 25 artists participating and they are expected to be available to answer questions.

Visitors can also watch special effects makeup artist Kaleb Lewis, who appeared on the reality show Face Off, and his students put the finishing touches on the characters they have been creating during his recent classes. A red carpet style presentation of the work will be done at 4:30 p.m. in the Great Room of the National Transit building.

Artists Sunday will kick off with Oil City’s mayor Bill Moon reading a proclamation at 11 a.m., also at the National Transit building.

Maps and directories will be available on the Arts Oil City Facebook page and at different participating locations that day. Pierce said there is still room if additional artists are interested in participating.

Visitors should enjoy the range of items from note cards to large-scale original art, according to Pierce. “Everything from stocking stuffers to (high quality) original paintings,” she said, emphasizing the event promotes hand-made original works while providing a truly unique shopping experience.

Artist Sunday runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. November 26 in locations throughout Oil City’s north and south side business districts. There is no fee to attend.

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Local theater group closes in on dream of opening night

11/10/2023

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A group of performing art lovers in northwest Pennsylvania is hoping to raise the curtain once again on an old Vaudevillian theater and usher in new prosperity for a once booming downtown.

Oil City was once the place to take in a show. In the downtown alone, there were at least a half dozen possibilities. For those who didn’t like one venue’s vibe, it was just a short walk next door or down the block to another.

Among those options was the Lyric Theater on Seneca Street.

“This is the last remaining example of a vaudeville theater in town, and there were lots of vaudeville theaters in town at the turn of the century,” said Gary Dittman, one of the originators of the idea to restore the performing space.

In the summer of 1907, a little shotgun-style stage named “Airdome Theater” opened right next to the heart of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire.

The theater went through several name changes and architectural updates before it finally closed in the 1950s as a motion picture venue.

The stage and seating area were encased, almost mummified, and the space redesigned into two clothing stores. The Abe Lang Women’s Wear and Ray L. Way Men’s Wear stores would take the building into the 21st century.

In 2001, Community Playhouse, Inc. purchased the building. The little theater troupe had been adrift. Over the years they used spaces at the high school, the local college, and the Moose Lodge. The group has a dream of creating a permanent home for itself by salvaging a piece of history.

To make it a reality, they partnered with the Colonel Drake Cultural Alliance, Inc. in 2006, which assumed management and development of the theater. Since then the project has made some progress in getting ready for the final renovations.

And they are close.

They have a looming deadline next week to raise $106,000 in matching grant funds.

Otherwise, they risk losing nearly a million of the funding for the $2.3 million project.

So, they need some help from some deep pockets, and fast.

The plan for the theater is to tear out the entrance and rebuild the space to include offices and a modern theater entrance design.

It will seat 214 and have a completely renovated stage. Some early work has already been completed, including shoring up supports and dealing with roofing issues.

More recently they have made a lot of strides to pull together the last of the needed money. In the month since putting out their most recent call for support, they have raised $9,000.

“This one is doable,” Dittman said of the now gutted theater that is basically ready for renovation. He remains hopeful that the final bit of money can be found. He says, this is not just a restoration of the past, but a plan for the future.

“There is such a group of young people who are so talented and I’m afraid of them moving away because they can’t make a living here performing,” Dittman said. “There (are) musicians, actors, tech people that are great at it but they can only fit it in, in their spare time and they have to sling hash or something else. It takes away from their real passion.”

Dittman said that another theater in the region can only increase the potential for the area’s performing artists, and hopefully open the door to more possible stage incomes. “My hope is the theaters can work together, share resources and people.”

The goal of a revamped Lyric Theater is to be more than just a home for the Community Playhouse, Inc. They want to show movies, host parties, concerts and event weekends. All of which, they hope adds to the revitalization of downtown Oil City and other nearby communities.

“It will help all of our downtowns as people come in for a show, maybe shop, maybe eat,” Dittman said. “I think it opens the door for a lot of progress and to bring life back downtown. People on the street at other times than when they are just driving through.”

How to help

One of the group’s most regular fundraising activities has been the Karma concert series which has raised over $30,000 for the project. The series features bands playing at Billy’s in Oil City with a $5 cover that benefits the Lyric Theater restoration project.

The next show is November 16 and will feature the Brandon Rae Band. Jesse James Weston will perform on November 30.

Donations can also be made online at https://bbcf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=2255.

This story, by Richard Sayer and Eight & 322, was made possible through a grant from Arts Oil City and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

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Landscape painter DP Warner has major show at the Hoyt

11/8/2023

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In an art world fixated on the anti-consumer shows, the “art object" has seemingly become a thing of the past. One northwest Pennsylvania artist, DP Warner, of Meadville, isn't concerned with that and has turned his art journey to the traditions of the late 19th century open air and studio landscape painters.

And he is unapologetic about it.

“When painting on location, my view is more about documenting a reaction that combines design, technical proficiency, personal expression and a little luck,” Warner said in a promotional flyer about his upcoming show at the Hoyt Art Center in New Castle.

The exhibit that opened on Election Day, has a public reception from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 10.

Warner has never been opposed to artist trends, though he’s never tried, nor had the fortune to fit into them.

While a professor at Edinboro University, now Penn West - Edinboro, Warner’s paintings challenged convention, sometimes physically coming off the walls and into the gallery spaces they occupied forcing viewers to walk into or around them.

A Warner painting show was an installation with building materials and commentary on sprawl of all kinds from urban to intellectual and each piece serving as a conversation starter for the next and charged with challenging what society throws at us.

In retirement, the artist found more peaceful ways of commenting on life.

He purchased a wide brimmed hat, a portable easel and cartable boxes of paint. He ventured out into the fields like Cezanne and Pissarro with some small blank canvases only to come back later with a document of his experience.

He would then work in the studio on larger canvases and his work became multi-faceted explanations of the witnessed connections to place and, in a sense, time.

“My studio work feels different to me…(the pieces) extend beyond the studies, expanding my sense of time into a visually active, yet meditative presence. My thought process has a stronger influence on these outcomes, fostering a collaboration of sorts between the painting and me.”
Old school art.

The Plein Air painter movement seeks to hold the traditions of witnessing and connecting with the world visibly seen and the act of making a picture through the old form of art using paints on a surface.

There does still exist those who quietly craft from blank canvases to finished pictures (art products) based on the observation of the world in front of them. Warner is frequenter of many Plein Air gatherings along the eastern seaboard. At the Hoyt, there are 42 of Warner’s pieces on display.

The show also features works of Pittsburgh ceramic artist Nancy McNary Smith. She uses ceramics to document the implosion of American political discourse, the threats of the plague and the attack of old age over the last few years in two recent series, Punctured Pots and Osteoporosis, on display in the Hoyt’s Sculpture Walkway.

The show runs through December 21. The Hoyt is located at 124 E. Leasure Ave, New Castle. Admission is free.

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Artists Sunday: Think about gifting art this holiday season

Local theater group closes in on dream of opening night

Landscape painter DP Warner has major show at the Hoyt

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