Mainspring of Ephrata has received multi-year funding from Pennsylvania Creative Industries and the Borough of Ephrata to create the Ephrata Art Walk. Through the grant and their own fundraising totaling nearly $21,000 per year, Mainspring will shepherd a growing collection of public art taking shape across downtown over the next four years.
Support comes from three sources: Pennsylvania Creative Industries, Mainspring, and the Borough of Ephrata. The state investment is awarded through the Creative Communities Initiative, which provides multi-year funding for place-based community arts projects that strengthen livability and economic development. Mainspring’s share comes from private donors and local businesses invested in Ephrata’s future. And Ephrata Borough Council’s commitment is what made the rest possible, because state programs like this one require local support before they’ll invest. In kind donations from the local organizations also contribute to the required matches. State, nonprofit, and municipality — pulling the same direction on something the whole town gets to enjoy forever.
Ephrata already knows what public art can do. The Franklin Street parking lot mural wrapped the cinder block walls in color and turned a tucked-away lot into a landmark people can find and feel comfortable in. Ephrata Borough Council has also approved our request to paint the electric boxes throughout the Central Business District — small canvases that add up fast.
The Ephrata Art Walk belongs to the community, so the planning committee looks like the community. Current members include: a historical site director, an elected official, a tourism representative, an artist and muralist, and a Latino business owner. These people were chosen as a cross section to make sure the finished walk reflects all of Ephrata, not one corner of it. The committee will also reach out to the people who keep our local traditions alive and pass them on — through storytelling, craft, music, and art. Ephrata has no shortage of them, and their knowledge is the difference between art that could be anywhere and art that could only be here.
They’re doing the groundwork now — choosing locations, shaping themes, and deciding what kinds of installations belong where. Some of that is practical. Where do people already walk, and where do we want them to go? Some of it is bigger. What parts of our story deserve a permanent place on Main Street?
As the initial design plans take shape, Mainspring hopes to hold a public meeting to share these visions with the community. At this time, community members will provide feedback for the plan.
“A mural or an installation gives someone a reason to park the car and walk. Walking turns into browsing, browsing turns into lunch, and lunch turns into coming back. The art is the draw, and the downtown around it is what people discover,” said Joy Ashley, Executive Director of Mainspring of Ephrata. “We pull a lot of different levers to move Ephrata forward. We reinvest in buildings, support the businesses already here, fill the calendar with reasons to come downtown, and protect the green space that makes Ephrata a place people want to stay. The Art Walk is one piece of a larger effort.”
You’ll see the Art Walk grow one installation at a time over the next several years. Watch for it, and if a wall in your neighborhood seems like it’s asking for something, tell us. We’re listening.
Mainspring of Ephrata received funding from Pennsylvania Creative Industries, powered by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts.