Kelsey Wagner: A Passion for the Arts and Downtown

I wasn’t always a small business owner. I started my career in the world of non-profits, working first for the American Red Cross and then became the Executive Director of the Ponca City Art Center (now called City Arts). 
 
When I landed a job in 2014 as the Executive Director of a the Ponca City Art Center, I was ready to make a difference in my community. The first conference I attended as the new ED was the Oklahoma Arts Conference. I remember hearing all these different words and phrases. But there were three words that really stood out.

Collaborate. Placemaking. And the one I really latched onto was “Arts District”
 
I knew from the moment I heard the words Arts District, I wanted one in my town. And so, my mission began.
 
By 2015, I had graduated from Leadership Arts Oklahoma, a program that took me all over the state touring other vibrant communities. It was during Leadership Arts Oklahoma that I really found my passion. When I finished that program, I spent those early years telling everyone who would listen to me about my ideas for an Arts District. Though I heard a lot of "no's" and "that will never happen" from some people, I did end up I finding others who shared my passion for transforming our town into a vibrant arts community.
 
In 2016, I decided Ponca City Main Street’s Mission/Vision/Values best aligned with my goal of bringing an Arts District to downtown Ponca City. Downtown Ponca City is beautiful, but there was no art. I knew with a bold vision and some hard work, we could transform our downtown. So, I joined the board, and again, found passionate, like-minded people who shared my vision.

During this same time, I was also involved in helping launch a brand new event called the Bison Bison Film Festival which was held at the Poncan Theatre. 

I knew that studying the impact of the Arts in Ponca City would be one of the keys to garnering support for it. With the backing and funding of John McNeese, Ponca City was able to participate in the Arts and Economic Prosperity 5 Study which gathered data in all of 2015. I was picked to be the AEP5 Project Coordinator and worked for a year to gather data by surveying attendee at events all over Ponca City. It was rigorous work, but the data we gathered proved to be invaluable! 

I presented an update to the City Commission on my work on the study on March 21, 2016. See Meeting Minutes here. 

The final AEP5 study report was released in the summer of 2016, and you can read it here. 

​If you spend much time in our downtown, it’s very hard to not fall in love with it. 
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It took 2 years to even form the foundation of an Arts District. I gathered over 45 letters of support for the arts district including a letter from Governor Mary Fallin. I wrote a grant through the Oklahoma Arts Council that awarded over $25,000 over five years to help fund the formation of our new Arts District. Read about the grant here or View the Letters of Support here. 

We held strategic Planning sessions, Visioning meetings, community partner meetings...there was a lot of thought that went into the formation of it, but a large group of dedicated volunteers and many hundreds of hours later, and things started to really come into focus. By 2018, the Grand Arts District was excited to kick off our first project, the very first non-historic mural in downtown Ponca City.

The Daybreak mural was an ode to the Native American heritage of this area. The mural completed, and was a hit! Daybreak Mural Completed

What happened next, I think surprised everyone, me most of all. Over the next 5 years, bright colorful murals started popping up all over downtown Ponca City. 

In 2019, the Ponca City Main Street and the Grand Arts District coordinated another project, called Art in the Alley.

And also completed the Outside the Box project. Both projects were designed around paying artists to submit artwork for public display.

Buy this time, my vision of a thriving arts district had grown much larger than I could ever had hoped, and that was something to celebrate. ​ ​

While all these Grand Arts District projects were going on, other projects started popping up. The synergy and enthusiasm in downtown Ponca City was evident. Everyone was excited to see such vibrancy and growth in our city.
 
One such project was Central Fare, funded by Ponca City Development Authority. This downtown Greenspace was exactly what Ponca City needed. In fact, I served on another Arts Organization, Ponca City Arts and Humanities Council, and this Greenspace inspired me to bring back a downtown music festival, Down by Downtown. I remember seeing Central Fare and thinking “this is where DXDT need to be at” So I asked Arts and Humanities to sponsor it and recruited a good friend to help me find musical guests.
 
DXDT is held the first Friday in June, July, August and September. The very first DXDT was held in June of 2021, and everyone loved it. We had 50 or so people at the very first event, and every month, the crowds got bigger and bigger. By September, we had upwards of 200 people in attendance. Our first Down by Downtown in June 2022 had over 300 people in attendance! It was amazing. All these amazing projects, all this incredible enthusiasm…all because of a focus on the arts.

2022 was the year I decided to run for City Commission. I wanted to be able to make a bigger impact, not just through the arts, but in all ways in Ponca City. So, I announced my candidacy for Commission, and I was elected to the Ponca City Commission in April 2023. Read story here.
 
Down by Downtown has grown so much over the past few years and in 2023 we decided to relocate it to the Veteran’s Plaza! 
 
All these amazing projects are focused around one key theme …the arts.

Many of the projects we’ve done in downtown Ponca City are because someone travelled somewhere and saw a project done somewhere else. They were inspired by another community and brought that idea back home.

In October of 2023, Jeremy and Theresa Sacket raised over $60,000 to paint massive, colorful mural on an underpass. This project was a joint private/public partnership, and was completed at the end of 2023.

There are dozens and dozens of arts advocates who have taken up the mantle to advocate for art in Ponca City.

​Today, Ponca City has one of the most vibrant art scenes in the entire state! There are galleries, too many huge murals to even count and huge public art projects that are making Ponca City more beautiful every day.

Downtown Ponca City looks like an entirely different place than it did ten years ago, and I am proud to have played a part in it's story. ​