The Oil Valley Center for the Arts is a regional arts facility which was created to stimulate interest in, encourage participation in and provide access to the arts.

The Oil Valley Center for the Arts was established in 1997 as a non-profit project of the Oil City Arts Council to provide the community with opportunities to create, teach and share the arts.

Oil Valley Center for the Arts
206 Seneca Street
Oil City, PA 16301
814-676-1059

THE CENTER OFFERS:

A broad range of classes for both beginners and advanced students

Small class size for individualized attention

Qualified and talented arts instructors

Large classrooms and studio space located in a recently restored 1890 building

Youth scholarships available

Seasonal Concert Series

Onsite working Fine Arts Gallery

Coffeehouse open forum for poets, writers, artists and musicians

The Vault Recording Studio facility

WHAT WE ARE ABOUT

In 1995, the Transit Fine Arts Gallery was created to showcase the talents of the region’s artists. We had a dream of expanding the gallery concept and creating and arts center for the Oil Valley area - a community rich with local talent but sparse in venues to exhibit, share and teach the arts. OVCA was founded to provide a place where people could come to learn and grow and share their love of art, music, creative writing, philosophy and more - to promote the artists’ interaction with a population that has traditionally been underserved by the arts.

Since that time, the OVCA has become a multi- disciplinary arts facility which includes a gallery, classrooms, offices, large performance space, artists’ studio, art resource area and a recording studio. OVCA currently hosts 33 low-cost classes in the various arts. Youth scholarships are available. OVCA also hosts ongoing events such as coffeehouse nights providing regional poets, writers, musicians and artists an open forum; and a concert series showcasing well-respected talent from throughout the country.

With the loss of manufacturing jobs in the last 30 years, the oil valley has become economically depressed. As the industrial base of the economy has eroded, the community has suffered from unemployment and social disintegration.

All the more reason we are working hard to continue to ensure that the working class population of the Oil valley has access to the arts. Our growth has not only continued to bring the arts to the residents of the Oil Valley, it is complementing regional efforts in the depressed rural community, which has traditionally had few, if any, venues for the Arts. OVCA’s contribution to the revitalization of the Oil Valley area may be used as a model for the renewal of a rural community.

Although the OVCA has become a successsful culture center in a short time, it remains a project still in its infancy. Continued financial support is crucial to enable the OVCA to become a self-sufficient cultural center.

More information regarding OVCA and its programs is available by calling 814-676-1509.

WHERE TO FIND US

National Transit Building

Our location, the National Transit Building, is on the corner of Seneca and Center Streets in Oil City, PA. The National Transit Building was built in 1890 across from the bustling Oil Exchange at a cost of $90,000. The building housed John D. Rockefeller’s subsidiaries of Standard Oil Company, one of the most powerful corporations of its time. Its features include oak paneling, marble floors, a circular wrought iron fire escape, pneumatic messenger tubes, vaults on all floors, Civil War cannon ball doorknobs, newel posts, wrought iron and brass fixtures and a hydraulic open-cage elevator. In 1978 the National Transit Building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1997 a non-profit agency, the Institute for Civic Renewal (then owners of the building), donated rent and utilities for the first floor of the building toward the creation of OVCA. using grant funds and hundreds of hours of donated labor, we restored the space to its original splendor.

Oil Valley Center for the Arts
206 Seneca Street
Oil City, PA 16301
814-676-1059