The Downtown Tipp City Partnership and Tipp-Monroe Community services are teaming on a project they hope will make believing worth seeing. Volunteers will continue to work until Saturday at 11 a.m., when The Windows on Tippecanoe will officially open on the east wall of Midwest Memories at 20 W. Main St.
The display consists of 50 murals painted on an eighth of an inch thick piece of masonite, framed in wood, and then attached to the cement wall. Some of the works are placed in wooden door frames where the panes of glass are usually found. The resulting effect gives viewer the impression they are looking inside of a home or business in Tipp City.
Ellen Cotterman and Molly Spencer are heading up the project which was suggested by Cotterman after seeing a similar Windows project in Michigan. The display will be in place until September. At that time the artwork will be sold at an auction on Oct. 4. All money raised will be split between the Downtown Tipp City Partnership and the newly regenerated Tipp City Arts Council.
“This has long been a dream of mine to have a strong arts council in Tipp City,” said Tipp Monroe Community Service (TMCS) Director Kathy Taylor. She said in the 1980s the local arts council, with funding through the Ohio Arts Council, where able to bring in various artists, dancers from the Dayton Ballet.
“We even had an opera singer come and talk to school kids and give a performance for the general public,” Taylor said. “There are so many different things we could do if we all work together,” she said. She added while competition is tough, there are many grant opportunities available to fund such performances. The council would work under the auspice of TMCS.
“So far everyone who has seen the Windows project has been very positive and said they love it,” Taylor stated. “They think it’s so unique and so wonderful and ask if we’ll be doing it again next year. “We’ll have to see,” she laughed. “It takes a whole lot of work from a lot of people.”
