Mural Project Moving Ahead Story by Carey Head / Ponca City Monthly Staff Writer Photos Contributed by Rick Sinnett For generations of travelers, the sight of the Ponca City grain elevators has signaled “almost home.” The journey across western Kay County’s farmland is nearly complete. Stretched across the silos is the gracefully fading Robin Hood Flour logo. Coming close enough to read this often causes thoughts to turn from present travel to home’s waiting chores. Thanks to a successfully funded private and public partnership, vibrant hand-painted art will refresh the elevators and beckon travelers across the miles with a new message. The "Ponca City Grain Elevator Project" will establish an American Folk Art installation to be painted on the east and west walls of the former Robin Hood Flour grain elevator. Ponca City Main Street’s Kelsey Wagner retraced the project's journey from a passing thought to a $100,000 public art installation to bring attention and traffic to Ponca City’s downtown district. “This project began with a lunch,” she reports. “John McNeese gathered 15 people in January 2018 who he knew were arts leaders in Ponca City and challenged that he would entertain a matching grant up to $50,000 to help fund projects if they promoted art in Ponca City.” In February 2018, Ponca City Main Street brought Rick Sinnett to Ponca City to pick out a wall for a mural. “Not even a big wall, a small wall. Definitely not a grain elevator, just a wall. But Rick was moved by our city, its beauty and he just kept gravitating to the Grain Elevator,” Wagner added.
Rick Sinnett painted a mega mural on the Rocktown Climbing Gym in Oklahoma City Local art enthusiasts began pledging funds to meet McNeese’s $50,000 challenge grant. On Aug. 12, 2019, the Ponca City Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to pledge $49,000 of the hotel/motel tax fund toward Ponca City Main Street’s Grain Elevator mural proposal. The final commission vote to approve Ponca City’s contribution of $49,000 was held April 13, 2020. Mustang, Oklahoma, artist Rick Sinnett is commissioned to create two huge murals on the abandoned grain elevators. Sinnett has journeyed across Oklahoma painting eye-catching American Folk Art on buildings, large and small. The Ponca City project will be the largest he’s created, to date. Sinnett says, “I’ve painted giant murals, but this is the biggest mural project I’ve encountered. I’m calling it, for me personally, the pinnacle, the mega mural.” Two murals are planned. “Beauty of Life” will grace the west side of the silos, “Oklahoma Sunrise” on the east face. “’Beauty of Life” immortalizes his mother and her battle with cancer. After losing two women in the family to breast cancer, Sinnett said his mother was “aggressive with her checkups. She went from nothing at one checkup to Stage 4 at the next.”
“Oklahoma Sunrise” artwork to be painted on the east face of the Ponca City Milling Elevator
16 September 2020
He explains, “when I first found out I was angry. The second day I was
