There is a great variety of artistic talent in the Evansville area. However, there are few venues and opportunity for local artists (music, painting, sculpture, etc) to display their work for the public. Our city is currently not utilizing many available resources in the downtown area which could be used to display art. After interviewing community members, the general wish for Evansville’s downtown area is to have a place where one can feel comfortable, connected, and to socialize. Presently this area lacks the feeling of community people are looking for; that centralized gathering spot. Evansville, as a whole, values the beliefs in having a strong, well-centered community and we would like to incorporate art into these beliefs in a positive and creative way. During the fall of the 2011 semester, students at the University of Southern Indiana produced a strategic plan to implement an art crawl in the downtown Evansville area. Simultaneously, there were (and continue to be) grassroots efforts to produce an art crawl as well. Although in their initial stages, these grassroot efforts have proven very successful, as they were created for the people and by the people of Evansville. During the spring of 2012, under the direction of Dr. Amie McKibban, a team of USI undergraduates will now work on developing a proposal, requesting funding from our city to assist bringing community members downtown to enjoy these efforts on the first Friday of every month (for example, having a bus route run between downtown and USI), while keeping the connections between the businesses and artists under the control of the community members themselves. One aspect of the proposal is to gauge and illustrate artist and business interest in seeing these efforts unfold and become a staple within our community. Below we are asking artists from around the community to sign this petition as a means to gauge artist interest and support. Thank you. Together we can make this an amazing community.