Mural at N. Hanover Antique Gallery

Who We Are:

The Color Carlisle: Mural Project is an unincorporated group formed to address needs of focused attention on safety and building maintenance/upkeep as well as providing targeted measures for increased safety and awareness in various neighborhoods in Carlisle, PA. The goal, through a community art initiative, is to create sustainable living spaces by updating strategic locations with public art. With the implementation of our program, we have the ability to tackle objectives set forth by Borough focused on increased safety and awareness in neighborhoods, creating spaces that are welcoming for community residents and visitors while also improving upon commercial and residential property spaces. Additionally, the Color Carlisle seeks to continuously profile community members and business owners through a social networking stream in order to provide an intersectional approach to the creation of the art and the community that helped to bring it to fruition. Through the creation of public art and the connectivity of our digital presence, we can enrich the community as a while while also enhance an individual’s personal health and positive mindset about their neighborhood.


Our Project:

Our vision is to “canvas the city of Carlisle” with inspiring and community driven works of art.  Through constant collaboration with students, young adults, and young professionals within the Carlisle Area, our belief is that providing them with opportunities to contribute to their community through creative output, we  are allowing them to grow into leaders, taking pride and ownership of their community and the public works of art they are creating. We hope through the development and creation of mural works and other various public art projects, we are able to create safe and welcoming environments for families and children for current and future generations

Our current project at The N. Hanover Antique Gallery (formerly the Sadler Health Center Mural Project) is in collaboration with local Carlisle, PA artist, Aron Rook. Aron has contributed to the growing movement of public art in both the Harrisburg and York, PA communities. You can find an example of her work in Harrisburg, PA's SOMA district.

We are seeking community support through means of donations to cover the following costs:
$2,500 - payment to artist
$2,000 - cost of paint / supplies (Nova Acrylic)
$500 - building maintenance / prep



The Importance of Public Art in Communities

As stated by Mark Stern, Professor in the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, “Investment in the arts and cultural resources can benefit local and state economies by supporting job growth, stimulating commerce and sustaining neighborhoods by stabilizing property values. The benefits are especially great in communities that don’t have highly visible art identities but do contain rich cultural resources.” He goes on to say, “Communities benefit in multiple ways when there is a vibrant arts and culture base… we can combine information on a full variety of measures of well-being in a neighborhood, including arts and culture, to see where in the city there are major barriers to having neighborhoods that are affordable, livable, safe and healthy.”

In a program studied by Professor Stern, “researchers looked at data from the city health department on the well-being of children 15 years of age and under. They found a strong relationship between the presence of cultural resources in neighborhoods and a much lower level of social stress in the children, even controlling for income. Another study used data from Philadelphia’s Human Relations Commission to establish that there are lower incidents of racial and ethnic harassment in neighborhoods that have a significant number of cultural resources.”