“Canvases…just down the road” was a cultural tourism initiative from 2000-2003 in the southern Finger Lakes of New York. The arts council in Corning, New York, ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes, commissioned twelve area visual artists to create works of art around a theme. Each work was blown up to 25’x12’ and mounted for this billboard project, “Canvases…just down the road.” The ARTS was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America grant for the expansion of its billboard project to include artists from northern Pennsylvania as well as from New York’s Chemung, Schuyler, and Steuben counties. The ARTS created the “Canvases…” project as a millennial celebration to promote regional artists and cultural tourism, in response to the regional public/private branding initiative, “Finger Lakes Wine Country…just down the road.” The canvases idea was the brainchild of the director of the arts council and fully realized by her, with the help of area partners.
