PACO discusses submissions, updates for multiple local art projects

The Public Arts Commission of Oxford (PACO) met on Dec. 8 to discuss updates to local projects and housekeeping items.

Submissions have closed for the Haiku on Ice project and PACO members have selected 18 finalists. 

The winning poems will be displayed in the windows of Oxford businesses during the months of January, February and March of 2026 with the goal of “brightening the shortest and darkest days of the year, and celebrating the small, everyday flashes of beauty that surround us if we only pause to notice,” according to the City of Oxford website.

In other news, the Oxford Municipal Building Exhibit has received 42 submissions, with the deadline set for Jan. 10, 2026. In the 2025 exhibit, 79 submissions were received by the deadline, according to commission members. 

Submissions will be reviewed during the next PACO meeting on Jan. 12, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. All submissions must be photography and photography-based art, including digital, film, mixed media, altered, or painterly interpretations). Further guidelines for submissions and art can be found on the City of Oxford website.

From Jan. 19 through Jan. 30, selected submissions will be displayed and installed throughout the Oxford Municipal Building, with a public reception celebrating the chosen pieces happening in February or March.

PACO members also discussed Miami University’s mural class, in which students will work on a mural by the local Duke Energy substations. 

Jessica Greene, assistant city manager for the City of Oxford, explained that the proposed mural will be completed in phases.

“We’re going to do the mural in two phases over two spring semesters,” she said. “Each one should be able to stand alone as a separate mural project.”

It will be up to the mural class to decide how both murals will work, whether they will be hand-in-hand or two separate designs, according to Greene.

PACO discussed the possibility of having a local Oxford historian attend a session of the mural class to explain certain parts of Oxford’s history, with the goal of cultivating ideas for the two murals.

PACO will meet next on Jan. 12, 2026.