The Artists

Steven T. Fiscus — Car Key

Car Key

Steven T. Fiscus' interest in public art stems from a desire to engage a broader community than painting and sculpture venues typically encounter. In 1997, he installed a project entitled "Land Use" in a small public school in Allegany County. The work in that project came out of local land use values that the children knew a great deal about from their daily lives: agriculture, mining, logging and timber, and recreation. The visual work included paintings, sculptures, animal hides, maps and photography. But the project was not complete until the school and local community had an opportunity to talk together about the values which are inherent in the land use patterns which make up that location, their home." In 2002, he was the artist selected by another local school to do an artist-in-residency program through a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. The project with the students ultimately generated a mural design that was completed in downtown Cumberland in 2003. Painting the mural itself led to many impromptu conversations with the public, and continues to serve the city parklet in which it resides by encouraging conversation and interest in both local history and planning for the future. This key has the capacity to do the same thing!