ARTISTS IN TRANSITION OSUIT-educated commercial artists make a colorful splash in the fine art world.
S TO R Y BY S A R A PLU M M E R
PHOTO / SARA PLUMMER
The studio is bright, clean and organized — paints lined up and arranged by color, finished pieces hung symmetrically on the walls. Nothing like the cluttered and scattered studio space artists can be reputed to have.
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Perhaps the habits Hammer picked up during years of working as a graphic designer and in an office most days have followed him in his new profession. Or it could just be because Hammer hasn’t had time to get messy. He recently moved into his studio space at AHHA, Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa’s Hardesty Arts Center, where he is an artist in residence. Hammer, who graduated from OSU Institute of Technology in 1985, says he grew up drawing and excelled at art in high school.
“I had every intention of being an artist until my high school art teacher told me I wouldn’t make it,” he says. So he looked for another career where he could still express his artistic side and found a hometown opportunity, he says. “I grew up in Okmulgee so OSUIT was the option for me.” He studied technical illustration and then moved to commercial art, what would later become graphic design, in the Visual Communications Division. After graduation, he worked as a graphic designer for nearly three decades.