Art Focus | Fall 2025

FALL 2025

A PUBLICATION OF THE OKLAHOMA VISUAL ARTS COALITION

2

PREVIEW

CONTENTS // Volume 40 No. 4 // FALL 2025 ISSN: 3069-244X

4 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR // ZOE ELROD

// ARTNOW 2025: 6 FEATURE Pushing Materials, Crossing Boundaries HELEN OPPER

// BEHIND THE SCENES OF 10 FEATURE BOY MODE ELIZABETH J. WENGER

FEATURE // STITCH BY STITCH: 14 Fiber Arts in Oklahoma KATE BATTERSHELL

// O U T F RO M T H E U N C A N N Y 18 FEATURE VA L L E Y: An Art Space’s Ascent KAREN PAUL

PREVIEW // WALL FLOWERS : 23 Patrick Gordon’s Career-Spanning Retrospective ERIN SCHALK ON THE COVER // Patrick (p.s.) Gordon, Fried Green Tomatoes, 1993, watercolor on paper, 69.75” x 48.75” | Photo courtesy of Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, page 23; MIDDLE // ArtNow 2025 Curators Alexa Goetzinger & Virginia Sitzes, 2025 | Photo by Keith Oler, page 6; BOTTOM // Jennifer Saenz, A beaded portrait of Caesar Bruner | Photo by JD Epperson, page 26

ANNUAL SUPPORT FROM:

THE STUDIO // THREADS OF UNTOLD 26 INHISTORY: Beadtelling Freedmen and Freedmen Descendants of the Five Civilized Tribes MOLLY MURPHY ADAMS

OKLAHOMA VISUAL ARTS COALITION // PHONE: 405.879.2400 1720 N Shartel Ave, Ste B, Oklahoma City, OK 73103 Web // ovac-ok.org Executive Director // Rebecca Kinslow, rebecca@ovac-ok.org Editor // Zoe Elrod, zoeetravers@gmail.com Art Director // Anne Richardson, speccreative@gmail.com Art Focus is a quarterly publication of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition dedicated to stimulating insight into and providing current information about the visual arts in Oklahoma. Mission: Growing and developing Oklahoma’s visual arts through education, promotion, connection, and funding. OVAC welcomes article submissions related to artists and art in Oklahoma. Call or email the editor for guidelines. OVAC welcomes comments. Letters addressed to Art Focus are considered for publication unless otherwise specified. Mail or email comments to the editor at the address above.

Letters may be edited for clarity or space reasons. Anonymous letters won’t be published. Please include a phone number.

2024-2025 BOARD OF DIRECTORS // Douglas Sorocco, President, OKC; Jon Fisher, Vice President OKC; Matthew Anderson, Secretary, Tahlequah; Jacquelyn Knapp, Parliamentarian, Chickasha; Marjorie Atwood, Tulsa; Barbara Gabel, OKC; Farooq Karim, OKC; Kathryn Kenney, Tulsa; John Marshall, OKC; Chris Winland, OKC OVAC champions individual artists’ voices and creative expression. The views, positions, or values shared in Art Focus do not necessarily represent those of our Board, staff, donors, or funders. Member Agency of Allied Arts and member of the Americans for the Arts. © 2025, Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition. All rights reserved. View the online archive at Ovac-OK.org/ArtFocus.

3

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

For the past three years, John Selvidge has guided this publication with care and vision, uplifting Oklahoma’s visual arts. Getting to know him during this transition has been a joy, as his passion shines through every issue. While passing the torch, he isn’t slowing down, already deep into his 2026 short film He Brings the News, and we’ll be cheering him on.

When OVAC asked me to edit Art Focus, I was thrilled. I may not be an artist, but I am an avid art enjoyer and storyteller, with years covering Oklahoma’s music, arts, and culture. This editorship feels like the perfect way to blend storytelling with our state’s arts scene.

And what a great issue to begin with.

Photo by Colby Ballard

ZOE ELROD is an Oklahoma City-based writer and multimedia storyteller with bylines in KOSU, Make Oklahoma Weirder, Oklahoma Today, Oklahoma City Free Press, etc. Passionate about uncovering Oklahoma’s iconic and unexpected sides, she also serves on OVAC’s MOMENTUM committee.

Outside work, she enjoys live music, arts festivals, a trip to the movie theater, and collecting local art with her wife and their two dogs.

4

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

This issue highlights standout fall shows across Oklahoma, including Helen Opper’s write-up of Oklahoma Contemporary’s ArtNow 2025: Materials and Boundaries (p.6), where artists push materials and redefine fine art through fiber, print, sound, film, and more. The exhibition explores identity and place with works on Blackness, queerness, and femininity, and Opper captures it all with clarity. Meanwhile, Erin Schalk’s coverage of Patrick Gordon’s Wall Flowers at Philbrook (p.23) traces Gordon’s fifty-year career, shaped by meticulous technique, Midwestern roots, and New York influences. Through interviews with Gordon and curator Susan Green, Schalk reveals how everything from Gordon’s striking shadows to his own humor bring each piece to life.

As a queer person in Oklahoma, I was floored last August watching Boy Mode at Rodeo Cinema. Root beer in one hand, popcorn in the other, I was glued to the screen, and Elizabeth J. Wenger’s feature

(p.10) captures that energy, diving into the film’s lighting, costuming, and music, and how every choice is shaped by queer experience. The film follows Reese, a trans woman navigating family pressures and the local drag scene. It is a cinematic triumph, a protest sign painted with queer joy and resilience.

At the 2025 Festival of the Arts, I was drawn to Katie Graham’s whimsical fiber work. It made me pause in a world that moves too fast, reminding me that fiber arts resist the rush, inviting both artists and viewers to slow down and take notice.

Kate Battershell’s Stitch by Stitch: Fiber Arts in Oklahoma (p. 14) encapsulates this spirit, following fiber artists through the state and exploring spaces like Acid Lime Club’s Sewklahoma. Reading it, I understood that maybe we’re all craving this invitation to pause.

Writers in this issue capture the pulse of Oklahoma’s art spaces, from Karen Paul’s look at Norman’s Uncanny Art House (p. 18), where DIY energy meets gallery polish and community thrives, to Molly Murphy Adams’ Threads of Untold History (p. 26), which highlights Jennifer Saenz and Vicky Watson’s beadwork portraits of Freedmen and their descendants. Both pieces show how art preserves memory, fosters collaboration, and makes space for stories too often overlooked.

I’m deeply grateful to our writers for capturing both the art and the artists, and to you, our readers, for keeping this dialogue alive. I hope, as you read this issue, you feel invited to wonder...and maybe even to pause.

With gratitude, Zoe Elrod

PREVIEW

5

THIS PAGE: Nic Annette Miller, Beehive States, 2024, double-sided with apiary boxes with honeycomb prints suspended above, beekeeper’s veil and honeycomb prints in the corner I Image courtesy of the artist; ABOVE // Detail of Beehive States | Photo by Blake Studdard

A RT N OW 2025 // PUSHING MATERIALS, CROSSING BOUNDARIES

by Helen Opper

ArtNow: Materials and Boundaries, which opened September 18th at Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center in downtown Oklahoma City, features the work of 26 Oklahoma-based artists and is the third iteration of this mainstay exhibition in its relatively new biennial format. Curated by Alexa Goetzinger with Curatorial Assistant Virginia Sitzes, Materials and Boundaries presents a diverse survey of artists whose practices deal with identity and place and whose media expand the traditional boundaries of fine art. The selected artists are from across Oklahoma and work in painting, fiber, installation, printmaking, sculpture, film, sound, ceramics, murals, photography, and more.

Featured artists are Maria Do Anderson, Leticia R. Bajuyo, Carlos Barboza, Mary Claire Becker, Marwin Begaye, Lindsey Cox, Ebony Iman Dallas, Amy Sanders de Melo, Denise Duong, Hank Ehrenfried, Gabriel Friedman, Irmgard Geul, Kristen Griffin, Hong Hong, Aaron Jones, Riley Joseph, Katelynn Noel Knick, Le’Andra LaSeur, Andy Mattern,

Hank Ehrenfield, Open Mouth, 2023, oil on linen, 60’ x 48’, | Image courtesy of the artist

Nic Annette Miller, Ðan Lynh Pham, Kendall Ross, John Salame, Sarah Sullivan, Behnaz Sohrabian, and Micah Wesley.

to examine her own family experiences. Mother and Child, one

The featured artists work with experimental materials alongside

of the works created for this exhibition, hints at a seemingly

some traditional forms; site-specific, installation-based works

tender moment through its title; however, the viewer’s inability

abound, while unique pieces existing independently from

to see the image creates “emotional distance,” raising questions

their surroundings are presented with equal thoughtfulness.

about the dichotomy of tension and care within families while

According to the curatorial statement, Materials and Boundaries

allowing the viewer to create their own interpretation.

“invites viewers to consider how artists navigate dualities: tradition and innovation, personal narrative and collective

Also based in Norman, printmaker and painter Marwin

experience, rootedness and international reach.” The works

Begaye’s artistic practice is equally rooted in explorations of

presented by these talented artists are informed by critical

cultural identity and the medium of relief printing. A member

contemporary issues and present unique ways of engaging

of the Navajo Nation, Begaye creates stunningly patterned

with identity and place – their own, and those of the collective.

works featuring imagery informed by and honoring his

Norman-based Vietnamese American artist Maria Do Anderson works with fiber to create intricately hand-embroidered

culture’s customs and traditions. Oklahoma Blossom, a largescale woodblock print made for this exhibition, incorporates

images that speak to her family’s experiences with memory,

symbolism and graphic elements from the Mound Builder and

generational trauma, and search for identity. Drawn to fiber

Southern Plains cultures—cultures deeply rooted in what’s

art after watching her older sisters sew and quilt, Anderson

now Oklahoma—thereby paying homage to the land and its

utilizes her anthropological training as a lens through which

human history.

F E AT U R E

7

LEFT // Le’ Andra LeSeur, There is no movement without rhythm, 2021, 5-Channel HD video, sound, red light, 9 minutes & 17 seconds; ABOVE // Amy Sanders de Melo, Invisible Voices, 2025, ceramics | Photo by Blake Studdard

Hank Ehrenfried, a relative newcomer to Oklahoma City, is a painter whose practice incorporates image layering and a collage-like method that toys with perception and illusion.

His rich brushwork and conceptual approach to composition development imbue a painterly yet cerebral tone to his work, which deals with memory, desire, and temporality. Existing very much in the moment, Ehrenfried’s painting Open Mouth offers a trompe-l’oeil experience (a term for artworks that create the illusion of reality) that contemplates transience, image juxtaposition, and the personalized yet intellectualized sentience of deeply engaging with the art as a viewer.

created a visual artistic language that addresses “the complexities of claiming space within a world that often marginalizes disabled bodies,” according to the exhibition label didactic for Myself, one of the works being created for the show. The surfaces of her ceramic vessels feature Braille and reflect the artist’s hand. Myself is composed of a wallbased installation of tiny ceramic vessels that compose Braille writing alongside larger vessels displayed on pedestals.

Sanders de Melo’s elegant work invites us to consider and make space for others’ lived experiences.

Currently a Tulsa Artist Fellow, Le’Andra LaSeur is a multidisciplinary artist whose video, performance, installation, and photography engage directly with identity – specifically, Blackness, queerness, and femininity. LaSeur’s bodily and vocal participation in much of her work emphasizes expansion of the self, rather than the diminishment and often forceful minimization to which people of color, queer people, and women are so often subject. There is no movement without rhythm, exhibited in Materials and Boundaries, is composed of sound, film, and installation, and addresses pancultural African heritage through the inclusion of diasporic music such as jazz, blues, Gnawa traditions, house, and African Islamic song.

The piece invites the viewer to become an active participant rather than a passive consumer – thereby challenging traditional notions of the boundaries of fine art media while directly and conceptually confronting deeper stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding identity.

practice is deeply engaged with themes of community, memory, technology, cultural privilege, and consumerism, and reflects her experience growing up Filipinx-American in rural America. In addition to working with many other sculptural materials, Bajuyo’s large-scale and site-specific installations

Amy Sanders de Melo is a Tulsa-based Colombian American artist whose ceramic practice deals with highly personal themes of self-representation, disability, identity, and strength.

Sanders de Melo lives with hearing and vision loss and has 8

F E AT U R E

Norman-based Leticia Bajuyo’s sculptural and installation

CONTINUED TO PAGE 30

Leticia Bajuyo, Return to a Point of No Return, 2025, donated CD and DVD discs, aluminum, monofilament, cable ties, ratchet straps, hardware | Photo

by Blake Studdard

9

10

REVIEW

BEHIND THE SCENES // BOY MODE

by Elizabeth J. Wenger

In Oklahoma’s climate of anti-drag and anti-trans legislation, one might expect art about and from the trans and genderqueer experience to reflect a sense of dejection, but creators of the short film Boy Mode aspired to depict the euphoria of knowing oneself and living in one’s truth despite mounting oppression.

Boy Mode follows a few days in the life of one queer person living in this repressive landscape. In the film’s 22 minutes, viewers get a glimpse into the struggles and joys of Reese, as she deals with family pressures and searches for belonging in the local drag scene.

Co-writers and directors Dylan Albertson and Andromeda Johnson started writing the first draft in 2023. Both Albertson and Johnson are queer, and writing the film provided its own form of relief.

“We came up with the concept before this big anti-trans legislation situation was happening,” Albertson said. “We wrote the first draft of it on January 1st, 2023. It was New Year’s Day. We’d just had a rattling experience with some members of [Andromeda’s] family. They said some unsavory thing about trans folks, and we just felt very blindsided by it. Andromeda was just coming into her transness, and I had known I was gender fluid for about a decade.”

Only a short month or so after that first draft was completed, Albertson found themself in the state capital, protesting the passage of House Bill 2186, which aimed to make drag queen story hours and drag performances in front of minors unlawful.

“We basically were writing very reactively to what was happening, and we reacted with a lot of anxiety,” Albertson said about the writing behind Boy Mode.

The bill laid the foundation for an environment of fear that queer Oklahomans and drag performers continue to live in today. It also provided fuel to the film and inspired the co-creators to expand what was at first a personal project into a community-based production. For the creators, drag plays a central role in their experience of transness.

“To me, drag is the capacity to put on a mask that reveals more of what’s underneath,” Albertson said. Albertson explained that, for many trans and queer people, drag can be a way to “crack their egg,” a phrase for the first recognition of one’s gender identity.

In an act of resistance to the legislation, Boy Mode depicts a vision of queer life that is hopeful in the face of a desperate situation while painting an honest portrait of the hardships that young trans folks face. The film’s title comes from a term that refers to a trans woman who goes in public dressed in a way that indicates she’s male for her own safety.

Albertson said Johnson described the film as showing the main character coming out, only to have the door slammed in her face.

Originally, the co-creators wrote a scene with a violent altercation, but they decided to take the story in a different direction.

“If I wanted to hear about trans people being brutalized, I’d turn on the news,” Albertson said.

Instead, they pivoted to focus on gender euphoria, which is a term used in the trans community to mean, as Albertson put it, “a sense of alignment and joy between how you feel on the inside and how people are perceiving you.”

OPPOSITE // Boy Mode, 2024, poster by Morgan Zachary | Photo by DJ Zachary; ABOVE // Co-writer and Director Andromeda Johnson (left) with actor Deonna Marie Cattledge as Mama on set for Boy Mode

As part of this thematic pivot, the directors decided to move away from the documentary-like or news-like aesthetics F E AT U R E

11

LEFT // Albertson (also local performance artist Olympe) as Tabitha Acid on set of Boy Mode, bathed in the film’s signature lighting. RIGHT // Behind the scenes of Boy Mode | Photos by Tajh Calloway

toward something more cinematic, borrowing from the theatrics of drag. They decided to use the film as an opportunity to “showcase queerness through an Old Hollywood lens.”

They emphasized visuals with “crisp, gorgeous Hollywood lighting on queer subjects,” while shifting the presence of cops and law to an underlying tension rather than the main plot.

As Albertson explained, “that is just kind of what it is to live in the South; there is always an underlying anxiety.”

Viewers will note the lighting, which is truly stunning.

The director of photography, DJ Zachary, worked to spotlight the queer and POC subjects by bathing them in heavenly light. That Old Hollywood lighting takes resources, and the film was greatly helped along by a Thrive Grant funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, in partnership with the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, production from Factory Obscura, and a whole host of experienced volunteers from the community.

Johnson and Albertson called their friends to fill the team’s cast and crew with people from the local scene who understood the struggles and the joys of queer life in Oklahoma.

“We prioritized personal experience over professional technique,” Albertson said. The film is also full of Oklahoma City artists and musicians like Nia Moné and Griff Stafford among others, with the song “Damage Control” by local band Stepmom setting the mood for one of the more dramatic sequences in the film. The directors also paid close attention to costuming. Their mood boards featured 1970s glamour and David Bowie influence. Everything 12

F E AT U R E

the main character wore was custom-made with the help of local drag performers and designers.

While the production of the film brought together queer folks from the community as they created hopeful art, the realities of homophobia and transphobia were never far. The creators had to hire security after receiving a few concerning emails from people trying to get the address of the shooting locations.

“There are a lot of ghosts attached to this film,” Albertson said.

The film was dedicated to “friends, comrades, and strangers who all deserved better” including the victims of Club Q, Nex Benedict, Grant Hileman, Tiercy Brown, and Shannon Hanchett.

Anti-trans and anti-drag legislation has continued to be introduced in Oklahoma. This film is made for and by a community still resisting legislative and cultural pushback— and still finding joy despite it.

The film is currently being shown at film festivals. Boy Mode did especially well in New York City at the Queer Voices Film Festival where it was awarded Best Narrative.

ELIZABETH J. WENGER is a writer from Tulsa. She is the winner of the Baltimore Review Winter Prize in flash nonfiction and her essay collection was selected as a finalist for the Black Lawrence Press Hudson Prose Prize. She has been covering Oklahoma arts and music for five years. Wenger earned her MFA at Iowa State University’s program for Creative Writing and Environment. Her website is wengerwrites.com.

ABOVE // Stills from Boy Mode film by DJ Zachary with Deonna Marie Cattledge as Mama; Dylan (Olympe) Albertson as Tabitha Acid; Sativa Green as Reese and Silas Traughber-Hill as Moth. BELOW // The original Boy Mode script by Andromeda Johnson and Dylan Albertson

F E AT U R E

13

STITCH BY STITCH // FIBER ARTS IN OKLAHOMA

by Kate Battershell

The skill is passed from person to person, through families and circles of friends, where inspiration and collaboration are abundant. Pauls Valley Embroidery artist Irmgard Geul recalled the nostalgia she felt inheriting the sewing kit her late mother used in the Netherlands. Already a painter, Geul began stitching over her acrylic paintings, intertwining her mother’s medium with her own. In The Forest, her threads wisp and whirl into leaves and branches, casting shadows that create depth in the misty greenery—something only fibers can achieve.

Multidisciplinary artist Debra Martin’s love for sewing also

Irmgard Geul, The Forest, 2025, acrylic on canvas with embroidery and loose thread | Image courtesy of the artist

Modern life often feels like it’s moving at breakneck speed— but there are those setting their own pace—a community of people dedicated to the art of taking it slow.

While the modern impulse leans toward immediate gratification, slow crafts like sewing are on the rise, pushing back against overconsumption, creating a space for the people who are content to linger over the repetitive intricacies of an underappreciated art. Each piece requires hours of handmade labor, years of practice, and deep dedication. So why is it that these works are more often seen draped over a couch than hung on gallery walls?

Many imagine the fiber artist as a solitary figure, but sewing, quilting, and embroidery are often practiced in community—a shared art. While hands work with thread, mouths are free to chatter. Oklahoma is home to many quilting groups, such as the Oklahoma City Modern Quilt Guild, which fostered the collaboration between five members, including Agnes Stadler and Ann Solinski, on an award-winning quilt, Prairie Gold. More recently, Solinski and Stadler formed a small artist group called Qu’aint—an apt portmanteau of quilt and paint. Qu’aint has exhibited across the state, using fiber to bridge the gap between fine art and craft.

14

F E AT U R E

grew from her mother’s influence. Her quilt, How Sweet It Is!, captures that familial bond with alternating purple and orange florals. The scene—a mother offering her beloved a first bite of wedding cake—was crafted stitch by stitch with the same intimacy it depicts. These works of fiber art embody the true meaning of a labor of love.

Sewing and quilting have traditionally been considered a feminine domain, which may explain why they’re often excluded from the category of “fine art.” However, artist Maria Do Anderson embraces the feminine ties of fiber art. In 11450 Stitches, Vu Thi Hau, she fractures a family photo into thousands of tiny cross stitches—an apt medium to depict the bonds of family. She describes her work as finding forgiveness through the vulnerability of “undervalued women’s work.”

Fiber is vulnerable: one must bend over the cloth, pricking and bleeding into it, stitch after stitch. Each thread makes a small change until the whole piece is complete. It’s a meditative task—one that quiets modern noise and leaves only the rhythm of thread passing up and down. Darci Lenker’s Koi Swimming marries this meditative process with its subject.

Using “thread painting,” Lenker replaces paint with colored floss, her stitched koi circling lazily as if the dark water itself could be heard babbling around them.

Perhaps it’s their utilitarian roots that keep fiber arts from being widely embraced as fine art—or simply the lingering perception that this is a hobby reserved only for older women.

The Piece Makers quilting guild in Eufaula has been meeting monthly since 1986. Led by Judith Crittenden, the group uses its art for good, donating baby blankets and funds raised

ABOVE // Maria Do Anderson, 11450 Stitches Vu Thi Hau, 2022, cross stitch, hand embroidery, cotton floss on aida | Image courtesy of the artist TOP RIGHT // Agnes Stadler, Qu’aint collaboration, Mid Century Modern Vibes, 2021, background screen print by Ric Miller, mixed media quilt | Image courtesy of the artist BELOW RIGHT // Debra Elizabeth Martin, How Sweet It Is, 2024, pieced & quilted cotton, screenprint ink, thread, pearl beading | Photo by Debra Martin BELOW // Ann Solinski, Agnes Stadler, Elisabeth Richards, Debi Wanzer, Katie Favazzo Cox. Prairie Gold, 2015, quilt | Photo by Amanda Lipscomb

15

“My chosen craft forces me to be slow and deliberate. I like to think this slowness helps to connect me with the generations of handcrafters that have come before me.

No other work has ever helped me become more mindful, thoughtful, or internally contemplative as the meditative folk art of hand embroidery.”

— Katie Graham

Darci Lenker, Koi Swimming, 2024, hand-embroidered cotton on linen | Image courtesy of the artist

Fiber artists in Oklahoma are beginning to see their work recognized as fine art. That recognition was clear at the 2025 Oklahoma Festival of the Arts, where rising star Katie Graham received the inaugural Emerging Artist Ribbon. Her winning piece, The Story of Night & Day, is a fabric appliqué that blends textural detail with visual clarity, showcasing her mastery of combining techniques without overwhelming the design.

Graham’s storytelling through fiber extends across her work, from flat appliqués to her whimsical lineup of stuffed frog puppets.

TOP // Katie Graham, Garth the Gatherer, 2025, fiber sculpture; ABOVE // Katie Graham, Tad the lad, 2025, fiber sculpture | Photos by Noah Sparks

to local charities. Their monthly morning quilting classes welcome beginners, keeping alive the art form’s communal spirit. Despite renewed interest in fiber, the guild is still mostly attended by older women.

But it’s not for a lack of interest by others. In the past year, Acid Lime’s Club Sewklahoma has flourished in Midtown, offering classes and community space for sewing, knitting, and crocheting. Founder Kenzi Cobb started the club after noticing the age divide in traditional groups and was surprised by how many young people wanted to learn fiber arts. Sewklahoma operates as an all-inclusive, donation-based club, aiming to change perceptions of quilting and bring more young people into the fold.

16

F E AT U R E

Her solo show, Hoppy Hobby, opened September 12 at Oscillator Press in Norman, featuring anthropomorphic frog puppets posed in their own hobbies. Each frog comes with a name, backstory, and personality, shared through photos and descriptions on her Instagram. Graham also takes commissions, inviting others to weave their own stories into her creations—blurring the line between artist and audience.

As more artists and audiences embrace the depth of artistry in fiber work, the question is no longer whether it belongs in galleries, but what impact it will have on those who encounter it there.

KATE BATTERSHELL is a recent arts graduate from OSU, which houses one of her fiber arts tapestries in its permanent art collection. She currently works as the donor relations manager at United Way of Central Oklahoma. In her spare time, she freelances in art collection management for artists and collectors in Oklahoma and is a frequent Art Focus contributor.

OKLAHOMA, CURATED.

Oklahoma Today is the official magazine of our state—where stories are told with soul, artistry, and a deep sense of place. Each issue is a tribute to the bold creators, quiet wonders, and hidden corners that make Oklahoma unforgettable.

Sign up for our free newsletter and let handpicked events, secret spots, and behind-the-scenes stories find their way to your inbox. Experience a curated journey through the heart of Oklahoma.

Subscribe. Collect. Discover.

Newsletter.OklahomaToday.com.

17

OUT FROM THE UNCANNY VALLEY // AN ART SPACE’S ASCENT

by Karen Paul

Founded by a tight-knit group of six artists—many of

“It’s been mind-blowing,” Julius, who serves as the gallery

whom have known each other for decades—Uncanny Art

manager, said. “I can’t believe we just opened this space

House is setting a new standard for how community art

in September. Every month, we figure out how to do

spaces can evolve.

things differently. We’re really hitting a stride.”

For founders and artists Jennifer Ball-Burwell, Jesse Edgar,

With custom-built, movable gallery walls, Uncanny Art

Dylan Johnson, Julius, Annatova Neches, Chris McDaniel

House is able to tailor its exhibition layout for every

and Chase Spivey, Uncanny is the creative opportunity

new show. With new exhibitions being installed almost

of a lifetime. It’s an experience that has allowed them

every month, the space feels deliberately new each time

to create the community they wanted to find, while

visitors enter the space.

simultaneously leveraging a lifetime’s worth of networks spanning Oklahoma’s music, video, photo and art scenes.

These efforts are turning Uncanny’s downtown Norman location into one of the state’s most rapidly emerging hubs for inclusivity.

feature; they are also another way Uncanny meets artists where they are. Customizing spaces allows each exhibition to be an inclusive mix of artists – both experienced and emerging. Uncanny’s team deliberately

“A lot of art spaces are nonprofit,” Spivey said. “Being

pairs artists at different stages of their career to open

for-profit allows Uncanny to move faster and be more

doors for new and diverse artists who might otherwise

inclusive.”

face challenges in getting their work out to a larger

From its original beginnings, Uncanny has always functioned like a creative organism, growing and evolving to meet artist and community needs, while remaining true to its collaborative roots.

Originally known as Uncanny Alley, founders Chase Spivey, Dylan Johnson and Jesse Edgar, first occupied an office space on the second floor of a downtown Norman building. As it became a rapidly growing artist hangout

audience.

For example, Uncanny’s recent exhibition, Queer Joy, was a 2SLGBTQIA+ celebration that centered joy as a tool of resistance and featured the work of 24 visual artists, including Julius, Helen Grant and Rai Fordyce.

Uncanny wants emerging artists to learn from more experienced ones, while having their work featured in a way that spotlights them as if they were in a major

space, Uncanny Alley quickly reached a barrier. The

gallery.

small, non-ADA compliant space did not allow for any

“My first solo exhibition, Kaleider, was here in February,”

additional programming or expansion.

multimedia artist Chris McDaniel said. “I had the

With the support of Jennifer Ball-Burwell, Uncanny renamed itself and added more founding artists. It also moved to its current location in the 100 block of Main Street. With these changes, its growth has been more than steady.

18

The moveable exhibition walls aren’t just a logistical

F E AT U R E

opportunity to meet other artists through the Art Walk, which happened in conjunction with my exhibition. It was the first day I felt like a real artist. Until then, I had never felt like a public figure.”

ABOVE // Guests walk the gallery through Chris McDaniel’s Kaleider exhibition in February 2025 | Photo by Dylan Johnson; BELOW // Guests enjoy the magic of the most recent Uncanny Art Soup, a group exhibition that has its next iteration November 14 | Photos by Dylan Johnson

Saturday night of Norman Music Fest at Uncanny Art House | Photo by Dylan Johnson

A crowd gathers around outside Uncanny Art House during April 2025’s 2nd Friday Norman Art Walk | Photo by Dylan Johnson

ABOVE // Photos of Uncanny Art House | Photos by Dylan Johnson

20

F E AT U R E

THIS PAGE // Guests enjoy the magic of the most recent Uncanny Art Soup, a group exhibition that has its next iteration November 14, 2025 | Photos by Dylan Johnson

Enabling emerging artists, while developing community, is central to Uncanny’s core mission.

“We want artists to feel like they could and should be making money off of their work,” Spivey said. “A lot of our work is about getting more eyes downtown to financially support the Art Walk and our featured artists.”

As part of its efforts to alleviate the pressures of being an artist, Uncanny has a unique, artist-centered retail store REVIEW

21

conjunction with the Pioneer Library System, and other workshops on diverse topics like astrology.

“I personally feel so grateful to be in this space and working with friends,” Annatova Neches said. “It’s so hard to find people aligned with your creative vision.”

Uncanny Art House | Photo by Dylan Johnson

KAREN PAUL is a fifth-generation Oklahoman, photographer and writer. She has been writing for ArtFocus for more than 15 years and has a master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism. You can find her online at karenpaulok.com.

with both brick-and-mortar and online components.

Artists who work with Uncanny can drop off their pieces, and Uncanny handles the photography, online listing, retail displays and sales features.

“We’ve already paid out $7,000 in revenue in less than a year, to more than 20 artists,” Julius said. “We want to keep this amount growing. We’re reimagining what outside of the box can look like.”

By being accessible to new artists, who may not even know where to start sharing their work, Uncanny is

A RT S O U P 2.0 A GRO U P E XH I BI T I O N starting November 14th during Norman’s 2nd Friday Art Walk and running until December 21, 2025 Described as bold, diverse voices and work celebrating risk-taking, experimentation, and the community spirit that fuels Norman’s local art scene.

adding another layer to its efforts to be welcoming.

“We want to fit into an area that has been missing,” Spivey said. “We want to be an inclusive middle space between blue-chip galleries and DIY spaces.”

A “blue-chip gallery” typically refers to highly selective spaces

featuring

internationally

renowned

artists.

Uncanny Art House prides itself on being the opposite, focusing instead on creating a community space for artists and art lovers of all kinds. This sense of community also includes programming like their monthly Art Hang, where creatives of all kinds come together to share space, work on their projects, or just have like-minded discussions.

Other regularly scheduled events include arts workshops for both children and adults, a monthly arts film series in 22

F E AT U R E

Uncanny Art House will also be hosting the P U NK RO CK SANTA’S F L E A M A R K ET It is a festive marketplace featuring local vendors and alt holiday cheer, December 12, 2025.

To find out more about upcoming events, workshops and other programming scheduled for Uncanny Art House, visit their website at uncannyarthouse.com.

WALL FLOWERS // PATRICK GORDON’S CAREER-SPANNING RETROSPECTIVE

by Erin Schalk

This fall and winter, the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa invites visitors into Wall Flowers, a retrospective tracing more than fifty years of Claremore-born painter Patrick Gordon’s practice. Curated by Susan Green, the exhibition offers an intimate view into the artist’s world, where meticulous craftsmanship meets layered storytelling.

“Art is not just seen; it’s felt,” Gordon said. “My hope is that every piece invites you to pause, reflect, and connect.”

Viewers are often struck by the remarkable precision of Gordon’s paintings. One example—Fried Green Tomatoes (1993, watercolor on paper), featured prominently in the exhibition’s promotional materials—captures this artistry in full. A vase overflows with sunflowers, vermillion Chinese lanterns, star lilies, and other blooms, and rests on a table with woodgrain rendered in such exacting detail that each curve seems to guide the eye toward carefully arranged, intimately-sized curios.

This combination of precision and symbolism evokes the Dutch Baroque still life tradition, where blossoms often carried vanitas meanings—reminders of life’s transience— and each object held intentional significance. Gordon’s work similarly invites viewers to linger beyond surface beauty, discovering the quiet narratives embedded within Patrick (p.s.) Gordon | Photo by Bhadri Verduzco

each composition.

Green describes this intentionality: “Each painting reveals a story and reflects that story back to us, so that we think about how we live, how we see ourselves, and, ultimately, how we care for each other. We wanted to highlight the deliberate care that Gordon takes in composing his paintings. Nothing is random. Just as he arranges his home spaces with deliberation, he curates each object and element in a painting to tell a story.”

PREVIEW

23

Patrick (p.s.) Gordon, Hocus Pocus, 1995, watercolor on paper, 42.5” x 43” | Photo courtesy of Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Claremore, shaped by his mother Janelle Gordon, a self-taught still life and portrait artist, as well as his florist grandmother.

“Portraits were an everyday kind of thing in our home,” Gordon explains. “[Growing up in Claremore] instilled a strong sense of Midwestern sensibilities. Value systems built out of the work that one would do.”

Gordon began training in painting at age 12 and also studied under mentor John This storytelling is also shaped by Gordon’s artistic influences, which Green traces to iconic figures such as John Singer Sargent and Dutch Baroque master Johannes Vermeer. Gordon’s Smoked Pearls (1996, watercolor on paper) offers a contemporary nod to Vermeer’s handling of natural light and color. A reflective metal container brimming with yellow and blue-violet blooms sits on a polished wooden

college in Claremore. Beginning in 2003, he spent nearly a decade in New York City, where he continued his career as a full-time artist. These shifts in place were more than geographic. They also marked changes in medium, as decades of watercolor mastery transitioned to the depth and texture of oil-on-canvas

surface beside a small cat and two lemons. Soft light from

painting.

the right gently models the forms, casting shadows and

Visitors to Wall Flowers are encouraged to trace such

illuminating the reflective surfaces—an effect that recalls Vermeer’s sensitive interplay of light, shadow, and his poetic dialogue between blue and yellow hues.

connections across subjects, styles, and media. The retrospective’s thematic approach means visitors can experience the exhibition less as a linear history and

“The stories that I attempt to paint by symbolism depend

more as an intricately woven tapestry, where recurring

on the title of the painting to give the viewer a sense of

motifs and evolving techniques offer new perspectives

personal knowledge of what the paintings are about,”

on Gordon’s practice.

Gordon explains. “Sometimes the content is humor. I think humor is an incredible color in itself. So there might be a painting that you don’t understand, but if you come up with a concept of your own, then I have made a successful painting.”

24

Montgomery at Oklahoma Military Academy’s junior

Assembling a decades-long career into a single retrospective was a multi-step endeavor involving extensive travel to track down works now held in various collections. Green’s curatorial research even took her to Washington, D.C., where she searched

While each piece stands on its own, Wall Flowers tells the

the Archives of American Art to locate works once

story of Gordon’s artistic evolution from his early years in

exhibited in New York galleries.

PREVIEW

Patrick (p.s.) Gordon, Smoked Pearls, 1996, watercolor on paper, 38.5” × 28.5" | Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Bequest of Marylouise Cowan, 2010.9.7. © p.s. gordon

and the Philbrook Museum will invite visitors into the epicenter of his creative practice. Throughout the run of the retrospective, Gordon will blur boundaries between exhibition and creation.

Green details the plan: “We are thrilled that Gordon has generously offered to move his studio into the Philbrook gallery during this exhibition…

Visitors will be able to visit with Gordon, ask about his creative process, and see what he is working on…When he is not in the gallery, we will have a video running of the artist working.”

“Philbrook colleagues and I also visited around three dozen locations—collectors’ homes, businesses, non-profits—with artwork by Gordon, and that was a joy,” she recalls. “We were able to hear stories, learn about family connections, and discover the personal impact of Gordon’s work firsthand.”

After his New York years, Gordon returned to Tulsa, where

By uniting masterful technique, deep storytelling, and a spirit of community, Wall Flowers becomes more than a retrospective. It is an invitation to witness art as a living, evolving conversation between creator and audience. Wall Flowers: Patrick Gordon Paintings will be on view at the Philbrook Museum from September 24, 2025, through January 3, 2026. To preview Gordon’s portfolio, visit psgordon.com, and for exhibition details and tickets, go to philbrook.org.

he continues to nurture his creative roots and strengthen community ties. One section of the exhibition reflects his long-standing support for local organizations, including the Tulsa Ballet, Mayfest, and Tulsa CARES. Several of his donated works have become intertwined with these institutions, notably his Tulsa Centennial poster, a beautiful part of the city’s ever-expanding visual identity.

A defining feature of Wall Flowers is its focus on community engagement. While most visual art exhibitions offer only limited interaction between artist and audience, Gordon

ERIN SCHALK is an artist and writer with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artwork has been exhibited across the U.S., UK, Europe, and Japan. Her writing has appeared in Stirring, Willawaw Journal, Petigru Review, and more, earning multiple awards from Writer’s Digest, as well as a Best of the Net nomination. She has served on boards for Orange County Arts and Disability and the California Writers Club.

PREVIEW

25

THREADS OF UNTOLD HISTORY // BEADTELLING FREEDMEN AND FREEDMEN DESCENDANTS OF THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES

by Molly Murphy Adams

Jennifer Saenz and Vicky Watson create woven beadwork portraits of Freedmen and their descendants tying together the recovery of community, culture, and history.

The mother-daughter collaboration created a series of compelling portraits featured in the exhibit Threads of Untold History using tiny seed beads woven into original photorealistic designs. This work represents an effort at reclaiming both the images and biographies of Freedmen expressed through contemplative handwork. Saenz was a recipient of the 2024-2025 Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition Thrive Grant, a community-based award for Oklahomabased visual arts projects. This support furthered the community-driven research and consultation at the heart of this exhibition.

As a fellow bead artist, I recently had a studio visit with Saenz and Watson at Watson’s home in Mustang, Oklahoma to talk about their new work and, inevitably, to talk about all things bead art. I work in a manifestly different style of sewn or embroidered two-needle applique on a fabric matrix using mainly European Czech beads. This is compared to their thread woven style utilizing exclusively Japanese Toho brand Delica beads. Beadwork as a form of fiber art is not well understood by audiences. There is often an assumption that the beads must be glued on or mosaiced like is the case with examples like Huichol sculptures.

All that to say, we are all three creating visual art based in seed beads and, therefore, we are members of a very small group that even more rarely meet each other. We spent hours comparing bead types, colors, storage methods, sources, and methods for sorting and choosing colors for original designs. We commiserated on the uncharismatic nature of working with beads (action photos of beadworkers are notoriously uninteresting), the compulsive qualities of beadworkers, and the difference between being patient versus obsessive, and we bonded via shorthand beading jargon about our largely solo endeavors.

26

IN THE STUDIO

Saenz and Watson have developed their beadwork skills side-by-side while building connections to the Freedmen descendants’ community. The team shares a love for beads as a medium and a collaborative method, often taking turns on the same piece, intuitively adjusting method and tension to meet the other artist midway through a portrait. Saenz and Watson initially took classes and attended workshops on woven beadwork as a means of cultural reconnection to their Cherokee heritage and citizenship. The skills learned in these community-based gatherings focused on abstract geometric designs and techniques geared towards small wearable forms. Saenz developed an interest in stretching her skills beyond the geometric and into the arena of realism as a compelling method of storytelling linking images, narrative, and materials. Saenz’s interest in narrative-driven work led her to expand beyond the wearable and into the exhibition style seen in the portraits in Threads of Untold History.

This series of portraits is each accompanied by extensive wall text illustrating the remarkable lives and biographies of the subjects. In the portraits Paro Bruner (Freedman) and Marilyn Vann (Freedman descendant), we see photos transformed into pixelated portraits, with photos framed alongside the woven image.

Saenz wanted to create portraits that told the stories of the individuals honorably, learning the skills necessary to create her own original designs, including a deep dive into glass beads, color interaction, and the pixelation of organic forms altering perception. At first glance, the process of creating the designs might seem intuitive and easily accomplished with digital tools, but, as a beadworker myself, I doubted that digital tools could replace the actual experience of the limitations and special qualities of glass seed beads.

Beadworkers are in the rare position as artists of not having input into the colors made available to us. We are at the mercy of the manufacturers. I argue that the experience of working within constraints makes for a

ABOVE // Vicky Watson, A beaded portrait of Sallie Walton; BELOW LEFT // Jennifer Saenz, A beaded portrait of Marilyn Vann, photo of Marilyn in Frame by Paul Hellstern, New York Times; BELOW RIGHT // Jennifer Saenz, A beaded portrait of Paro Bruner | Photos by JD Epperson

IN THE STUDIO

27

deep understanding of both the limits and the potential of the medium, and deliberate expert use descends from a limited palette.

Beadworkers become experts in anticipating how qualities such as luster, texture, color lining, metallic finish, and transparency can affect the outcomes of compositions. Choosing glass seed beads for compositions relies on qualities as much as color. Saenz confirmed that hers and Watson’s method for designing is not digital. Rather it is the love of their work that results in seemingly endless test runs, with trial and errors galore upon pieces of graph paper, because, in the end, there isn’t a digital tool that can replace the experience of working with beads and how it anticipates the effects of color and design on the viewer. The difference between average beadwork and masterworks lies in years of experimentation and a deep commitment to the beads themselves—seeking them out, collecting them, and learning the possibilities of all the beads (and yes, we do mean all the beads).

As we wrapped up our visit discussing techniques and materials, we again turned to the large table displaying all the portraits and associated wall labels. Saenz emphasized how important it is to ensure that each portrait is always exhibited with biographies. The choice to pair the art with the information is deliberate to ensure that the audience maintains the integrity of representation without exploitation. Representing Indigenous and marginalized subject matter often walks the line between appreciation, allyship, and exploitation. Saenz and Watson have worked hard to maintain a process and exhibition style that centers the subjects and their compelling histories.

28

IN THE STUDIO

ABOVE // A beaded portrait of Claude DeVoyd Hall | Photo by JD Epperson; BELOW // Artists Vicky Watson and Jennifer Saenz beading | Photo by Oklahoma Arts Institute

MOLLY MURPHY ADAMS (Oglala descendant) was born in Montana and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine art from The University of Montana and a master’s in art history from Oklahoma State University.

She has made Tulsa her home for nearly fifteen years while working as an exhibiting artist, art appraiser, art historian, and beadworker in her Indigenous community. Murphy Adams focuses on Indigenous beadwork in her many roles as a researcher, teacher, and community maker.

29

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

ABOVE // Ðan Lynh Pham, Tre Già Mǎng Moc, 2025, wood, wood appliqués, woven mat, miscellaneous altar items. 150” x 102” | Image courtesy of the artist; ABOVE RIGHT // Irmgard Geul, Follow the Wind, 2025, acrylic on canvas with embroidery and loose thread | BELOW RIGHT // John Salame, Talking Backwards, 2025, vinyl on window, 150” x 120” | Photos by Blake Studdard

are made up of and rely on media materials like CDs and DVDs donated by the communities in which she works, thereby creating a collective creation experience that transforms what might be considered waste into beautiful, intricate forms.

Gravity Repeated, created for this exhibition, supports and suspends the media-based installation utilizing a system of cable, monofilament, and aluminum. This act of recycling data storage objects into art offers a gentle critique of consumerism and cultural privilege. According to the exhibition’s curators, “[h]er approach exemplifies the spirit of Materials and Boundaries, as she reimagines familiar materials into visually

Their work shows the importance of looking at art and the world with both a critical, yet open-minded lens. That is what the best art does, and this exhibition achieves this goal.

and conceptually layered environments.”

The artists in this exhibition demonstrate the wide breadth of contemporary art being made in Oklahoma right now as well as the curators’ commitment to including true diversity of artistic voices.

As a past ArtNow curator – I curated the exhibition in 2021, the show’s first iteration in its new biennial format and the first in Oklahoma Contemporary’s new building – I am in a unique position of understanding the process and purpose behind this important exhibition, and I have great admiration and respect for the work done by this year’s artists and curators.

30

F E AT U R E

HELEN OPPER is a contemporary art appraiser, curator, and educator based in Oklahoma City. Opper studied Art History at UC Berkeley and Museum Studies at NYU. As owner of Opper Fine Art (Oklahoma’s only woman-owned appraisal firm accredited specifically in contemporary art), adjunct professor at OKC Community College, and director of The Art Hall, her goals are to provide professional appraisals; work with underrepresented artists on exhibitions; and demonstrate a framework which exposes her students to artistic diversity.

She is thrilled to serve on this year’s ArtNow committee.

1720 N Shartel Ave, Suite B Oklahoma City, OK 73103 Visit ovac-ok.org to learn more.

Non Profit Org. US POSTAGE PAID Oklahoma City, OK Permit No. 113