Art Focus Oklahoma, July/August 2011

ArtOFocus k l a h o m a

Ok l a ho m a Vi s u a l A r ts C oal i t i on

Vo l u m e 2 6 N o . 4

July/August 2011

24 Works on Paper Sarah Atlee, Lunch: Sakagura, page 20

Drawing by Emma Ann Robertson.

Art OFocus k l a h o m a from the editor As I write this, Oklahoma is experiencing one of the first, of what is sure to be many, 100 degree days of the year. The heat outdoors combined with the lull of summer makes for a great time to delve into some art reading. Below is a selection of books that I’m considering for my summer reading list. What’s on yours?

An Object of Beauty: A Novel by Steve Martin A fictional story about a New York art dealer doing everything in her power to climb the ladder of the high-end art world. This book is seen by many as not only a satire, but a critique on the workings of the contemporary art world.

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo This book tells the fast-paced story of one of the 20th century’s most incredible art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries, many of which still hang in prominent museums and private collections today.

Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things by Gilbert Sorrentino Published in 1971, this novel is a satire of New York’s Greenwich Village art scene in the 1950s, portrayed with biting wit.

ART/WORK: Everything you Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber A comprehensive overview of the business of art based on the experience of the authors, as well as interviews with nearly 100 curators, dealers and other arts professionals about what they expect from and look for in artists.

Art School: (Propositions for the 21st Century) edited by Steven Henry Madoff A collection of essays and conversations with prominent artists and educators analyzing the structure of major art schools and the particular challenges and opportunities they face in the twenty-first century.

Chinati: The Vision of Donald Judd by Marianne Stockebrand The Chinati Foundation, located in Marfa, TX, was founded by artist Donald Judd and is a destination for experiencing large-scale contemporary art. This book is the first comprehensive publication of the Chinati Foundation’s collection in more than twenty years and describes how Chinati began.

Just Kids by Patti Smith This memoir by singer-songwriter Patti Smith documents her life and friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in New York City in the late ‘60s.

Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon A biography of Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange, which creates a portrait of the artist as a woman who followed her passion and made a great impact on the world around her.

Happy reading,

Kelsey Karper publications@ovac-ok.org

Sarah Atlee, Oklahoma City, Lunch: Sakagura, Acrylic and prismacolor pencil on paper, 22” x 22”.

See page 20.

2

Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition 730 W. Wilshire Blvd., Suite 104 Oklahoma City, OK 73116 ph: 405.879.2400 • e: director@ovac-ok.org visit our website at: www.ovac-ok.org Executive Director: Julia Kirt director@ovac-ok.org Editor: Kelsey Karper publications@ovac-ok.org Intern: Steffin Schoeppel Art Director: Anne Richardson speccreative@gmail.com Art Focus Oklahoma is a bimonthly publication of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition dedicated to stimulating insight into and providing current information about the visual arts in Oklahoma.

Mission: Supporting Oklahoma’s visual arts and artists and their power to enrich communities.

OVAC welcomes article submissions related to artists and art in Oklahoma. Call or email the editor for guidelines.

OVAC welcomes your comments. Letters addressed to Art Focus Oklahoma 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 will not be published. Please include a phone number.

Art Focus Committee: Janice McCormick, Bixby; Don Emrick, Claremore; Susan Grossman, Norman; MJ Alexander, Stephen Kovash, Sue Moss Sullivan, and Christian Trimble, Oklahoma City.

OVAC Board of Directors July 2010-June 2011: R.C. Morrison, Bixby; Margo Shultes von Schlageter, MD, Rick Vermillion, Edmond; Eric Wright, El Reno; Traci Harrison (Secretary), Enid; Suzanne Mitchell (President), Norman; Jennifer Barron (Vice President), Susan Beaty, Stephen Kovash, Paul Mays, Carl Shortt, Suzanne Thomas, Christian Trimble, Oklahoma City; Joey Frisillo, Sand Springs; Anita Fields, Stillwater; Bradley Jessop, Sulphur; Elizabeth Downing, Jean Ann Fausser (Treasurer), Janet Shipley Hawks, Kathy McRuiz, Sandy Sober, Tulsa The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition is solely responsible for the contents of Art Focus Oklahoma. However, the views expressed in articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Board or OVAC staff.

Member Agency of Allied Arts and member of the Americans for the Arts. © 2011, Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition.

All rights reserved.

View this issue online at www.ArtFocusOklahoma.org.

contents

p ro f i l e s 4 6

Shooting From the Hip

4

In his new book of photographs and essays, Oklahoma City artist J. Don Cook showcases his abilities in both photography and writing.

Explore Nostalgia of Lost Childhood Memories in Trophy Lives

Artist Nick Bayer evokes feelings of nostalgia and sentimentality in his new series of constructed paintings.

10 The Triumph of E.K. Jeong’s Public Art Project: The Sun on Earth

Weatherford artist E.K. Jeong brought the community together to create a large tapestry several years in the making.

p re v i e w s 12 Illuminated: Pure Color at the Oklahoma Heritage Museum

The members of the Oklahoma Society of Impressionists have been creating art together for over 25 years. An exhibition at the Oklahoma Heritage Museum highlights their work in plein air painting.

10

14 A Creative Center on the Plains: East Central University Alumni Show

The art department at ECU in Ada boasts an impressive legacy of influential alumni artists, which are featured in the first ECU alumni show.

16 The Last Picture Show

Tulsa Photographer Joshua Blevins Peck is traveling the state documenting the demise of many small town cinemas.

18 Mountainous Expressions: Tour de Quartz Encourages State’s Promising Young Artists An exhibition at the Leslie Powell Foundation and Gallery in Lawton displays highlights from the Oklahoma Arts Institutes summer programs.

20 24 Works on Paper Travels Oklahoma

The biennial exhibition of works on paper by Oklahoma artists travels the state for a full year, bringing contemporary art to communities large and small.

20

f e a t u re s 22 Oklahoma Art in Public Places: Bringing the Global to the Local

A brief history of the Oklahoma Art in Public Places program and some of the ambitious projects it has supported.

24 On the Map: Tulsa Arts & Humanities Council Hardesty Arts Center

Years in the making, the new arts center in Tulsa’s Brady Arts District is finally underway.

at a glance 26 Jalisa Haggins likes watermelon, but not that much

A recent exhibition at the University of Oklahoma’s Lightwell Gallery showcased work by the school’s photography students. An exhibition standout tackles racial stereotypes in brief photographic series.

business of art

22

27 Ask a Creativity Coach

The Creativity Coach gives advice for stopping negative thoughts before they disrupt your creative flow.

28

OVAC news

30

gallery guide (p.4) J. Don Cook, Oklahoma City, An Old-Fashioned Haircut, Photography. It was a hot summer day in rural Oklahoma, and this tow-headed kid got his old-fashioned haircut by his father on the family’s front porch. (p. 10) The Weatherford Arts Council (WAC) working on EK Jeong’s Sun on Earth tapestry. (p. 20) Paul Walsh, Roff, January Maple, Tempera, 6” x 9” (p.22) Four Seasons by Kevin Box is located at the entrance to the University of Central Oklahoma’s Center for Transformative Learning.

3

Shooting From the Hip

by Elizabeth Downing

J. Don Cook, Oklahoma City, A Prison Rodeo, Photography. The horse was the real outlaw at this prison rodeo at McAlester.

Six years before there was a huge riot at the penitentiary; half of the prison was burned and several men were killed.

J. Don Cook’s low, rumbling voice belies the firecracker wit, overall worldliness, and sheer energy that sears through the prologue of his book, Shooting From the Hip. You can imagine him fighting his newspaper editors to run the photographs with one foot in the world of art photography. You can just tell, even while admiring the mastery of his work, that he is self-taught and proud of it.

His essays pick up the prologue’s momentum and run with it through subjects like side-

4

p ro f i l e

of-the-road haircuts, the bliss of summer, alcoholism, tattoos, and fiddlers. It is these stories, particularly the prologue, that convinced the editors to publish a book of essays from a well-decorated photographer but essentially uncredentialed writer.

The book is a remarkable confluence of photography, writing, and a life brimming with stories. You know just by listening to him – before even picking up the book - that this man has seen a lot. Through the pages

of Shooting From the Hip, you soon realize that, yes, he has been an observer, but he’s also lived within all of these stories enough to capture their essence with a camera and his wicked sense of timing. And not only has he managed to trap lightning in a bottle with a click of his shutter, but he’s explained it in such a way that makes you appreciate just how fleeting that lightning really was.

Even he admits that it was a hard book to make. Culling photographs from the

J. Don Cook, Oklahoma City, Old Fiddler, Photography. Although he was one hundred years old and all his relatives had died, the farmer still played his fiddle out on the back stoop, one he’d built himself, sixty years before.

thousands he has taken over a lifetime was a difficult task and he said that it could have easily been twice its size. But the same intuition that served him so well as a photojournalist and a desire to show the “subtle beauty of Oklahoma” helped him push through the “byzantine process of publishing.” Although he had an enormous amount of work to choose from, including thousands of photographs from his international assignments and Pulitzer-Prize nominated work, he returned to his home state for this collection of lives.

Cook chose all the photos in Shooting From the Hip but the principal editor helped determine their sequence. Little do you realize that you’re being taken on a journey - the book begins quietly with cowboys and smalltown life, then crescendos towards tragedy with tornado aftermath and shootings. So it’s appropriate that he describes his work, both in this book and beyond, as a “cross section of human life.” You might recognize the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows, as something anyone experiences in the course of a week or a month or a decade of their own life.

He also selected the photos to pair with

essays, which proved to be another challenge since he “wanted to do all of them.” When asked about the fundamental differences between journalistic photography and writing – which seemingly operate at two totally different paces - he said that there is a “certain intuition and reflex in writing, you get into a flow…my best writing came from working that reflex.”

Writing is something he’s done since high school but has sunk his teeth into during the last six years. He’s a poet, essayist, potential novelist, and English major. His first words in print were also accompanied by photographs when he was tasked with laying out a photo page every Sunday when he worked for the Ada newspaper. For him, photos plus words achieve dramatic results in print, no matter his age. He was nominated for a Pulitzer for an essay he wrote about being sent to photograph an accidental drowning of two thirteen year old girls, only to discover that his family knew them. The essay detailed “the experience of having to document the suffering of people I knew.” Any artist privy to a tragedy knows this difficulty, but also knows that those are

the moments that produce authentic and meaningful work.

J. Don Cook strikes me as the kind of person that sits quietly in the corner only to dish out a monumental and shattering nugget of wisdom at a pivotal moment. When he speaks you pay attention because his narrative is shared by us as Oklahomans and everyone as humans. He may have been almost everywhere and seen almost everything but with a few dozen carefully chosen words and images, he manages to capture our interest, teach us something unspoken about Oklahoma (even if we’ve lived here forever), and make us believe that we just might be a part of something, too.

Shooting From the Hip is published by the University of Oklahoma Press and is available at Full Circle Bookstore, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. n Elizabeth Downing is not an art critic, but a photographer of the urban landscape and a technical writer who lives in Tulsa. She can be reached at beth@bethdowning.com.

J. Don Cook, Oklahoma City, Blindfolded

by Bigotry, Photography. To keep their meeting place secret, Klansmen blind-folded an Oklahoman reporter for the interview for a planned rally and cross-burning. The photo was made in southeastern Oklahoma in the eighties.

p ro f i l e

5

6

Explore Nostalgia of Lost Childhood Memories in Trophy Lives

by Sasha Spielman

Creating image upon image on wood canvas, one innovative Oklahoma artist calls his work “constructive paintings.” Collages of text and images with colors painted in juxtaposition welcome the viewer to Nick Bayer’s creative world.

Bayer’s paintings present beautiful diagrams of ideas that collide and captivate. Influenced by art history and pop art, his constructive paintings pop with intrigue, but it is nostalgia that remains the key element in what makes Bayer’s paintings memorable.

In his newest exhibition, cleverly titled Trophy Lives, the painter takes on nostalgic feelings and masterfully explores the human obsession with all things material. The result is an explosive exposé of simple human traits.

“Nostalgia and sentimentality are feelings I try to evoke in viewers, to remind them of a time when life was simple and less complicated,” Bayer said. “My paintings are diagrams of multiple ideas. This is what gives the viewer the ability to create a variety of interpretations, through their interaction with the work.”

In Pride and Joy, a painting of a little boy who stares at the viewer in a green suit, hair slicked back and lips in a tight smile, is reminiscent of times when Sunday clothes weren’t only for Sunday.

Joy Reed Belt, director of JRB Art at The Elms gallery says viewers can identify with Bayer’s work.

“It’s something about how Nick portrays the human body that is kind of like the ‘40s,” Belt said. “The labor movement… when Camel cigarettes were still good for you… it strikes a bond with that.”

Bayer views his work as a portal of the past, present and the future.

He collects multiple ideas and releases them on his canvas allowing the creative freedom to dictate the course of a painting.

“I use a broad range of media, materials, imagery, and text to illustrate my ideas,” Bayer said. “Working in the realm of constructed paintings and collage I’ve found a wide range of creative freedom, as I work both subtractive and additively, my process takes me where it will.”

(above) Nick Bayer, Oklahoma City, Golden Boy, Oil and acrylic collage on paper, 18” x 24” (left) Nick Bayer, Oklahoma City, Wishful Thinking, Oil and acrylic collage on paper, 18” x 24”

The idea of Trophy Lives began when Bayer discovered a trophy from his childhood won for last place. A domino effect, in Bayer’s subconscious, triggered collecting images from popular American culture rewarding competitive behavior.

In one of his works, Bayer paints arms and legs on a trophy to portray the battle between the human vs. the material world.

“Ribbons, medals, trophies, plaques and certificates are held over our heads and drive us to compete,” Bayer said. “No matter how old we are we still try to ‘out do’ one another.”

With Trophy Lives Bayer asks questions but refrains from offering any answers. To him a painting is a silent dialog between the painter and the viewer and words can only take away from the experience of “taking it all in and answering the questions for yourself.” continued to page 8

p ro f i l e 77

continued from page 7

“I am interested in the way different images and ideas relate to or contrast one another,” Bayer said. “It’s a conversation between abstraction and realism, symbolism and sentimentality.”

The exhibition of Bayer’s work will open on July 1, 2011 at JRB Art at The Elms in Oklahoma City. Viewers will see ten constructive paintings and a kinetic sculpture. In some of the paintings, Bayer will include medals and trophies, while in others he will use images significant to the material-driven world. The largest wall piece in Trophy Lives is the kinetic sculpture of an animal head made from reclaimed wood.

Bayer says the animal head is essential to Trophy Lives because it represents the human desire to hunt for more than just means of survival.

“Maybe our urge to compete is a trait from our earlier nomadic days when competition meant survival,” Bayer said. “Now hunting animals is for sport and has nothing to do with survival and everything to do with a head mounted to a wall.”

Bayer’s work provides complex layers of American pop culture images, but beneath that look personal memories are embedded in Trophy Lives. He uses memory as a direct response to present times. For example, the four hour trip to his grandmother’s house that Bayer says he dreaded as a child, today he sees as an opportunity to visit a lost world.

It was on that farm Bayer fell in love with wood and nature, and later in his life he chose cedar to be a vessel for his paintings.

“I use memory as a direct response to modern times,” Bayer said. “I think you can look at the works as being personal on one level, but at the same time dealing with universal themes that most can relate with.”

Bayer is an art advisor at Redlands Community College. For more formation about his work visit: www.nickbayer.com.

8

p ro f i l e

Nick Bayer, Oklahoma City, Trophy Life, Oil and acrylic collage on paper, 18” x 24”

For information about Bayer’s exhibition at JRB Art at The Elms, visit www.jrbartgallery.com. n Sasha Spielman is a freelance writer, who has covered a variety of stories from entertainment to hard news. She currently hosts an online travel show and in her spare time writes for magazines.

1218 N Western Oklahoma City 405.831.2874

U NIVER S IT Y C O L L E G E

O F

O F

CENTRAL

F I N E

A R T S

12

OKLAHOMA A N D

D E S I G N

Alive Alive “Flight” by Christopher Domanski

“Shakespeare” by Gary Lee Price

Where Public Art Comes

“Breath” by David Thummel

For more information, contact Susan Parks at (405) 974-3774 9

The Triumph of E.K. Jeong’s Public Art Project: The Sun On Earth

By Elizabeth T. Burr

The completed Sun on Earth tapestry with the five core weavers: Mary Segal, E.K. Jeong, Cristina Stone, Carol Goyer and Myra Jennings.

Artist E.K. (EunKyung) Jeong is an elegant painter who brings precision and imagination to both her paintings and installations. An Assistant Professor of Art in the faculty of Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU), Jeong is also the Director of Community Arts for the university. It is in this latter capacity that Jeong devised a community–wide public art project to create a tapestry for Weatherford, Oklahoma.

Jeong’s preparation, organization, and participation of this project are a model of how such a project can be executed successfully by a leader in an art community who plans her resources carefully. She received her B.F.A. degree in Fiber Arts from Dong-A University in Korea. It is this combination of her background in Fiber Arts, alongside her role as Director of Community Arts that coalesced into the large tapestry, Sun on Earth, which was completed in the spring of 2011.

The idea of a tapestry being the focus of a public art project with the Weatherford community began to occur to the artist toward the end of 2007. This would be an activity that would satisfy Jeong’s desire to give something back to this community, which she felt had been so welcoming

10

p ro f i l e

to her. It was to be a true group project, with the credit for its success shared by all the participants, rather than just to one artist. Furthermore, it would give Jeong an opportunity to share her expertise in fabric art with students and community volunteers of SWOSU and Weatherford.

To both engage the public to participate in this project, and to teach them about weaving, Jeong began to give free tapestry weaving lessons at the Weatherford Public Library on Saturdays. This was a smart idea, as it drew people who were curious to learn about weaving, and could provide Jeong with a pool from which she could find the volunteers who might help with her project.

Along with her free classes, Jeong began the long process of raising money to help support her idea. Jeong realized that even if she began with small donations, she could find grants that would match these gifts, then further grants that would match those awards. It was a perfect approach in these brutal economic times.

She was encouraged by a colleague to begin her fundraising with the Weatherford Arts Council (WAC). Though financially pinched, they

generously granted Jeong $1,500 towards her community project. This gift from the WAC became the seed money that the artist needed to begin her pyramidal climb. After patient research and grant applications, Jeong received awards from these institutions: Southwestern Oklahoma State University, the City of Weatherford Hotel/Motel Tax, the Oklahoma Arts Council, and the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.

Due to the liberality of these bodies, Jeong felt she had enough financial backing to begin the next phase of the project. She needed to get information about the tapestry out to the Weatherford people, and begin finding volunteers to work with the preparation and the weaving of the tapestry. An article about the project was carried by the local Weatherford Daily News, and she distributed flyers which invited people to come to the SWOSU Art Building to view and comment on the project and possible designs for the tapestry. In these public notices, Jeong also notified the community that she would offer workshops for a small fee to cover the necessary materials.

To open the project up to an even wider audience, and to provide a vehicle for commenting, voting or reacting to the form and subject of the tapestry, Jeong set up a page on Facebook. According to the artist, Facebook was used as a forum for further review of the progress between sessions and as a way to express personal opinions about the design. This kept the design process going in between meetings.

Once enough volunteers had been gathered, the project began to move forward. Jeong referred to the volunteers as a “Focus Group” – and the numbers would vary during the long course of the tapestry’s creation.

The numbers went roughly from four to twenty-five volunteers. Four community volunteers remained constant throughout the project: Carol Goyer, Cristina Stone, Mary Segal and Myra Jennings.

The tapestry was planned to be 7-feet-by-14-feet. Under Jeong’s guidance, the group built a sturdy frame for the tapestry (9-feet-by16-feet). The actual weaving began in July of 2009. During the long course of the concentrated weaving, Jeong continued to teach techniques, holding workshops for the volunteers.

The subject of the tapestry was chosen after lengthy input among the volunteers along with much Facebook discussion. In the end, it was decided on an iconic image of the Oklahoma landscape: a large sun setting in a wide field of green. Bringing her skill and technique to the teaching of the community, Jeong taught the volunteers how to transform the simplicity of their original choice into a painterly landscape. The variations of the colors used for the sun, its reflection and interaction upon the deep blue/purple sky, as well the soft glow radiating away on the rich pastoral green of the field.

The tapestry was completed in the spring of 2011. Sun on Earth is now available for all of us to see, as it makes its triumphal tour around our state. May it continue to inspire a renaissance of public art in Oklahoma, and around our country. n Elizabeth T. Burr has a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Cambridge.

She currently lives in Norman and writes on artists, shows and art techniques on a freelance basis.

(top) The Sun on Earth tapestry in progress. (middle) Volunteers work on the weaving of Sun on Earth under the guidance of E.K. Jeong. (bottom) The completed Sun on Earth tapestry.

p ro f i l e

11

Illuminated: Pure Color at the Oklahoma Heritage Museum

by Jennifer Barron

Carla Perry, Tulsa, Rose Twilight, Oil on canvas, 12” x 16”

Inspired by a French movement that shifted the art world forward and brought together by a painting workshop in Taos, New Mexico, the eleven artists that make up the Oklahoma Society of Impressionists have created art together for over 25 years, and they show no sign of slowing.

This summer, the Oklahoma Heritage Museum in midtown Oklahoma City will host Pure Color, a collection of works by this group of artists. The exhibition will showcase each of the artists in this society as well as serve as a thorough introduction to the plein air method of painting, a particular specialty of the Society of Impressionists. Plein air painting involves working outside in order to capture natural light. Working in this way, these painters hone their craft while paying homage to the traditions of the first Impressionists.

12

p re v i e w

Director Judy Ellison heads the organization, although artists in the Society are scattered between cities from Tulsa and Oklahoma City to Port Townsend, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona. Perhaps seemingly far-flung, “all of our artists have an Oklahoma connection; they live here or were born here,” explains Ellison. With eleven different artists leading their own lives, after the workshop that initially united these artists there were some doubts that the group would remain cohesive.

However, throughout the group’s history, they have not only remained active, but they have hosted an average of two to three group shows each year. The Society’s recent shows have taken place in locations from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Golden, Colorado.

“We show as much as we can,” Ellison says.

“Everyone has their own career, but we’re able to show quite a bit.”

A recent show- Impressions of Oklahomaallowed the group to study some of Oklahoma’s earliest artworks: petroglyphs, cave paintings, and other centuries-old works. Preparation for this show took the group to some of the most remote parts of the state. “I can’t even remember all of the places we went. We really got out there- down in caves. There were snakes crawling over our shoes- it was wild,” Ellison comments. The painters required the assistance of a guide in order to reach some locations. Grant funding from the Oklahoma Arts Council helped them accomplish this body of work and bring information about our state’s history to new audiences.

In Pure Color, the Society goes back to basics and focuses on the art style that first drew these artists together: plein air

painting. As Ellison explains, the painters in this group enjoy this style for the opportunities it offers to observe color and light at its most natural, challenging and dramatic. Recently, the group has held several painting sessions in Tulsa’s new and growing Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden. Ellison says that the group enjoys working with a landscape that is continually developing and evolving: “There’s not much there now, but it will be so beautiful. It’s still so new.”

Also similar to earlier Impressionist painters, this group often chooses still lifes, landscapes, or outdoor social gatherings as subjects. Carla Perry’s Rose Twilight, for example, recalls Renoir’s famous Le Moulin de la Galette in its depiction of a festive evening gathering.

The lanterns in Renoir’s painting are replaced by softly glowing strings of lights, delicately strung over trees and tents as a group of party attendees gather at a table. The effect of these updated details is an instantly familiar scene to a contemporary audience, much as Renoir’s painting must have been for his 19th century viewers. The warmth and color of the string lights feel perfectly expressed, and the sense of an early evening event is vividly evoked. However, in Perry’s piece, the viewer’s point of view is that of an observer to the festivities, rather than a participant, as in Renoir’s. This shift in perspective adds a poignant tension to the otherwise happy scene: a tension that compels a closer look.

Christopher Westfall’s Arches brings a possibly less familiar scene to Oklahoma audiences. The balance and composition of the courtyard suggests a Mediterranean villa or courtyard, and the well-balanced composition calls to mind the Renaissance emphasis on perspective. Looking down an exterior walkway, viewers see a series of stone arches, identical in shape and decreasing in size as they recede. The smallest arch- to the far left of the picture plane- allows both an entrance and an exit for the eye. Long shadows imply morning

Christopher Westfall, Tulsa, Arches, Oil on canvas, 16” x 20”

or afternoon and add drama and dimension to the soft but precise color palette. With no people or signifying details in the painting, viewers are free to wonder if this path leads towards or away from a specific destination, and what that place might be.

These works and many more will be on display when Pure Color opens June 23 with an artist reception. “We are thrilled to display Pure Color in conjunction with the Oklahoma Society of Impressionists,” says Shannon L. Rich, president of the Oklahoma Heritage Museum. “Not only is it the first Impressionism exhibit we will display, it’s also the most artists we’ve ever been able to display at one time.”

The exhibit will run through October 1, showcasing some of the state’s most skilled painters -and even sculptors- all inspired by the Impressionist movement. Works will

be on display in the museum’s Tulsa World Gallery, and several pieces will also be on display and for sale in the museum’s gift shop. Ellison also looks forward to the show, and has some very positive impressions from working with museum staff: “They’ve just been really great to work with.” She takes a moment to reflect on her history with the Oklahoma Society of Impressionists before commenting: “You know, at the beginning everybody said, it will never work,” Ellison states. “But here we are, 25 years later: Still going strong.” n Jennifer Barron is an Oklahoma City based artist and arts administrator who believes firmly in the power of art to enhance lives, build communities and push us forward from our comfort zones.

p re v i e w

13

A Creative Center on the Plains: East Central University Alumni Show

by Allison Meier

For a small school on the Oklahoma plains, East Central University (ECU) in Ada has an impressive legacy of influential alumni artists. This summer, several of these contemporary artists are featured in the first ECU alumni show.

The exhibit includes art by Vance Wingate, Blake Morgan, Mark Hatley and Julie and Ron King. Their work exemplifies the creativity in process and technique fostered

by ECU, where students have a close connection with instructors.

“We put a premium on developing your own artistic style and your own vision,” said Brad Jessop, who teaches painting and art education, and serves as the Director of the School of Fine Arts.

“We tend to attract students who aren’t looking for a traditional schooling,” he said.

“We tend to encourage students to follow their own passion, and that’s been a tradition for a long time here.”

Although ECU was founded in 1909, its art department didn’t take off until the arrival of Columbia University graduate Ida Hoover. She

was joined in the 1930s by fellow Columbia graduate Emma Box, who brought the color theories and teachings of her instructor Hans Hoffman, the abstract expressionist, to ECU. These ideas would go on to influence alumnus and painter Leon Polk Smith. Later in the 20th century, Kenneth Campbell and DJ Lafon joined the art department, and Lafon was its chair from 1964 to 1984. This now long history of quality instruction has led to ECU’s strong reputation in arts education.

“I think the other thing is that Ada is kind of a strange little town,” Jessop said. “In places like New York City, you get a high rate of people bumping into each other that have different ideas, but in a small town that is unusual. But you get that in Ada. You get just enough of that red-neck, for lack of a better word, typical Oklahoman, but you also have the university, and the EPA lab, and a fairly active Native American culture.

Those things blend to create a rich creative environment.”

Out of this creative environment came the almost baroque figurative pieces of Blake Morgan, the tongue-in-cheek humor of Ron King, the complex and nature-inspired

plein air paintings of Mark Hatley and the geometric abstractions of Vance Wingate.

“I had the opportunity to work with some very good professors - Robert Sieg, DJ Lafon and Marc Etier - who showed patience in teaching me how to technically succeed at making artwork,” Wingate said. “DJ was my instructor in printmaking and I also worked a summer job printing some editions for him for a show, which quickly showed the professionalism and attention to detail needed to make professional art. I still refer to this time when teaching or working in a printing shop. Robert, DJ and Marc all encouraged me to follow my plans to go to graduate school and were always supportive of my work. My time at ECU definitely allowed me to set my course to becoming a professional artist and to pursue a life working in the arts.”

Many of the exhibiting artists have gone on to teach at other universities. Wingate is on the faculty at Texas Woman’s University, Ron and Julie King teach at Stephen F. Austin State University, Blake Morgan is at the University of South Carolina and Mark Hatley teaches at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah.

(left) Vance Wingate, Dallas, TX, Composition #30 [8pts.], 2010, Acrylic, color pencil & ink on paper, 22” x 30”

14

p re v i e w

(left) Vance Wingate, Dallas, TX, Composition #28 [12pts.], 2010, Color pencil, graphite & ink on paper, 11” x 15”. (right) Mark Hatley, Ft. Gibson, From a Creekbed, Oil on canvas, 19” x 20”

“I learned what I love about printmaking from DJ Lafon, what was possible and the place of printmaking in the art world, and Bob [Sieg] always was very encouraging for me to follow my dreams,” Wingate said.

Wingate’s current work is created around a set of “rules” he makes at the beginning of each piece. He starts by dividing the physical space he will be using, whether it’s a sheet of paper, canvas or wood, according to the Golden Rule system of division. This results in a grid with various sizes of rectangles and squares that are supplemented with points on the edges determined by being divisions of the overall length and width of the work space. Wingate connects all these points with straight lines, covering the page in a web. Following the structuring, he goes back to the web and picks out four sided shapes that are roughly trapezoids. The “picking” is done by erasing the lines inside each shape and filling them in with ink, paint or graphite. Each decision that leads to the final piece is the result of his responses to the initial structured grid.

Wingate, Hatley and Morgan exhibited from May 14 to June 18, 2011 in another ECU focused show in New York City, that formed by coincidence alongside the Oklahoma exhibit. Red Country Pictures at Benrimon Contemporary was curated by Brad Jessop and Justin Irvin and featured work by eleven artists connected with ECU.

Although the ECU art school used to be in the subbasement of the education building with around 50 students at a time, it recently moved in a beautiful new multi-million dollar complex. However, the art student population is still small at about 90, and they each have direct interaction with the four full-time and three part-time members of the faculty.

“I think back to my experience at ECU with great fondness and pride,” Wingate said. “I use some of my experiences there as basis for my job now, as I am part of an art department that is smaller than most and has the same feel and attention to student need that I found at ECU. It definitely was a good place for me, as I came from a very small town in Oklahoma, where we didn’t have art classes in school and when I went to ECU, I was given every opportunity and support to achieve that I could have asked for.”

The ECU Alumni Show is on exhibit through August 17, 2011 in the Shirley Pogue Art Gallery of the Hallie Brown Ford Fine Arts Center at East Central University. n Allison C. Meier is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. She works in communications at the Cooper Union and has covered visual arts in Oklahoma for several years. She can be reached at allisoncmeier@gmail.com.

“[Benrimon Contemporary] was thinking the same way we were: we’ve done pretty well for a little school,” Jessop said.

p re v i e w

15

The Last Picture Show

by Brian Hearn

Joshua Blevins Peck, Tulsa, Plaza #5, Durant, OK, Hasselblad film negative, 20” x 20”

For the first time in human history, more people live in cities than in rural areas.

This relentless demographic shift toward urbanization has been underway for decades in the United States. Here in Oklahoma the urban/rural dichotomy is an elephant in the room that often comes into relief in the pitched battle for limited resources at the State Capitol. For Joshua Blevins Peck, who grew up in a rural community in northeastern Oklahoma, the small town cinema is an iconic symbol of dignity, delight, decline and ultimately death. Peck’s latest body of photographic work, Dead Cinema, is the

16

p re v i e w

culmination of many years of his obsession with movies, cinema architecture, and photography. He has logged thousands of miles on the back roads of Oklahoma in an archeological search for the once ubiquitous main street movie marquee.

Many of a certain generation can conjure up the image of a glowing marquee from a hometown cinema. For Peck it was the Allred in downtown Pryor. For me it was the Will Rogers on Western Avenue in Oklahoma City. From the 1910s until the ascendance of television in the 1950s, movie theaters were the community living

rooms for entertainment, information and escape from economic depression, world war, and the threat of nuclear catastrophe. The industrial Hollywood studio system boomed in this period churning out motion picture products in black and white, and eventually glorious color. In rural communities and urban neighborhoods the cinema was a magnet for intergenerational social interaction: snot-nosed kids, lusty teens, and well-dressed grownups. Multicolored marquees like the Dream, Esquire, Tallchief, Teepee, Stovall, Okla, and Airline lit up towns across the state for decades. Gradually the lights dimmed as small

(left) Joshua Blevins Peck, Tulsa, Airline #5, Ponca City, OK, Hasselblad film negative, 20” x 20”. (right) Joshua Blevins Peck, Tulsa, Tall Chief #7, Fairfax, OK, Hasselblad film negative, 20” x 20”

town populations dwindled and the movie business changed to meet the onslaught of in-home entertainment. To combat the small screen encroachment the movies grasped for epic proportions, getting bigger and wider.

Car culture led to the novelty of the drive-in, delaying the inevitable.

accentuate its crisp vertical lines while its subtle art deco curves dissolve into a flat blue background. What we don’t see is that it’s now an attorney’s office. At another drive-in we see the rusty geometric support structure for the screen with its dilapidated signage missing letters like a mouth without teeth.

Peck has always loved the theatrical experience of movies but it wasn’t until an extended road trip through the Western states after high school that he started photographing the faded glory of the small town cinema.

Later in college while studying photography, he revisited this subject with a more formal, documentary approach to the decaying architecture that still retained traces of majestic beauty. In one of his recent images a blotchy drive-in movie screen stands resolutely dormant. In the foreground a neat row of large cylindrical hay bales are lined up where cars once parked. Silently they await the next show time that will never come. Durant’s Plaza Theater marquee is tightly cropped to

We often associate documentary photography with an unsentimental point of view. In Dead Cinema Peck chooses to capture these monuments in stark daylight like a movie star minus make up. He devotes considerable planning as to how natural light falls on the structure. Waiting is involved. He prefers to use the same type of color film for his serial photographs, adamantly refusing to manipulate them. Instead he relies solely on the images captured by his trusty Hasselblad. The square format emphasizes the photographer’s abstract compositions; isolated architectural details reveal mysterious hints of obsolescence. Is that a tree growing out of the roof? While

his photographs are inherently indexical, they express an appealing vernacular aesthetic that sets them apart from gazillions of movie theater images in visual culture. As Peck explains in his artist statement, “Dead Cinema is my longing to document an important, lost element of America. By exposing the damage to the theaters by the ravages of time, the misuse of the structures and the sad beauty these theaters still possess, I hope to suggest that we’ve turned our back on something better.” As small town cinemas, along with their celluloid soul, go the way of all flesh, take a moment and remember the majesty of the movie house.

Dead Cinema opens at Tulsa’s Circle Cinema Gallery on September 22. To view more of Peck’s photography, visit blevinsfotografic. tumblr.com. n Brian Hearn is the film curator at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and 2010 Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellow.

p re v i e w

17

Mountainous Expressions Tour de Quartz Encourages State’s Promising Young Artists

by Karen Paul

Amy Erickson, Self-Portrait, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 20”

Described by many students as an experience of a lifetime, the Oklahoma Arts Institute’s summer show presents Oklahoma’s promising young artists opportunities and encouragement for the future. Entitled Tour de Quartz, the exhibit is scheduled July 9–August 31, 2011 at the Leslie Powell Foundation and Gallery in Lawton, Oklahoma. It features 38 paintings and photos created by some of the state’s most talented high school-aged artists.

“The exhibit features one piece from each of the 20 painting and drawing students and one piece from each of the 18 photography students,” said Emily Clinton, Director of Programs for the Oklahoma Arts Institute. “As we assemble the exhibit, we try to select pieces from the students that are cohesive in some way.”

Each piece was created during the 2010 Oklahoma Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain in Southwestern Oklahoma. Quartz Mountain is a unique residency arts program for high school students, sponsored for by the Oklahoma Arts Institute. Through a competitive, statewide application process, only a handful of students are selected for the intense program. Selected students get to spend two weeks working alongside and being mentored by nationally-recognized professional artists.

“I felt so lucky to go,” said painting student Sarah Wright of Stillwater, OK. “I cried when I got the acceptance letter.”

Wright, whose work in Tour de Quartz is an abstracted still life, enjoyed learning how to explore new ways of expressing her artistic ideas.

18

p re v i e w

“At Quartz, you spend six hours a day working on your painting.

It’s such a huge encouragement because you really find out if you can enjoy it or not,” Wright said. “The experience made me want to paint even more. It was phenomenal.”

Wright’s piece, like all artwork from the painting and drawing students in the Tour de Quartz show, was created individually in sessions led by Richard Hull of Chicago, IL. These works are in sharp contrast to the pieces created by the 2010 Quartz Mountain photography students, who collaborated to create a collective piece of artwork comprised of individual pieces from each of the photography students.

Under the guidance of internationally renowned photojournalist and former Quartz Mountain student Paul Taggart, photography students worked together for two weeks to create a comprehensive project, Ten Days In Greer County: a photo exploration of the people, places, and spirit of Greer County, Oklahoma. Taggart personally selected each student’s photograph included in the project.

“We did Richard Avedon-style portraits of the whole town of Mangum,” said photography student Connor Choate of Marietta. “My photo in the show is from a session with the Red Hat ladies.”

For Choate and fellow photography student Kaylee Howerton of Oklahoma City, working on Ten Days In Greer County was an opportunity that they will never forget.

“It was technically a class,” Howerton said, “but it wasn’t really a class. I learned on such a different level at Quartz.”

The Quartz Mountain experience also encouraged Choate to grow as an artist. “Being in the environment really pushes you to grow. Photography has now become such a huge part of my life,” Choate said.

This sense of encouragement, artistic growth and possible opportunities for future success are the foundation of the Oklahoma Arts Institute’s Tour de Quartz show. The Leslie Powell Gallery show will be the last stop for the traveling exhibit. Since September of 2010, the exhibit has previously been shown at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art in Oklahoma City, the Gardiner Art Gallery in Stillwater, the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa and the Lachenmeyer Art Center in Cushing.

Taking the exhibit to locations throughout the state is important to the Arts Institute. Many of the students who are selected for Quartz Mountain are from rural areas of Oklahoma. Their friends and family don’t always have the opportunity or the finances to travel to Quartz Mountain’s exhibit at the end of the two-week residency program. By taking the exhibit to various locations in Oklahoma, students can share their art with their friends and family. The traveling show also encourages students to consider a future career in the arts by showing them what their own exhibition would be like.

“A lot of our visual arts students are from rural areas where they don’t have a lot of tools or encouragement available to help them study the arts after high school,” Clinton said.

“It’s so inspiring to see kids standing next to their artwork during the Tour de Quartz show. They are glowing with pride at what they have accomplished.”

Tour de Quartz also gives students the unique chance to see their artwork displayed in some of the state’s best museums, home to masterpieces by great artists.

“To be graduating high school and to have my work hanging in a museum like the OKCMOA is amazing,” said Howerton.

For Choate, Howerton and Wright, Quartz Mountain has been of the best things to happen to them.

“You meet so many wonderful people,” said Wright. “It really broadens you to the entire world of expression.” n Karen Paul is a freelance writer based in Norman, Okla. Paul, who specializes in arts-based articles, received her Master’s degree from the Gaylord College at the University of Oklahoma.

(top) Connor Choate, Marietta, Red Hat, Color digital photograph, 16” x 20” (middle) Sarah Wright,Stillwater, Three Uncommon Factors, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 20 (bottom) Lucia Concello, Untitled, Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 20”

p re v i e w

19

24 Works on Paper Travels Oklahoma

by Kelsey Karper

Scott Johnson, Holdenville, I remember, Graphite and shellac on paper, 14� x 20�

24 Works on Paper, a travelling exhibition of work by living Oklahoma artists, will open to the public on July 15 from 6-9 pm at the Individual Artists of Oklahoma (IAO) Gallery, 706 W. Sheridan Ave. in Oklahoma City. Produced as a collaboration between Individual Artists of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition (OVAC), the exhibition will then travel the state for a full year, bringing original, contemporary Oklahoman artwork to viewers in communities large and small.

The 24 Works on Paper exhibition features 24 artists from 8 Oklahoma cities. All artworks are created on paper and include media such as printmaking, drawing, painting and photography. The 2011 guest juror is Louise Siddons. Siddons is an Assistant Professor of American, Modern and Contemporary Art at Oklahoma State University. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She was formerly a visiting professor and adjunct curator at Michigan State University and assistant curator of works on paper at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

20

p re v i e w

The exhibition will continue at Individual Artists of Oklahoma (IAO) Gallery through August 5. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, Noon-6 pm. It will then travel to venues across Oklahoma such as the Eleanor Hays Gallery in Tonkawa, Rose State College in Midwest City, East Central University in Ada, Tulsa Artists Coalition in Tulsa, and Leslie Powell Foundation and Gallery in Lawton. More information is available at www.24works.org or at 405-232-6060.

24 Works on Paper is sponsored in part by The Kerr Foundation, Allied Arts, the Oklahoma Arts Council, Istvan Gallery, Red River Photo Services. n Kelsey Karper is Associate Director of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition and a photographer working in historic and alternative processes. Contact her at publications@ovac-ok.org.

24 Works on Paper

A rtists MJ Alexander, Oklahoma City

Narciso Argüelles, Edmond Marilyn Artus, Oklahoma City Sarah Atlee, Oklahoma City Kjelshus Collins, Oklahoma City Bryan Cook, Mustang Sarah Day-Short, Edmond Yiren Gallagher, Tulsa Scott Johnson, Holdenville Michelle Junkin, Edmond Trent Lawson, Oklahoma City Monika Linehan, Lawton Katherine Liontas-Warren, Lawton Jean Longo, Oklahoma City

(top) Cynthia Marcoux, Tulsa, Illustration of the Infinite Monkey Theorem, Colored pencil, 16” x 20” (right) Bryan Cook, Mustang, Kegon no Taki, Photography, 11” x 14”

Rebecca Lowber-Collins, Oklahoma City Cynthia Marcoux, Tulsa Tiffany McKnight, Norman Chad Mount, Oklahoma City Romy Owens, Oklahoma City Laurel Reynolds, Oklahoma City Paul Walsh, Roff Tom Wester, Oklahoma City Betty Wood, Norman May Yang, Tulsa

p re v i e w

21

Oklahoma Art in Public Places: Bringing the Global to the Local

by Tiffany Barber

Completed in 2008, the Heritage Bridge was designed by Steven Weitzman of Creative Form Liners, Inc.

Early Egyptian, Greek, and other civilizations used public art in the form of elaborate tombs and large-scale figurative sculpture to commemorate the life and death of prominent members of society. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance promoted public art in the form of monumental sculpture and architectural ornamentation as a way to assert the power of the church and the aristocracy. Following European models, public art in the United States began as monuments, memorials and building adornments that reinforced the power structure along with public space beautification projects. Public art has since evolved into a critical contemporary dialogue around the politics of site, identity, memory and place where terms like community and public are consistently contested and debated.

In 2004, noted public art administrator Barbara Goldstein published what would soon become the go-to survival guide for managing a public art program. In Public Art by the Book, Goldstein offers practical information on public art planning, funding, and governance. Most importantly, Goldstein describes the history of public art in the United States and how ‘art in public places’ programs gained legitimacy and government funding. Comprehensive, federally sponsored art programs in the United States began with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), thereby legitimizing government-sponsored public art.

22

f e a t u re

Next, 1950s Philadelphia passed a pioneering percent-for-art-legislation that mandated “one percent of the city’s public construction funds be set aside for commissioning artwork for the aesthetic enhancement of buildings.”

This legislation launched a movement and other cities and private developers across the nation soon established their own percent-forart ordinances.

OAIPP: A Brief History Oklahoma’s Art in Public Places (OAIPP) program participates in a long history of public art programs across the United States and abroad. Shortly before Barbara Goldstein’s Public Art by the Book went to print, Oklahoma State Governor Brad Henry signed into law Senate Bill 1347, “State of Oklahoma: Art in Public Places Act.” The bill supported artwork in, on, or near new state buildings or those with major renovation projects and mandated that 1.5 percent of the design, construction, or renovation budgets of state-owned public buildings were earmarked for public art.

These project budgets start at $250,000 and cannot exceed $500,000. OAIPP project funds are deducted from the construction budgets for capital projects, which means Oklahoma taxpayers do not directly fund the program.

If every Oklahoma taxpayer did pay directly for the costs of OAIPP, the maximum amount per taxpayer per year would be less than a dollar. In March 2011, the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted to suspend the Oklahoma

Art in Public Places Act for three years.

Oklahoma lawmakers, many of whom voted to pass the Oklahoma Art in Public Places Act in 2004, proposed the moratorium to help prevent an increasing state budget deficit. However, according to fiscal analysis, because OAIPP funding is sourced through bond issuances and not state appropriations, suspending the program will not directly impact the state’s General Revenue Fund or other sources of state finances.

Two revolving funds were created by the 2004 Oklahoma Art in Public Places Act: the Commissioning of Art in Public Places Revolving Fund (80 percent of the project assessment) and the Art in Public Places Administrative and Maintenance Revolving Fund (20 percent of the assessment). The Administrative and Maintenance Fund is equally divided into two sub-accounts – one for maintenance and repair of project artworks and one for administrative and education purposes. OAIPP maintains and preserves each artwork commissioned under the program.

OAIPP: Process City, county and state agencies and departments coordinate with OAIPP to administer project fund allocations, develop a Request For Qualifications (RFQ), and to integrate art into construction projects. In order to judiciously approach the complexities of commissioning artworks for public and civic

spaces, most percent-for-art programs employ a process of collaboration as well as an emphasis on site-specificity and community engagement.

Accordingly, a committee comprised of the architects who designed the building along with individuals who work in the building, live in the community or near the building chooses the artwork for each OAIPP project site. Artists working in diverse media whose work has the potential to translate well to sculpture, painting, mosaic tile, murals, photography, or unique architectural ornamentation are encouraged to apply for OAIPP projects. The resulting artwork may be freestanding or integrated into the architecture.

OAIPP: Projects Oklahoma Art in Public Places is committed to creating opportunities for local artists as well as bringing internationally renowned artists and artworks to Oklahoma. Since 2004, 12 projects have been completed and as of this writing there are 50 active projects across the state. Since 2009, OAIPP has launched a mentorship program with the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, hosted a series of Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Network webbased seminars for artists including the first public art workshop for Native American artists, and created lesson plans for Oklahoma teachers to share Oklahoma’s state history through public art.

In 2005, Oklahoma Art in Public Places initiated its first project with the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. This partnership resulted in Heritage Bridge, an aesthetic enhancement project for the Turner Turnpike and State Highway 102 interchange. Heritage Bridge was lead designed

by Steven Weitzman of Creative Form Liners, Inc. and used detailed high-relief fiberglass liners to cast the emblem from the Oklahoma State flag onto the bridge overpass. Heritage Bridge won the 2009 Pharaoh Award honoring its exceptional quality and workmanship, and aided in OAIPP receiving the 2010 OKC Beautiful Distinguished Service Visionary Award for Highway Beautification.

One of OAIPP’s latest projects was installed at the entrance to the University of Central Oklahoma’s Center for Transformative Learning.

New Mexico-based sculptor Kevin Box’s Four Seasons consists of two large clusters of separate but related earthen-colored leaves made out of brass and stone blocks. The changing leaves mirror the lives of the students who are transformed through their education at UCO. The sculpture also resembles a gateway, symbolically shepherding students from one phase of their education to their next endeavor.

Beyond Percent For Art An interest in the intersection between art, public space, and everyday life reaches far beyond the percent-for-art movement. Artists like Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy and other land artists of the 1960s and ‘70s built their practices using natural materials from the site as their medium. Smithson’s Spiral Jetty in Utah’s Great Salt Lake is one of the most iconic examples of these earthworks. During the same time, artist Allan Kaprow blurred the lines between art and life with his oeuvre of Environments, Happenings, and Activities, and performance art as well as a shift toward site-specific, publicly sited work took hold. In the 1970s, conceptual artists expanded the focus around art in the public

Four Seasons by Kevin Box is located at the entrance to the University of Central Oklahoma’s Center for Transformative Learning.

realm by employing interventionist strategies and tactics to highlight world affairs, politics, and global injustices. Over the last two decades, contemporary performance artists like William Pope.L, Coco Fusco, Nao Bustamente, Francis Alÿs and others have extended their studio practice into the public sphere as a platform for interrogating preconceptions around hegemonic narratives, difference, and the discourse of globalism.

Also, artists such as Alexander Calder and Richard Serra were commissioned to take monumental sculptures out of the studio and into public squares and plazas. These artworks, evoking the heroism and awe of older civic monuments while simultaneously igniting debates around federally funded art in civic space, became the branded markers of modern cities. Oklahoma Art in Public Places responds directly to this practice of working with artists and government agencies to enrich the urban cityscape through public art. OAIPP focuses on increasing quality of life; encouraging economic development; stimulating tourism; providing an educational experience outside of traditional museums; reflecting Oklahoma’s state history; and creating a legacy for the future.

To learn more about Oklahoma Art in Public Places, visit www.okpublicart.org. n Tiffany Barber is a freelance writer and organizer living in Oklahoma City. Her visual art reviews and feature articles have been published in Beautiful/Decay, THE Magazine Los Angeles, Public Art Review, Art Focus and online publications for ForYourArt and Evil Monito Magazine.

f e a t u re

23

Tulsa Arts & Humanities Council Hardesty Arts Center

ON THE

By Holly Wall

The Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa broke ground on its Hardesty Arts Center (to be casually referred to as AHHA and pronounced “aha”), formerly called the Visual Arts Center, on May 24. The center is expected to be open in the fall of 2012.

The groundbreaking follows a decade of planning and four years of fundraising and false starts. When the project was formally announced in December of 2007, AHCT planned to rehabilitate the Mathews Warehouse in downtown Tulsa’s Brady Arts District into an artist-driven arts center with gallery space, studios and classrooms.

Originally, AHCT planned to open the center in the fall of 2008. Housed in the Mathews Warehouse, it would have been two stories high and 40,000 square feet, with about 9,000 of that dedicated gallery space. It would have been a place for AHCT to host its community outreach programs, such as Harwelden Institute and Artists-inthe-Schools, and it would have also hosted artists in residence, with visiting regional and national artists working with the local community to create exhibitions.

Most of what would have been still will be.

The primary difference between the project that was planned in 2007 — and the decade leading up to that year — and what will open in the fall of 2012 is the location. The programming, which will utilize visiting artists to interact with artists, adults and children, will remain the same.

“We’re developing programming right now, but the core of it is the visiting artists,” AHHA Director Kathy McRuiz said. “One of the things that we’ve seen that is a very good model of this is where an artist comes in for an extended period of time and really

24

f e a t u re

A project nearly 15 years in the making is finally under way in downtown Tulsa. gets involved in the community and the exhibition winds up being a joint project (between the artist and the community).”

AHCT had a 99-year lease with the City of Tulsa on the west half of the Mathews Warehouse. But when the powers-that-be decided to seek historic tax credits to help fund the property‘s redevelopment, the location was nixed. Requirements for the center contradicted those for the tax credits, and Selser Schaefer Architects, the local architecture firm working on the project, was forced to scrap its original plans and come up with a new design for a new building.

The George Kaiser Family Foundation, which owns the east half of the Mathews Warehouse and plans to use it to house the Eugene B. Adkins collection of art, jointly owned by Philbrook Museum of Art and the University of Oklahoma’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in Norman, funded the center’s redesign in September of 2010.

Plans for the west end of the Mathews building have not yet been released.

After AHCT raised the $13 million it needed to begin construction on the facility, it was ready to break ground. The Hardesty Family Foundation was the project’s primary funder and, thus, its namesake. Roughly $5 million more is still needed to outfit the space with equipment and pay for the programming.

community studio and a learning studio.

“The learning and community studios are where we anticipate a lot of work done with the visiting artists will be,” McRuiz said. “We’ll be recruiting artists whose artwork is involved with the community on many levels. So they can use this space to develop their exhibitions and interact with the community as part of that exhibition. So these are pretty raw, fun spaces that can be transformed while working with the artists and with the community.”

There will also be places for AHCT and other organizations to host lectures, children’s classes and activities, workshops and adult classes, especially those associated with the visiting artists. The second floor will have loft gallery space that overlooks the firstfloor gallery, a reference library stocked with computers and books, a children’s and family studio, a wood shop, and program offices, storage and conference office space for member organizations.

“Member organizations are organizations that are working on getting their 501(c)3 (tax exemption status) and don’t have space of their own,” McRuiz said. “They can use the facility as their own. It’s kind of a build on what we’ve been doing for many years, only now they have a space to work in. It’s something that was needed.”

Construction is happening at the corner of Archer Street and Boston Avenue, which was the parking lot for the Mathews Warehouse.

The two buildings will be separated by a sculpture garden and outdoor event space.

The third floor will house an outdoor studio and event area; 2D, 3D and 4D studios; a media lab; a photography suite; and a toxic spray room for artists using especially volatile materials. The 4D lab is intended for printmaking and surface design artists and projects.

AHHA will be four stories tall and more than 42,000 square feet. The first floor will house gallery space, administrative offices, a

“The concept behind it is to have connectivity with our media lab,” McRuiz said. “A lot of artists do their designs on computers, and

they’re translated to a printing press or a loom or whatever. We want to be absolutely nonrestrictive on their ability to do that as much as possible.”

The third floor will also have an open studio and event space that can be used for lectures and other events and that may also be used as a social space for artists and art enthusiasts.

“One of the impendence for having this … is the conversation that goes on between artists of all ages, where, when an artist graduates from a university and they want to make a living as an artist, where do they go?” McRuiz said. “Where do they talk to other artists? Where do they mentor with artists who are already working as professional artists?

This will be a place to gather and have those sorts of discussions.”

The fourth floor will be reserved for member artists only, with seven studios, six of which will be open to local artists at affordable lease rates — about $125 a month — and the seventh reserved for the visiting artists; a commons area; a kitchen; and an outdoor studio.

The original plans for the Mathews Warehouse included living space for visiting artists, but that space was not included in AHHA’s design.

AHCT is looking for off-campus space in the Brady Arts District that it may transform into living space, both for AHHA’s artists in residence and to share with other arts organizations.

AHHA is seeking members now. For $50, artists of all media and genres — including musicians, dancers, actors and art enthusiasts, in addition to visual artists — can secure a membership to AHHA that includes activities in the 15 months leading up to the center’s opening, as well as one year of membership once the place opens. The funds raised from this membership drive will be used to buy equipment and supplies for the classrooms.

“Artists have said they want to see something concrete for their contribution, and that’s the goal: to put equipment in the classrooms,” McRuiz said.

Not just this aspect of the center has been artist-driven; the entire project has. It was conceived because local artists expressed to AHCT a need for more gallery space available for exhibiting their artwork, as well as a need for affordable studio space. When it opens, AHHA will house the largest amount of gallery space in Tulsa.

Artists have also been involved in the planning of the center over the past four years. For more than a year, local artists met regularly with AHCT to discuss the project’s progress and provide their input.

McRuiz said AHCT is still seeking that input.

“We love ideas,” she said. “Now’s the time to come to me. I can’t emphasize that enough. We’ve been listening to artists all along, and we’re still listening.”

They listened to local artist Geoffrey Hicks when he expressed a desire to create a project centered on AHHA’s construction.

During the 15 months the facility is being built, Hicks will film a short video — an original ballet production choreographed by Megan

Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa Selser Schaefer Architects

PERSPECTIVE VIEWS VISUAL ARTS CENTER

McCowan Miller and shot in the same spot within the center during various phases of construction.

“The project is about (AHHA) as a building and as a piece of art in and of itself and how its development and its construction are a pivotal point in the arts in Tulsa,” Hicks said.

The building will be a character in Hicks’ ballet film, which will last about eight to 10 minutes. Hicks plans to shoot the ballet in its entirety every time he’s on premises and edit the videos together to show the building’s transformation.

“The film isn’t really a narrative, but it’s kind of about change and transformation and the struggle of going through a change,” he said.

Don Emrick, a local photographer, will also be on site while Hicks is shooting his project to take photos of the construction process for archival purposes.

The fact that two artists are using the facility already — and it hasn’t even been built yet — is proof to both Hicks and McRuiz that local artists have needed this facility and will utilize it once it’s constructed.

“I think it shows a lot of good will on the part of the Arts & Humanities Council to take a step to do this,” Hicks said. “It’s real gutsy of them to bring this project forward.

“Bringing in outside artists is always very valuable to an arts community,” he said. “It’s good to know what’s going on outside our region or our community and get perspective from outside artists and cultures. It’s probably the most important thing (AHCT) could do, to bring in people from outside the community to work with artists and students and to work with and expand their culture of art.” n Holly Wall has been covering the arts in Tulsa for three years. She writes weekly art columns for Urban Tulsa Weekly and monthly for the Tulsa Performing Arts Center’s Intermission magazine.

f e a t u re

25

At a Glance

Jalisa Haggins, Norman, Stereotype: Watermelon, black and white photographs from 35mm film, 8” x 10”

Jalisa Haggins likes watermelon, but not that much

by Heather Read

Photography students at the University of Oklahoma’s School of Art and Art History showcased their recent work in a disappointingly brief exhibit entitled SilverShots at the Lightwell Gallery on the OU campus. This was not your typical student art show. Their art, mostly black and white photographs, displays a level of compositional sophistication common to an earlier generation of photographer. The work of one young artist in particular, Jalisa Haggins, stands out from those of her peers.

In her series of three 35mm photographs, Stereotype: Watermelon, Haggins appears in varying states of joyful ecstasy as she devours a slice of watermelon against a stark white backdrop. Her laughs and shrieks of pleasure are almost audible to the viewer, and yet she remains steadfastly oblivious to the presence of the camera, absorbed as she is in the simultaneous act of possessing and enjoying the fruit she holds in her hands so provocatively. The photographs in Stereotype: Watermelon function like a low-profile shadow box: Haggins’ body has been cut out from the photograph, slightly elevated and then glued to the same spot. Dramatic lighting creates a shadow of her loosely-textured, unkempt afro upon the backdrop; the silhouette of her hair dominates the area beyond her left shoulder and leaves a featureless void to her right.

The viewer’s belief in the sincerity of Haggins’ expression of euphoria-induced detachment diminishes exponentially once the complexity of the composition becomes clearer. She is 26

at a glance

detached from her original context but still a part of it, aware and yet isolated, all at once. She ogles, teases and flirts with the watermelon, and in so doing she ridicules this long-held stereotype with good-natured sarcasm, as if she’s saying: “C’mon now. Watermelon? Seriously?”

Haggins’ speaks of the figure in Stereotype: Watermelon as a role, a character to play. She jokes, “I like watermelon, but not that much!” In that respect, her work could be said to emulate the performative aspect of Cindy Sherman’s photographs, in addition to Kara Walker’s historical consciousness. Like Walker, Haggins seeks to confront issues of identity with her art. Haggins describes her work as destroying racial stereotypes by reinforcing their ridiculousness with the visual image. Haggins is young and idealistic, to be sure, but if these few pieces are an indication of things to come, I think we’re in for a treat.

Jalisa Haggins is a New Media sophomore at OU’s School of Art and Art History. SilverShots ran March 8-14, 2011. n Heather Read is a freelance writer out of Norman, where she teaches art history at the University of Oklahoma.

Ask a Creativity Coach:

by Romney Nesbitt

Dear Romney, I have creative projects that aren’t getting done and I know why-- I ruminate. I work in a high-stress office. When something negative happens at work I replay the scene in my mind all evening. I even try to figure out what I will do and say when the next drama arises. My brain won’t let things go! Any tips to help me clear my mind?

Signed, Ruminate

Dear Ruminate, In psychological circles this type of mental activity is called Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs). ANTs are depressing, negative thoughts that seem to generate and replicate at will. The solution is called “thought stopping.” The first step to solve your “pest” problem is to recognize the ANT. Step two is to kill the ANT and regain control of your thoughts. I see two ANTs ruining your creative picnic.

Historical Re-enactor ANTs: Thoughts stuck on negative events from the past. The past could be what happened today at work or what happened decades ago. Imagine an ant dressed in a Civil War era uniform in a re-enactment of a battle. This ant revels in reliving past events.

The basic strategy to kill ANTs is to notice that your thoughts have shifted from positive productive thinking to rumination or fear-based thinking. Stop that thought by telling yourself the truth.

There are several other types of ANTs outlined in Dr. Daniel G. Amen’s book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. n Romney Nesbitt is a Creativity Coach and author of Secrets From a Creativity Coach. She welcomes your comments and questions. Book her to speak to your group through OVAC’s ARTiculate Speakers Bureau. You can contact her at Romneynesbitt@gmail.com.

How to kill this ANT: Yell “STOP! This present moment is mine not yours!” The truth is no amount of rethinking can undo what’s done so don’t hand over another minute to the ANT. Do what you intended to do before the ANT marched in.

Fortune Teller ANTs: These thoughts center on trying to predict what will happen next at work, in relationships, world events etc. Visualize an ant wearing a fortune teller’s turban peering into a crystal ball.

How to kill this ANT: Remind yourself that you cannot know what the future will bring. If you could predict the future you would have already won the lottery! Show the fortune teller ANT the door by telling yourself, “Yeah, life is unpredictable, but I have the skills and confidence to handle whatever comes my way tomorrow.”

business of art

27

OVAC Round Up

We will miss our first Volunteer and Office Coordinator Sarah McElroy, who is heading to Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA this summer to earn a Masters in art therapy. Since Sarah arrived in 2008, OVAC’s volunteer program has grown as she added the Volunteer of the Month recognition, OVAC LI (Leadership Institute) and better communications. Less visible, Sarah also streamlined OVAC’s financial systems, saving us time and making it easier for us to complete three voluntary audits cleanly. Best of luck, Sarah. You better stay in touch and thanks for all your hard work!

Thank you Lauren and Elisha for interning with OVAC during your spring semester. Elisha Gallegos is a budding artist who currently attends Oklahoma City University, majoring in Fine Arts. We loved working with her positive attitude. Elisha helped build the spring Momentum: Art Doesn’t Stand Still exhibition and also had work accepted in the show. Lauren Kubier is also an artist who attends the University of Central Oklahoma, majoring in Studio Art. Lauren assisted the staff on many research tasks and detailed projects. Both continue to be involved and volunteer throughout the Oklahoma arts community. Thank you both for being such dependable, hard workers!

Recent OVAC grant recipients include Creative Projects Grants to Narciso Argüelles, Edmond; Paul Bagley, Oklahoma City; Jan Eckardt Butler, Tulsa; Eyakem Gulilat, Norman; Carol 28

ovac news

JULY | AUGUST 2011

Beesley, Norman; Karra Duncan, Tulsa; and Angela Piehl, Stillwater; a Community Arts Partnership Grant to Allison Clemans of Guymon; Professional Basics Grants to JP Morrison, Bixby; and Kate Rivers, Ada; and Education Assistance Grants to Brenda Dewald, Dover; Charleen Weidell, Luther; Mark Zimmerman, Edmond; Robi Parker, Broken Arrow; and Bonnie Amspacher, Norman.

Thank you to our hardworking Grants Committee who reviewed (and funded) a record number of grants this year: Susan Beaty, Joey Frisillo, Pat Gallagher, Gail Sloop and Chair Debby Williams. You can read profiles of many of the recipients on the OVAC blog, www.ovac.blogspot.com.

Upcoming deadlines are July 15 and October 15.

OVAC is hosting its second annual OVAC LI (Leadership Institute) for active volunteers and committee members on July 23. If you are serving OVAC as a volunteer or want to get more involved, this afternoon event will be for you. Contact the Volunteer/Office Coordinator for more information: 405-879-2400 or office@ ovac-ok.org. OVAC programs run with the outstanding energy, ideas, and work of about 300 volunteers!

Art People

The new Oklahomans for the Arts launched in May to formally advocate for public funding for arts, culture and arts education in Oklahoma.

Founding board members are Jim Tolbert II and Kym Koch Thompson of Oklahoma City and Linda Frazier of Tulsa. Jennifer James, an Oklahoma City-based PR practitioner and registered lobbyist will coordinate the group’s efforts. A full roll-out will occur at the Oklahoma Arts Conference October 26-27, Tulsa. Learn more at www.oklahomansforthearts.org.

Louisa McCune-Elmore was named Executive Director of the Kirkpatrick Foundation in late April. She follows Susan McCalmont, who retired after nineteen years as executive director.

McCune-Elmore, a native of Enid, Oklahoma, served as editor in chief at Oklahoma Today magazine for 13 years. Since its inception, the foundation has distributed more than $58 million to nearly eight hundred non-profits, including OVAC, helping to establish and finance such organizations as the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Science Museum Oklahoma, the Oklahoma City Zoo, Ballet Oklahoma, and the Lyric Theater. Welcome Louisa.

McCalmont has been named President of Creative Oklahoma, a statewide non-profit organization that promotes creativity and innovation in commerce, culture, and education. Susan, thank you for your leadership through the Kirkpatrick Foundation and congratulations on this next chapter. n

Thank you to our New and Renewing Members from March and April 2011 Denise Alexander Bonnie Amspacher Margaret Aycock Sally Bachman Curtis Baldinger Keith Ball and Marti Jourden Marc Barker Rex Barrett Jennifer Barron Andrew Boatman Morgan Bomhoff Bryan Boone Linda Bosteels Sam Botkin Patricia R Bradley Barbara Broadwell and Charleen Weidell Sharon Burchett Josh Buss and Sherry Ray Jan Eckardt Butler John Campbell Jean Artman Campbell Claudia Carroll Angela Castro Chris Christenberry Josh T. Cleveland Candace Coker Kjelshus Collins

J. Don Cook Stephen Cortes John L. Cox Cynthia Curry Gayle Curry Janet Damron Genni Davis Kay Deardorff Cathy Deuschle Rebecca Dierickx-Taylor Steve and Maggie Dixon Anke Dodson Konrad Eek Douglas Shaw Elder Sarah Engel Janene Evard Les and Carolyn Farris Carolyn Faseler Darlene Garmaker Ghost Roger Gibson Joseph Gierek Fine Art Jenny Gipson Donna Graves Leanne Gross Grace Grothaus Brenda Kennedy Grummer Sue Hale

Pat Harris Virginia Harrison Megan Hawkins Carla Hefley Jamie Henderson Tony Hennigh Beverly Herndon Linda Hiller Jonathan Hils Gayla S.A. Hollis Dirk Hooper Bethany Howe Kathy Hoyt Jane Iverson Barbara Jacques Frankie Jaime Robert James Didier Jegaden Dan and Renee Jones Michael Jones Andrew Kershen Kate Kettner Nathan Guilford and Julia J. Kirt Stephen and Christina Kovash Paul Lacy Suzy Langford

Lindsey Larremore Leslie Lienau Katherine Liontas-Warren Cedar Marie Dru Marseilles Bobby C. Martin Cindy Mason Sarah McElroy Elwyn McMindes Susan Karlin Meador Bekah Mercer Cindy Miller Thomas Mills Chad Mount Glenda Cook Mullins John Matthew Murray Bob Naramore Tom Nesthus David Nunneley Dustin Oswald Jacklyn Patterson Ben Pendleton Courtney Peters Jackie Porter Patty S. Porter Ann Powell Zachary Presley Chris Ramsay

Suzanne King Randall Jim Roaix Kate Roddy Cathy J. Rowten Roger Runge Glenda Skinner-Noble Jo Smith Stephen Smith Laurie Spencer Eric Spiegel Julia Swearingen Patrick Synar Ryan Tiehen Jim and Beth Tolbert Leigh Tomlin Tom R. Toperzer Thomas Tucker Kathy Vargas Mark Waits Sarah Warmker Bill Westcott Kierston White Susannah White Kimberly Wolfinbarger Betty Wood Jenny Woodruff Elia Woods Eric Wright

COMING JULY 2011!

MAIN SITE CONTEMPORARY ART HOME OF THE NORMAN ARTS COUNCIL

INFO AT WWW.NORMANARTS.ORG ovac news

29

Gallery Listings & Exhibition Schedule

Ada

El Reno

Alumni Show Through August 12 Paul Heaston August 17- September 30 The Pogue Gallery Hallie Brown Ford Fine Arts Center 900 Centennial Plaza (580) 559-5353 ecok.edu

6 Annual Faculty and Staff Show: Nick Bayer, Denise Wynia-Wedel, Tim Rose, Larry Clements, and Andrew Davis Through July 29 Back to Basic: Marvin Gould August 11- September 24 Redlands Community College (405) 262-2552 redlandscc.edu

Ardmore

Native American Exhibition July 1-August 25 Jimmy Dodson August 30- October 15 Ed Freeman: Photographs from his book Desert Reality August 30 The Goddard Center 401 First Avenue SW (580) 226-0909 goddardcenter.org

Bartlesville Once Upon an Island: Twin Towers Rising Through September 11 Price Tower Arts Center 510 Dewey Ave. (918) 336-4949 pricetower.org

Chickasha Selections from the Charles and Margot Nesbitt Collection Through August 5 University of Sciences and Arts of Oklahoma Gallery-Davis Hall 1806 17th Street (405) 574-1344 usao.edu/ gallery/

Durham Red Hills and Longhorn Cattle: Kate McDaniel Through August 31 Metcalfe Museum Rt. 1 Box 25 (580) 655-4467 metcalfemuseum.org

30

gallery guide

th

Lawton Kim Camp, Oklahoma Arts Institute July 9 The Leslie Powell Foundation and Gallery 620 D Avenue (580) 357-9526 lpgallery.org

Norman FAC Faculty Art Show July 1- August 1 Firehouse Art Center 444 South Flood (405) 329-4523 normanfirehouse.com Selections from Permanent Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art 555 Elm Ave. (405) 325-4938 ou.edu/fjjma

Oklahoma City Kolbe Roper July 1-30 Tony Westlund August 5-30 aka gallery 3001 Paseo (405) 606-2522 akagallery.net

Can You See Me Now: Photos Made on Phones July 29- October 1 [ArtSpace] at Untitled 1 NE 3rd St. (405) 815-9995 artspaceatuntitled.org Voices of Vivarais by Tessa Traeger Through August 27 Jen Stark’s Tunnel Vision Through August 27 City Arts Center 3000 General Pershing Blvd.

(405) 951-0000 cityartscenter.org Moses White Opens July 8 Tiffany Edwards and Josh Heilaman Opens August 12 DNA Galleries 1705 B NW 16th (405) 371-2460 dnagalleries.com George Oswalt and Nick Bayer July 1-30 Emerging Glass August 5- 27 JRB Art at the Elms 2810 North Walker (405) 528-6336 jrbartgallery.com Pure Color: Oklahoma Society of Impressionists Through October 1 Gaylord-Pickens Oklahoma Heritage Museum 1400 Classen Dr. (405) 235-4458 oklahomaheritage.com

Edge Art Now Through July 9 24 Works on Paper July 15- August 5 Individual Artists of Oklahoma 706 W Sheridan (405) 232-6060 iaogallery.org Marvin Lee, Scott Henderson, Bobby Lee, Jordan Barcus and the Teen Advisory Board of the OKC Arts Council Through July 31 Jesse Whittle, Brittany Rudolf, Trish McCain and Billy Reid August 12- October 30 Istvan Gallery at Urban Art 1218 N. Western Ave. (405) 831-2874 istvangallery.com Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition Through August 7 The Bowie Knife: Icon of American Character Through November 20 National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum 1700 NE 63rd (405) 478-2250 nationalcowboymuseum.org Amy Blakemore: Photographs 1988-2008 Through July 10 1934: A New Deal for Artists Through August 21 Passages: Experience the Bible Like Never Before Through October 16 Oklahoma City Museum of Art 415 Couch Drive (405) 236-3100 okcmoa.com

Park Hill Cherokee National Female Seminary Exhibition Through August 7 Legends at Dusk: An Evening in the Ancient Village Through August 20 16th Annual Cherokee Homecoming Art Show August 13- October 2 Cherokee National Historical Society, Inc. 21192 S. Keeler Drive (918) 456-6007 cherokeeheritage.org

Ponca City Art Center Collection August 21- September 18 Ponca City Art Center 819 East Central (580) 765-9746 poncacityartcenter.com

Shawnee Wherever You Go: Maps from the Permanent Collection July 8- August 21 Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art 1900 West Macarthur (405) 878-5300 mgmoa.org

Stillwater Tour de Quartz Through July 9 Oklahoma State University Gardiner Art Gallery 108 Bartlett Center for Visual Arts (405) 744-5767

Tulsa Rendezvous 2011 Through July 10 America: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Nation Through January 2 Gilcrease Museum 1400 Gilcrease Road (918) 596-2700 gilcrease.org

Art 365 July 1- 22 Reception July 8, 5-8 O Tulsa August 5-25 Living Artspace 307 E. Brady (918) 585-1234 livingarts.org Scott French, Brian Koch and Gwen Wong Through July 31 Paul Rhymer: Wildlife Bronze Artist Demonstration on July 30, 1-5 July 30- August 31 Lovetts Gallery 6528 E 51st St (918) 664-4732 lovettsgallery.com

Precious Possessions: The Art of the Portrait Miniature Through July 3 The Philbrook Museum of Art 2727 South Rockford Road (918) 749-7941 Philbrook.org Long Hot Summer July 7- August 23 Pearl Gallery 1201 E 3rd St (918) 588-1500 Tulsa Taboo July Audra Urquhart: Touching Transcendence: Ubiquity and the Sphere August Tulsa Artists Coalition Gallery 9 East Brady (918) 592-0041 tacgallery.org

Become a member of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition! Join today to begin enjoying the benefits of membership, including a subscription to Art Focus Oklahoma.

Sustaining $250 -Listing on signage at events -Invitation to private reception with visiting curators -All of below

Patron $100 -Acknowledgement in the Resource Guide and Art Focus Oklahoma -Copy of each OVAC exhibition catalog -All of below

Family $55 -Same benefits as Individual for two people in household

Individual $35 -Subscription to Art Focus Oklahoma -Inclusion in online Virtual Gallery -Monthly e-newsletter of visual art events statewide -Monthly e-newsletter of opportunities for artists -Receive all mailed OVAC call for entries and invitations -Artist entry fees waived for OVAC sponsored exhibitions -Listing in Annual Resource Guide and Member Directory -Copy of Annual Resource Guide and Member Directory -Access to “Members Only” area on OVAC website -Up to 50% discount on Artist Survival Kit workshops -Invitation to Annual Meeting

Student $20 -Valid student ID required. Same benefits as Individual level.

Audra Urquhart, Yellowstone, 2007, Oils on Canvas, 40 x 30, on display in August at TAC Gallery in Tulsa.

Finding Tulsa: Photography

by Carl Logan August 24- September 25 Tulsa Performing Arts Center Gallery Third and Cincinnati (918) 596-2368 tulsapac.com

GET INVOLVED

MEMBER FORM ¨ Sustaining

¨ Patron

¨ Family

¨ Individual

¨ Student

Name Street Address City, State, Zip Email Website Credit card (MC or Visa Only) Credit card #

Exp. Date

Are you an artist? Y N Medium?____________________________________________ Would you like to be included in the Membership Directory? Y N Would you like us to share your information for other arts-related events?

Y

N

Comments:

Detach and mail form along with payment to: OVAC, 730 W. Wilshire Blvd, Suite 104, Oklahoma City, OK 73116 Or join online at www.ovac-ok.org

ArtOFocus k l a h o m a Annual Subscriptions to Art Focus Oklahoma are free with membership to the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition.

730 W. Wilshire Blvd, Suite 104 Oklahoma City, OK 73116

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

The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition supports visual artists living and working in Oklahoma and promotes public interest in the arts.

Visit www.ovac-ok.org to learn more.

U pcoming Events July 1-22: Art 365 Exhibit, Tulsa July 8: Art 365 Reception, Tulsa July 14: Arts Environmental

Impact ECO Program, OKC July 15: 24 Works on Paper

Reception, OKC July 15: OVAC Grants for Artists

Deadline

July George Oswalt Nick Bayer Opening Reception: FRIDAY, JULY 1 6 - 10 P.M.

August Cutting Edge Glass Opening Reception: FRIDAY, AUGUST 5 6 - 10 P.M.

Gallery Hours: Mon - Sat 10 am - 6 pm Sun 1 pm - 5 pm

2810 North Walker Phone: 405.528.6336 www.jrbartgallery.com

JRB

ART

AT THE ELMS