Art Focus Oklahoma Fall 2018 by Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition

Art Focus

O k l aho m a V i s ual A r ts C oal i t i on

Ok l a h o m a Vo l u m e 3 3 N o . 4

| Fall 2018

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October 5 - November 25, 2018

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Art Focus

Ok l a h o m a Vo l u m e 3 3 N o . 4

| Fall 2018

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TÜNDE DARVAY: Whisperings by Cassidy Petrazzi

Make Way for Dell Marie Hamilton’s Blues\Blank\Black by Gay Pasley

10 Summer of Fiber in OKC by Mandy Messina

14 T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America by W. Jackson Rushing III

F e a t u re s 18 Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowship and Student Awards of Excellence by Renee Montgomery

21 ART GROUP: Thriving Collectively by Carleigh Foutch

24 EKPHRASIS: Art & Poetry edited by Liz Blood ON THE COVER: T. C. Cannon (1946–1978, Caddo/Kiowa), Buffalo Medicine Keeper, about 1974. Acrylic and oil on canvas. Buffalo Bill Center of the West, William E. Weiss Memorial Fund Purchase, 8.02. © 2017 Estate of T. C. Cannon. page 14

26 OVAC News 28 Gallery Guide

TOP: Tünde Darvay, Ja Lisa, 2016, mixed media on canvas and wood frame. page 12 BOTTOM: Devin Howell, Under The Ceiba, oil on canvas, 18x24, 2017. Part of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowship and Student Awards of Excellence recipients. page 16

Support from: Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition 730 W. Wilshire Blvd., Suite 104, Oklahoma City, OK 73116. PHONE: 405.879.2400 WEB: ovac-ok.org Editor: Krystle Brewer, director@ovac-ok.org Art Director: Anne Richardson, speccreative@gmail.com Art Focus Oklahoma 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: 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 Anonymous letters will not be published.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.

2018-2019 Board of Directors: President: John Marshall, OKC; Vice President: Douglas Sorocco, OKC; Treasurer: Dean Wyatt, Owasso; Secretary: Laura Massenat, OKC; Parliamentarian: Jake Yunker, OKC; Susie Marsh Agee, Pauls Valley; Marjorie Atwood, Tulsa; Bob Curtis, OKC; Gina Ellis, OKC; Jon Fisher, OKC; Barbara Gabel, OKC; Susan Green, Tulsa; Travis Mason, OKC; Diane Salamon, Tulsa; Chris Winland, OKC 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. © 2018, Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition. All rights reserved. View the online archive at ArtFocusOklahoma.org.

TÃ¼nde Darvay, House Turned Inside Out, 2018, mixed media on recycled wood

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TÜNDE DARVAY: Whisperings by Cassidy Petrazzi

Romanian-born artist Tünde Darvay is known for her intricately painted artworks awash with colorful references to daily life. Human figures typically populate her kaleidoscopic paintings along with birds, houses, bees, plants, and objects typically found in the home. Darvay’s upcoming exhibition, Whisperings, at Oklahoma State University’s Gardiner Art Gallery, set to open in January of 2019, will feature her multimedia paintings that center on both mythological themes and everyday life. Darvay was born in 1977 in the historic region of Transylvania in central Romania. The region, known locally as “the land beyond the forest,” is recognized for the grand beauty of the Carpathian mountain range, pristine rural landscapes, Saxon medieval citadels, and its tradition of folklore: think Dracula. Educated at the University of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Darvay earned her Bachelor of Fine Art in 2003, focusing on monumental and religious painting. Darvay and her husband moved to Oklahoma in 2004. After a period of settling into her new surroundings, her work addressed the similarities and differences between American and Transylvanian culture. Much of the work she made while living in Oklahoma City incorporated new sights from her life in America, such as the iconic yellow school bus, while also depicting familiar elements from her birthplace, like the colorfully painted houses of rural Transylvania. The artist’s work has often been compared to the paintings of the early modernist painter, Marc Chagall whose work centered on Eastern European and Jewish folk culture. His paintings were dominated by brightly colored, soaring figures situated in fantastic environments. Indeed, there is a definite stylistic relationship to the evocative, vibrant, and sculpturally painted works of Chagall or other Fauvist artists, such as André Derain and Alice Bailly, and Darvay’s work. Conceptually, however, her work speaks to moments of our lives that stay with us, the experiences and small details of everyday life that are etched into our memory. The shape of a special water pitcher that one’s grandmother used, how a line of drying

clothing moves in the wind, the chipped layers of paint in a living room that speak to a home’s history, or the flower print on a skirt of a close friend, are the particulars that flood our memory when we think of home. Artworks such as House Turned Inside Out, 2018 and Girl with the Dandelion Skirt, 2018, show such moments. Both works are effervescent expressions of simple interactions with the things that decorate our homes and bodies. House Turned Inside Out, depicts a woman situated in a teardrop interior space,

Tünde Darvay, Girl with the Dandelion Skirt, 2018, mixed media on wood

surrounded by birds, buttons, and boiling pots of tea or stew cooking away on the stove. Darvay’s technique of layering paint, India ink, and found objects, helps to convey the feeling of a house turned upside down and inside out, encrusted and filled with objects, smells, and animals, that bring about a joyous and welcomed chaos. Girl with the Dandelion Skirt, 2018 is a more grounded composition with the female subject’s left foot firmly planted on the ground. While she is rooted, her right foot reaches up toward the sky revealing a naked limb just freed from its boot. Her bright yellow, textured skirt, embellished with a bird in its center, provides a burst of color to the indigo background that she is placed within. A simple stitch-work like pattern surrounds the blue ground, referencing a handmade article of clothing or something mended by hand. Everything is connected in these paintings, the color of the skirt makes

its way onto the subject’s hands, which radiate with a brilliant intensity. The small bird on her clothing seems to be communicating with another bird near the girl’s foot, their eyes looking up and down at one another. Her skin, a vivid turquoise with glowing auburn and buttery cheeks, blends seamlessly into the background she is found in. Darvay selected the title Whisperings for her upcoming exhibition as the works selected represent the soft and quiet moments of the artist’s life that have maintained their relevance and meaning. The artist suggests that the title can be interpreted as “the whispering voices of memories from the past, the soft murmurs of impressions in the present, and as the dreamy visions of the future.” Now back in her native Transylvania, in addition to her painting practice, Darvay’s energy has turned to book illustration, contributing to children’s books and a contemporary collection of surrealist Hungarian poetry. Of this she has said, “I feel like children’s books are close to my heart because of their intriguing fantasy world, their playfulness, and the richness of their imagination. Surrealist poetry is also appealing to my style because it suggests an overstepping of boundaries in a dream world.” We can hope to see some examples of these recent works in her upcoming exhibition alongside her multimedia paintings that welcome us in with their warmth. Whisperings opens at Oklahoma State University’s Gardiner Art Gallery in Stillwater, OK, on January 16, 2019 and runs through February 14, 2019. The opening reception will take place on February 7th at 5:00 pm with an artist lecture at 6:00 pm. A workshop at the Prairie Arts Center in downtown Stillwater is scheduled for February 8th from 10:00 am -2:00 pm. n Cassidy Petrazzi is a master’s student in the Department of Art History at Oklahoma State University. She is a curator, writer, and producer, who lives with her husband and dachshund in Stillwater, OK. You can email her at cassidy.petrazzi@gmail.com.

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Make Room for Dell Marie Hamilton’s Blues\Blank\Black by Gay Pasley

Blues\Blank\Black performance by Dell Marie Hamilton at Living Arts of Tulsa, Photo by Destiny Green

Make room! This is a live performance. Make room! This is a moving performance. The audience parts like the Red Sea and Dell Marie Hamilton dawns a blue gown and transforms into a torchy blues singer as she soulfully sings: God bless the child Them that’s got shall have Them that’s not shall lose So the Bible said and it still is news Mama may have, Papa may have But God bless the child that’s got his own That’s got his own

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Hamilton’s fluid brown eyes penetrate the audience as she transforms into revenants. She conjures the pain of the black female protagonists in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and The Bluest Eye. The audience remains transfixed. Sethe, who bears a tree shaped scar on her back from the whippings she received as a slave, is unwilling to allow her children to experience the trauma that she has endured. She murders her newborn infant and is haunted by her daughter’s ghost. The audience becomes witness to the pain of Pecola, a dark-skinned girl who is victimized and humiliated because of her skin. Pregnant with her father’s child, the character becomes obsessed with whiteness. It is both black and white. The audience as onlookers to the artist’s performance must ask themselves if

they are the community that mocks Pecola to make themselves feel beautiful. It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different. -The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison I traveled from Oklahoma City to my hometown of North Tulsa, Oklahoma to participate in Living Arts of Tulsa’s Juneteenth celebration. Living Arts presents and develops critically engaged, contemporary art and is located at 307 East M.B. Brady Street. The street’s original namesake was Wyatt Tate Brady, a central character in Tulsa’s founding and a member of the KKK who participated in the race massacre of 1921. This is widely considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the history of the United States. The attack which was carried out on the ground and by air, destroying more than 35 blocks of the district, at the time the wealthiest black community in the U.S. The name Brady was a constant reminder to Tulsa residents of the racism that led to the 1921 riot that demolished Black Wall Street and left an estimated three hundred black residents dead.

Blues\Blank\Black performance by Dell Marie Hamilton at Living Arts of Tulsa, Photo by Destiny Green

In 2013, the Tulsa City Council in a 7-1 vote, agreed to change the name from Brady Street to M.B. Brady after Mathew B. Brady, a 19th century photographer best known for his images of the American Civil War. This was a compromise however; Hamilton’s opening performance at the Juneteenth celebration was not. Hamilton’s performance of Blues\Blank\Black was a precursor to Living Arts’ Juneteeth: A Celebration in Words and Rhythm. The artist’s live art performance is an investigation into the socially constructed and relentless nature of violence and its impact on intergenerational memory. Blues\Blank\Black conflates fiction, folklore, live art, and persona through gesture, color, repetition, and remix to examine trauma and spectatorship. Hamilton transfigures into La Sucia and LaLorna, scorned folkloric characters. As she traverses fiction and fact, Living Arts becomes an echo chamber for the countless names of black and brown women murdered by state-sanctioned police violence and/or police incompetence. Sandra Bland, Sandra Bland, Sandra Bland Rekia Boyd, Rekia Boyd, Rekia Boyd Korryn Gaines, Korryn Gaines, Korryn Gaines And so many more. Hamilton says that she will continue to say their names until there are no more. I spoke with the Artist about her process.

GP: At some point in your performance I felt you give me permission to collaborate and create with you. Our spirits connected and I sensed you say tell your story, tell our stories. I had never experienced anything like it. Tell me, how are you able to navigate the art world as a woman of color? DH: I make art because it gives me a way to exist. The art world is much like politics: figure out your allies and then adapt accordingly. I think what has helped me is that I do not view artmaking and the art world as one in the same. I will also say that I’ve been very fortunate because I’ve had access to the work of four brilliant black women artists and scholars: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Deborah Willis, Carrie Mae Weems, and Cheryl Finley. Their individual voices have had a crucial impact on me. GP: What did it mean to you to perform Blues\Blank\Black, a piece that is specific about the black/brown female experience during Juneteenth on Greenwood, the place in which the Tulsa race massacre happened? DH: Performing in memoriam of Juneteenth and the Greenwood Massacre was incredibly daunting. I made it a point to arrive in Tulsa a few days early so that I could get a better feel for things. In hindsight, I understand that I just barely scratched the surface. Especially since being from the Northeast, these subjects as well as Native American history are topics that were not shared with me during any stage of my formal education. What I will also say is that it reminded me that there are touchstones and ghosts that I will never completely understand but that will haunt me nevertheless. (continued to page 8)

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University (located about an hour north of Boston). Right now, the focus is on a series called Punta: Pregunta. (Punta refers to the popular dance developed by the Garifuna communities of Central America. And pregunta means question.) Through the use of the body as gesture, paint, expressive color, and found materials, I think of this work as an investigation of familial memory that references the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the cosmos, the ocean, Gray’s Anatomy, forecasts, and popular culture. As I completed the interview with Hamilton, I reflected on a quote by John W. Franklin in a long-lost manuscript that contained eyewitness accounts of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 which, much like Hamilton’s performance, haunts me.

Blues\Blank\Black performance by Dell Marie Hamilton at Living Arts of Tulsa, Photo by Destiny Green

GP: Please expand more on the folklore that is depicted in your performance piece. Specifically, La Sucia and La Llorona and how they intersect with Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved and the names of the black and brown women murdered by state sanctioned police violence and incompetence. DH: Since my familial roots are in both the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking worlds, what I am doing in my practice is figuring out how to merge both of these contexts in a way that enables me to forge my memories into an artistic vocabulary that is personally meaningful. Also, again, because I am interested in the lives of women both real and fictional, what I’m trying to do in this performance is to articulate the various ways that modern society imposes its expectations upon us. Whether I am referencing La Sucia, La Llorona, Pecola, Sethe, or Sandra Bland, each of their experiences have been profoundly changed by the men in their lives. Men who have absolutely no business being in the roles that they have carved out for themselves. GP: What is the one central question that

drives your performance in Blues\Blank\Black?

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DH: As with much of my work, my practice is rooted in my love of the printed word as well as in the communal traditions of storytelling. The relationship between language, body, and image has been of interest to me since I was a very young girl. I’m also heavily invested in the struggles and triumphs of women of color (cisgender, hetero, queer, and trans). I was raised in a highly matriarchal family and I am surrounded by friends who have recounted their lives to me. I want to know how they survive and thrive in the context of historical trauma as well as contemporary trauma as it relates to everyday racism and structural oppression. Their experiences are what I draw strength from. GP: What contributions do you feel your performance piece offers to society as a whole? DH: While it’s not clear to me how art can “heal the world,” what I do know is that art can provide us with a framework for reflection and remembrance. GP: What are you working on next? DH: I am busy in the studio prepping for my first solo show in January 2019 at Salem State

White mobs looted the homes and businesses before they set fire to the community. For years black women would see white women walking down the street in their jewelry and snatch it off. John W. Franklin Hamilton’s parting of the sea performance of Blues\Blank\Black was a snatching back of all that is valuable in our collective trauma. She inhabited a space that bears the memory of our continued compromise and spoke to our collective and continuing pain. Dell Marie Hamilton did that. n Gay Pasley’s photography and writing seek to capture the under-reported experiences and challenges of what it is to be a working-class woman of color.

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The Community Quilt Station at Once Old Is New, with Pixelated Gaillardia Flower (Shirlene Davis, Ann White Derrick, Eva Cromer, Lisa Luse, Susan Patterson, Trish Maxwell), 2018 in background

Summer of Fiber in OKC by Mandy Messina

Oklahoma City truly experienced a “Summer of Fiber” as not one, but two fiber-art group exhibitions, Once Old is New at [Artspace] at Untitled and FiberWorks at Individual Artists of Oklahoma, opened downtown. The differences between them demonstrate the critical role the revival of fiber art could play for the Oklahoma arts community: crosspollinating established and emerging artists by combining technical skills and experience, with new, contemporary ideas. One of the most successful elements of the exhibition, Once Old Is New, by the Oklahoma City Modern Quilters Guild (OKCMQG) was the emphasis on collaboration. The exhibition was organized by, and featured work from members of the guild. An interactive element at the entrance encouraged visitors to create a fabric square for contribution to the community quilt. It was a clever recruitment strategy for an addictive practice that, like most fiber arts, initially appears prohibitively technical.

collectively organize a group exhibition, or to individually apply to open calls, such as FiberWorks. These juried, open call exhibitions form an essential base for various art scenes precisely because it attracts artists who may have never exhibited before, and exposes their work to exhibition organizers and the viewing public. First inaugurated in 1978, FiberWorks was set at the tail-end of the Second Wave of Feminism. Critical issues of equality in both the workplace and the domestic sphere were being challenged (Ex. sexual harassment, domestic violence, and marital rape). This was also a crucial time for visual-art discourse. One important critique of male dominated art institutions, was the exclusion of art practices

limited to women for a substantial period: fiber art. The current revival of fiber art on the global art scene makes sense. We’re back on our feet after a crippling recession and it’s been an unprecedented political season, with brutal consequences for a nation founded on principles of (now illegal) immigration. With that in history in mind, and considering the open call model as one that exposes emerging artists, the 40th anniversary of the annual FiberWorks exhibition, hosted by the group Fiber Artists of Oklahoma (FAO), felt too familiar. Well established artist names dominated this exhibition and the lack of opinionated new voices was noticeable. The juror evaluated work on technical skill, because (continued to page 10)

Suzanne Thomas, Lady Sarah, 2018 (FiberWorks 2018)

The guilds’ six large-scale, collaboratively made quilts, with titles such as Arachne’s Dilemma (by Cameron Potter, Kathy Gunter Davis, Sarah Atlee, and Vicki Medlin) were well placed on [Artspace] at Untitled’s large gallery walls. Two dozen smaller, individual works were exhibited towards the gallery interior. Nested Geese (by Beth Furnish, Brenda Esslinger, Mandy Suellentrop, and Trina Kubicki) featured a modern colour palette of concentric triangles, stacked to create an abstraction - one that could be the changing flight pattern of a wedge of geese. The traditional quilting block pattern on which the piece is based, Flying Geese, is thought to have been used for coded communication to slaves escaping on the Underground Railway. A reminder to follow the geese as they fly north in the spring. That group structure - meeting to make art together, exchange ideas, and plan group exhibitions - is an ideal model for emerging artists to customize to their needs. For recent graduates and self-taught artists, the most crucial destination for work-in-progress should be a group of peers. Once final pieces consolidate, the next step would be to either

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Marilyn Artus, Ada, Kate, Aloyius, Jeane, Wilma, Anita and Clara Called It Home, 2018 (FiberWorks, 2018)

merit was concentrated in the impeccably executed materials. The subject matter was safe: nature scenes, abstractions, abstractions of nature. Timid concepts, in a tumultuous period of American life, tells us that the majority of artists were either not experiencing that same zeitgeist, or chose not to portray it. To be fair, the intention of this exhibition might not have been to present fresh artists or reflective, contemporary ideas. However, considering the distinct talent of Oklahoman artists, it felt like a missed opportunity for both FiberWorks as an exhibition, and for upand-coming Oklahoma artists. The most memorable works were subtle in their subversion. Suzanne Thomas’ Lady Sarah featured a canvas layered in white lace, the embroidered figure of a Victorian noblewoman at the center, whose blackness confronts the viewer just as directly as her gaze. Mary Volturo reinterpreted art history classics as cross-stitched pillow covers. These decorative art-objects cheekily commented on the type of buyers whose requirement of art, is whether it will look good above (or in this case, on) their couch. Fiber Arts of Oklahoma (FAO) has done a commendable job of tenaciously recruiting submissions from Oklahoma fiber artists year after year, going on four decades.

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Perhaps the only suggestion for improving future iterations, is to diversify the selection jury to include not only an expert on technical skills, but also someone knowledgeable of current conceptual developments in our region. On the flip side, emerging artists unaware of fiber arts, should seriously consider its benefits to their practice: 1. It’s cheap 2. It’s communally viable: a) It’s easier to set up a skillshare group as it doesn’t require expensive equipment or materials. b) It doesn’t even have to be local - communities have formed around Youtube tutorial channels covering everything from macramé to macabre human-hair lace-making. 3. It’s highly portable. Carry your studio in a tote bag and pull out work with friends coffee shops or in between jobs. Fiber art has a long history and one that becomes politically radicalized with each revival. The hope is that established and emerging artists take advantage of the collaborative nature of the medium, as a space of exchange that could further develop Oklahoma’s art community as well as our impact as a potential regional leader. n

Mandy Messina is an artist and educator from South Africa living in Oklahoma City. They have received support from artist residencies including Elsewhere: A Living Museum (NC), The Wassaic Project (NY), ACRE (IL) and Vermont Studio Center (VT). They are a contributor to The Coastal Post, profiling emerging artists in the Southern and MidWestern states. Their current body of work focuses on the power of fiction as an access point.

TOP: Beth Furnish, Brenda Esslinger, Mandy Suellentrop and Trina Kubicki, Nested Geese, 2018, from the Once Old is New exhibition, 2018 BELOW: Mary Volturo, (Bottom Left) Frida; (Back/Center) Sunday In The Park; (Right) Picasso, 2018, from the FiberWorks exhibition, 2018

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T.C. CANNON: At the Edge of America by W. Jackson Rushing III

T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America, an ambitious and rewarding retrospective organized at the Peabody Essex Museum by Karen Kramer, is now on view at the Gilcrease Museum through October 7. A Kiowa-Caddo Indian, Cannon (1946-1978), whose prophetic indigenous name, Pai-doung-a-day, meant “One Who Stands in the Sun,” was from rural Oklahoma. A handsome, bookish intellectual, had he been White, Hollywood would have already made a film about his dizzying rise to international fame as an artist and tragic youthful death (which he always predicted) in a car crash near Santa Fe at age thirty-one. At fourteen, Cannon was making watercolors after the legendary Kiowa Six. Like them, he attended St. Patrick’s Mission School

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in Anadarko (“Indian City USA”) and by age sixteen he was exhibiting at the Oklahoma Indian Arts and Crafts Center there. But after high school, from 1964-66 Cannon was a scholarship student at the new, progressive Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, where his teachers, including Fritz Scholder (Luiseño), introduced him to modernist expressionisms and the New Realism as well. Almost instantaneously, Cannon ceased being an Oklahoma Indian Regionalist and became instead a country cosmopolitan who synthesized an astonishing assortment of literary, musical, and artistic influences. By the mid-sixties he had forsaken “Indian style” pictures; instead, he often represented Native figures in a modernist parlance, many of whom confront the audience directly.

LEFT: T. C. Cannon (1946–1978, Caddo/Kiowa), Big Soldier, 1971. Linocut. Collection of Michael and Kathryn Lord. © 2017 Estate of T. C. Cannon. Photo by Addison Doty. MIDDLE: (1946–1978, Caddo/Kiowa), On Drinkin’ Beer in Vietnam in 1967, posthumous edition, about 1988–89. Hand-painted etching (after 1971 drawing). Collection of Irene Castle McLaughlin. © 2017 Estate of T. C. Cannon. Photo by Allison White. RIGHT: (1946–1978, Caddo/Kiowa), His Hair Flows Like a River, 1973. Oil on canvas. Anne Aberbach+ Family, Paradise Valley, Arizona. © 2017 Estate of T. C. Cannon. Photo by Thosh Collins.

Such works were not always well received by Oklahoma audiences for “traditional” Indian painting. Indeed, curators I consulted affirmed my sense that Cannon has long been held in higher esteem in the art worlds beyond Oklahoma. All the more reason to welcome the current exhibition, which cogently identifies the sources for, and then tracks the evolution of, Cannon’s Civil Rights era pan-Indian political consciousness that prompted him to use “the visual language of the oppressors to reveal indigenous persistence in the face of continued marginalization” (Kramer, p. 34). And about time, too: it’s been twenty eight years since the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City presented T.C. Cannon—Native American, A New View of the West in 1990. A singer-songwriter in the folk tradition, Cannon was inspired by Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan (whose image he represented numerous times), both of whom are now institutionalized in Tulsa. The exhibition includes examples of his poems and music, as well as a deeply moving song commissioned from and performed by the inimitable Choctaw artist Samantha Crain. (continued to page 16)

ABOVE: T. C. Cannon (1946–1978, Caddo/Kiowa), Two Guns Arikara, 1974–77. Acrylic and oil on canvas. Anne Aberbach + Family, Paradise Valley, Arizona. © 2017 Estate of T. C. Cannon. Photo by Thosh Collins.

1 T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America, Ed., Karen Kramer (Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, 2018). 2 The Heard Museum in Phoenix is also circulating a traveling exhibition in 2018 titled Of Gods and Mortal Men: Masterworks by T.C. Cannon from the Nancy and Richard Block Collection.

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paintings both large and small, mushroom clouds are a frequent iconographic element, embodying the universality of holocausts.

T. C. Cannon (1946–1978, Caddo/Kiowa), Cloud Madonna, 1975. Acrylic on canvas. Collection of Charles and Karen Miller Nearburg, promised gift to the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Dartmouth, New Hampshire, © 2017 Estate of T. C. Cannon.

The catalog establishes Cannon as a seeker, whose artistic yearnings responded to a zeitgeist shaped by the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the American Indian Movement, Pop art, existentialism, and Beat Culture. Only the Kiowa warrior tradition explains why such a sensitive alt-culture creative type would have enlisted in the U.S. Army for three years, where he survived the Tet Offensive, earning two Bronze Stars and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry. He returned stateside conflicted, disillusioned, and perhaps suffering from PTSD, proud of being a Kiowa warrior (see his Big Soldier, a linocut from 1971) but bitter about what he recognized as America’s imperial intervention in Southeast Asia. Several works of art and poems testify to his anguish and ambivalence, including a hand painted etching, On Drinking Beer in Vietnam in 1967 (1971), and a ghoulish ink on paper drawing, Untitled [T.C. with Skeleton] (1975). In drawings and

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After his discharge, from 1970-74 he earned his art degree at what is now the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond and smack in the middle, 1972, he and his former teacher at IAIA were featured in a two-person exhibition at what is now the Smithsonian American Art Museum: Two American Painters: Fritz Scholder and T.C. Cannon, which traveled internationally. Numerous opportunities and accolades followed, including a residency at Dartmouth College in 1975 and a solo exhibition in 1976 at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe.

Surprises abound in the show: several of the most exciting works are early experimental ones, such as Untitled [Drawing], a large (75.6 x 167 cm) assertive drawing done with ink and chalk on paper in 1965 that fuses painterly gestures with New Realist imagery and stenciled words and number referring to Route 66. Somber, brooding, and almost wildly dynamic, its powerful forms conjure up a mystery train plunging across the Southern Plains in the darkling night. Revelations of Standing Sun—a riff on his own name—from 1966 also depends on scale (128.9 x 174 cm.), which is activated by bold, bravura brushwork. Slashed and slathered downward from a high horizon line, strokes of differing density, velocity, color, and value reify human and solar energy, while the lower register is a cool gray—empty and quiet, save a few New York School flecks and drips. The breathtaking core of the show is twenty large, compelling, acrylic figure paintings from the 1970s that demonstrate

irrefutably that Cannon was a masterful colorist and one of the most significant American painters of the 20th century. His Self-Portrait in the Studio (1975) captures a performance readymade for the movie set: the manspreading heartthrob rodeo dandy is cool and indifferent behind his mirror shades, even as he clutches a fistful of paintbrushes (signs of the phallus) by his crotch. In fact, he was notably shy. Many of his signature-style works are based on historic photographs that allow Cannon to reinscribe warriors, sun dancers, ritual priests, and fecund earth mothers such that their voices might be heard, loud and clear. His Indian figures brandish weapons and stare sullenly or with icy reserve, as in Two Guns Arikara (1974-77). They squint not just at the blinding sun but also in shocked disbelief at the genocidal conditions in which they find themselves (Beef Issue at Fort Sill, 1973). These indigenous agents are staged—whether indoors or out— within and against decorative patterns inspired by Art Nouveau and Op and Pop art and their scarves are luscious flourishes of psychedelia, as in the magical His Hair Flows Like a River (1973) or the miraculous Cloud Madonna (1975). The theatrical grand finale is Epochs in Plains History: Mother Earth, Father Sun, the Children Themselves (1976-77), made on commission for the Daybreak Star Indian Center in Seattle. Rendered on a heroic scale (243.8 x 670.6 cm.) Cannon’s ecstatic vision sweeps across time and place, implying that antiquity and the present are continuous and coeval. The mural speaks its truth as a painting of the 1970s, even as it positions itself in a continuum that includes rock art, pictorial calendars painted on hide, ledger book drawings, and the Kiowa Six. T. C. Cannon: At the Edge of America honors the enduring legacy of an American cultural hero and its installation at The Gilcrease is a most welcome homecoming. n W. Jackson Rushing III is Eugene B. Adkins Presidential Professor of Art History at the University of Oklahoma, where he holds the Carver Chair in Native American Art. He can be reached at jackson_rushing@ou.edu.

JESS T. DUGAN - Every Breath We Drew Exhibition September 27 - October 25, 2018

REVEAL 709 S Boston Ave. Tulsa, OK 74119 • 918.584.4701

“Reveal” is a new contemporary art exhibition located in downtown Tulsa, featuring the work of ceramic artist Whitney Forsyth. Experience over 7,000 intricate organic ceramic shapes arranged in “mandalas” and suspended amidst the striking neo-Gothic architecture of the First Presbyterian Church. On display November, 2018-February, 2019. Open house Friday, November 2 from 5-8 pm artist talk, live music, refreshments, and more

Learn more at atriumart.org

Every Breath We Drew explores the power of identity, desire, and connection through self-portraiture and photographs of other people. Working within the framework of queer experience and from an actively constructed sense of masculinity, Dugan’s portraits examine the intersection between private, individual identity and the search for intimate connection with others. Dugan received her MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago, her Master of Liberal Arts in Museum Studies from Harvard University, and her BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Artist lecture (5-6 PM), closing reception (6-7 PM) October 25 in the Jerri Jones Lecture Hall, PH 211

YING LI - Elements Exhibition November 1 - December 13, 2018 Elements is an exhibition of paintings by Ying Li that capture nature and the contemporary urban landscape, in both its toughness and vulnerability, and transmit all of its energy to the canvas. The pieces in the show convey a mood and memory as well as expressing a particular sense of place and time. Li studied painting at Anhui Teachers University where she also taught. She received a MFA from Parsons School of Design. Li is currently a Professor of Fine Arts and the Department Chair at Haverford College. Artist Lecture (5-6 PM), reception (6-7 PM) November 1 in the Jerri Jones Lecture Hall, PH 211 Follow Us! For more information, visit www.cas.utulsa/edu/art/ or call 918.631.2739 • TU is an EEO/AA institution

Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowship & Student Awards of Excellence by Renee Montgomery

The Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowship and the Student Award of Excellence are awarded each year to artists with outstanding vision, selected by a guest curator. This year, curator Mark Scala, Chief Curator of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, selected the four recipients: Devin Howell (Tulsa) and Audrey Wells (Tulsa) for the Student Awards of Excellence and Ginna Dowling (Norman) and Jordan Vinyard (Mustang) for the Oklahoma Visual Arts Fellowships. In addition to cash stipends ($500 and $5,000 respectively) to be utilized at the artists’ discretion, the Fellowships and Awards provide important encouragement and visibility. This year’s recipients illustrate the contrasting and sophisticated points of view of Oklahoma’s emerging and established artists. Student Award of Excellence recipient Devin Howell uses family memory as a prompt in her narrative oil and acrylic paintings. With a BA in anthropology, Howell first worked with skeletal collections until the cumbersomeness of The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) rulings led her to switch to studio art. Never having taken an art class before, Howell was encouraged by her friends to enter a continuing education course with Mark Lewis at The University of Tulsa where she is now in the third year of the MFA program. A first-generation Cuban-American, Howell became interested in translating her grandfather’s stories about Cuban protests and concentration camp incarcerations into paintings. From there, Howell expanded to shared experiences and recollections from other family members, as well as her own childhood in South Florida, in her paintings coined “visual biographies.” Not close to her family members like a traditional Latin family, according to Howell, she must reconstruct some elements of her work: “Accessing my dad’s memories as well as my own posit an interesting problem;

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Devin Howell, Machete, oil on canvas, 18X24, 2017

I can only gain entry to them by way of invention, resulting in a semi-fictional image. The canvas acts as a container for me; I play with composing and filling the surface with dynamic figures in a pictorial space. The slippery nature of the facts surrounding the narrative allow for distortion- a pushing and pulling of the figure in space.” Howell describes her style as increasingly difficult to categorize but uses the phrase “naturalistic expressionism” to describe the work and currently works on a large 5-foot to 7-foot scale. As key influences, Howell cites artists Marsden Harley, Max Beckman, Philip Guston, and Dana Schutz. Howell was also the recipient of the Albert Schweitzer scholastic fellowship from The University of Tulsa. After graduation, she plans to apply for residencies. She will be teaching a foundations class at the University next year. The second Student Award of Excellence recipient, Audrey Wells, creates hand-built ceramic sculptures based on natural forms

and the human body. Going into her senior year at The University of Tulsa, Wells derives inspiration from raw, organic shapes and movement (Wells is a long-time dancer). In her work, she attempts to represent the metamorphosis of forms. For instance, in her series In Motion, she captures the movement in a woman’s back and abdomen as the figure turns. These thin sculptures subtly trace a woman’s body like delicate sheathes. “The interaction of the clay medium and the organic in an object’s ability to shape its environment is what I look to capture through my hand-building process. With ceramics, you become a producer of things and essentially an inducer to metamorphosis,” Wells explains. “With the hand-building technique I can really express myself, do so many things with the media,” she says, citing Jeff Walls’s approach to the clay medium as a major inspiration. Her delicate use of stoneware and sometimes-glazed porcelain conveys a sophisticated sensitivity to the textual effects of nature. Often looking back at art historical traditions for inspiration, Wells’ study

LEFT: Audrey Wells, (left) In Motion 1, Porcelain, 18 x 13, 2018 (and right), In Motion 2, Porcelain, 15 x 2, 2018 BELOW: Jordan Vinyard, Couch Potatoes Eat Ones and Zeros, silicone, actuators, electronics, microcontrollers, video, monitor, dimensions variable, 2018

abroad in Florence last year further refined her appreciation of the human forms and passion for ceramics. Wells’ work has been selected for two juried student exhibitions, winning a Gussman Merit Award. After graduation, Wells plans to pursue an MFA. Fellowship recipient Jordan Vinyard has reached a mature stride, with a number of recent shows in Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida. Prior to graduate school, Vinyard, the Mustang Oklahoma native, focused on painting and drawing. Now, she creates interactive kinetic works consisting of a hybrid of digital media, sculpture, video, and installation. Satirical reflections of our dependence on and complacency with gadgets, her concepts are directive rather than formal. For example, the work Placebo #3 shows her recent adoption of embedded monitors and asymmetrical coding. Built-in delays cause the viewer to pose the question, “How am I affecting technology?” rather than, “How is technology affecting me?” “As a society we are wired to experience immediate gratification, however my pieces do not warrant that. As the audience interacts they are subject to asymmetrical coding; each piece utilizes the viewers’ movements and regurgitates them in a nonlinear way. The physical reaction of the work simulates technological placebo effects and demonstrates the phantom limbs of our existence,” says Vinyard. Couch Potatoes Eat 1’s and 0’s offers a similar metaphor about technology and contemporary life. “Suffering our self-inflicted fates is easy; we suppose we stare at screens too long, crane our necks to participate in nihilist devices and laugh at our role as couch potatoes consuming as many ones and zeros as possible,” Vinyard notes. Kinetic sculptures encircling a monitor lean in to observe the monitor, paralleling the viewer’s behavior, but in new ways, so the viewer finds himself in a fixed dilemma. A video monitor plays progressively chaotic footage, clear images (continued to page 20)

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(continued from page 19)

LEFT: Ginna Dowling, Inherent Language of Life: 2017 Hieroglyphics, vinyl, 8’ x 14.5’, 2017 RIGHT: Ginna Dowling, Inherent Language of Life Community Collaboration Project, MAINSITE Contemporary Art, Norman, OK, hand-torn paper, straight pins, sharpie, local collateral such as newspapers, maps, fliers and brochures, white paint, foam core insulation board, 8’ x 16’, 2017

become vague, chopped up, air code blue, error code. Each of Vinyard’s works presents a very different visual intrigue (stunningly beautiful in forms and textures in themselves beyond the sophisticated commentary) so that visitors must explore its functionality. Vinyard is using her Fellowship stipend for upcoming pieces entitled Dialogue After Space and Anno Digiti, slated for out-of-state exhibitions. Her development as an artist has been influenced by Lee Bontecou, Alan Rath, and Matthew Barney. With a BFA from the University of Central Oklahoma and an MFA from Florida State, Vinyard presently teaches installation, performance, sculpture, and bioart at the University of Sciences and Arts of Oklahoma in Chickasha. Like Devin Howell, Ginna Dowling began her career in another discipline: journalism and writing. Graduating from the University of Houston with an MA in Public Relations and Professional Writing. Dowling was first employed as a writer and grant writer. From a long lineage of women artists – she grew up with, “paint brushes always soaking in the sink”-- Dowling had taken occasional art classes but had no formal training. Then, following a life change in 2001 Dowling, gave up writing and stepped back into her roots, receiving her MFA in 2008 from the University of Oklahoma. Now a printmaker, master-minding large installations, Dowling

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continues her interest in storytelling. For the last several years, Dowling has created interactive installations “in a printerly manner,” that she calls “environmental prints” working with a different group of community participants for each of her poignant sitespecific installation. The impetus for her current body of work derives from a 2015 OVAC Creative Projects grant permitting Dowling to accept an Irish artist-in-residency focusing on ancient megalithic art and storytelling. From her study of 5,000-year-old hieroglyphs, many relating to feminine symbolism and enigmatic in nature, Dowling began to question what contemporary hieroglyphs would look like and who would write them. For a show at the IAC, she carved over 65 images creating a tale from her own personal symbols. This led to a major installation at MAINSITE in Norman, which was then replicated in France. In Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Dowling has worked with dozens of community participants to hand tear construction paper into a single shape that represents them. She suggests a characteristic, tool, or belief. These personal symbols from different groups, including underserved and differently abled individuals, which she calls “identity glyphs” are then translated into vinyl, contextualized, and mounted onto windows, walls, or other surfaces.

The stacked imagery of glyphs on the final transparent surface casts reflections mirroring the depth and poignancy behind many of the shapes. For instance, Dowling tells the story of a homeless boy’s torn shape of a cell phone: forced to move around frequently, the morning phone call to the bus driver with his current location became one of the few constancies in the boy’s life. Another child victim tore a group of black pieces, each one representing a scattered family member, “way, way ago and I couldn’t reach where I wanted them to go.” A stroke victim tore an image of a single hand. Drawing on people’s inherent creativity, Dowling asks participants to tear their creation (rather than cut) because it levels the artistic playing field- removing any intimidation toward making art, giving them ownership, and making it impossible for viewers to ascertain if the artist is a child or adult or one’s socio-economic status. According to Dowling, who refers to herself as “the keeper of the stories,” the resounding theme between the thousands of torn shapes that Dowling has facilitated, is hope. n Renee Montgomery is Director of Programs at the Tulsa Girls Art School. A native Angeleno, she served as an assistant director at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for 35 years, dealing with exhibitions and art collections. Since moving to Tulsa, she has worked in art education.

ART GROUP: Thriving Collectively by Carleigh Foutch

A curious onlooker at Art Group’s April exhibition

If you’ve ever considered a career in the arts, chances are countless arguments were made against pursuing this particular line of work. The strange aversion to the arts can make life as an aspiring artist seem lonely and isolated, but Art Group, a new art collective located in Oklahoma City, is aiming to change that. Founders Virginia Sitzes and Katelynn Knick want to use Art Group to connect emerging artists in the state of Oklahoma to showcase local talent and dispel the idea that art is not a viable career path. Sitzes and Knick, who met at the University of Oklahoma in 2015 while both studying art, started the conversation and idea about Art Group by simply talking about the kind of art that mattered to them. “Being an artist

can be isolating once you leave the structure of academia and move on to figure out your own path. As we started planning meetings and events, it was clear that we could do so much more,” Knick said. What started out as a potluck with friends, food and fun talks took on an identity of its own, and with some tenacity and initiative, turned into the art collective it’s now known for today. “Art collectives have been happening for ages, all across the country,” said Knick. “The general idea of Art Group isn’t any different from the collectives that formed in the past or that exist here already, but what does make it unique is that...it’s a collective that is specific to the needs of emerging artists and even more specific to being an emerging artist in Oklahoma.

“We’re excited to contribute by creating this platform and subcommunity for our peers. I would like to see more and more opportunities for emerging artists come from the initiative of Art Group and the skills we are developing together as artists.” Sitzes agrees.“We really just wanted to have a space where we could keep talking about art as well as get feedback within our own practices with other artists in Oklahoma. I am excited for Art Group to not only keep growing, but to keep providing more and more opportunities for the artist who is trying to sustain their life doing what they love,” she said. (continued to page 22)

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(continued from page 21)

young entrepreneurial artists with a drive to As with any community initiative, Art Group arose out of an unmet need that create their own opportunities for their work Sitzes and Knick saw in OKC. That unmet to be seen, and Art Group is no different. need paired perfectly with the current However, it’s important to Sitzes and Knick creative climate in the city and has allowed that people have fun doing it and don’t feel Art Group to thrive. pressured—a relaxed “I think for me “The general idea of atmosphere is a must. personally what “One thing that was started the desire Art Group isn’t any really important to us was for Art Group was creating an environment a restless need for a different from the that felt fun, professional, more consistent artist collectives that formed and not intimidating. community,” Sitzes got to see friends as said. “I graduated in the past or that exist We college and all in well as new faces come to one month went here already, but what our event and instantly from 18-hour days start engaging with the does make it unique is art around them,” Sitzes working on art to moving out of that...it’s a collective said. “Many smiles, college and finding chatter, good music, and myself with less that is specific to the wonderful art. Honestly, artists around me it was all I could ask for needs of emerging and dwindling our first group show to motivation...not to be!” artists and even more mention significantly A second Art Group less resources.” specific to being an show is in the works for On Saturday, Apr. emerging artist in December, but don’t 14, Art Group held expect to see Art Group Oklahoma.” its first art show at stay confined to any Skyline Ink Animators specific space. Sitzes and - KAT E LYN N KN IC K + Illustrators with an Knick want art to be exhibition of work accessible to the entire from local artists community, and want to bring about more that spanned across all mediums (including inclusive initiatives within the collective like gum wrapper foil!), and elicited a boisterous a local coffee or art crawl. response from the community.

TOP: Art Group founders Katelynn Knick (right) and Virginia Sitzes (left) MIDDLE: Art Group logo BOTTOM: A toast to Art Group!

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“The group show set a good precedent for what we are hoping to do more of in the art community. We wanted to create an opportunity for not only emerging visual artists, but also other local creatives such as musicians and culinary artists who are looking for a chance to develop their craft and get their work out there too,” Knick said. “We were able to pull off an exhibition of 18 artists, an affordable art market, bands, a food pop up, drinks, sponsorship and group branding all in less than two months of planning.” The current creative renaissance that’s sweeping through OKC is driven by many

For more information on the latest happenings with Art Group, like their Facebook page or follow them on Instagram at @artgrpokc! n Carleigh Foutch is a writer and activist living in Oklahoma City. She received her BA in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and continues to write stories of all kinds in her spare time (although her favorite thing to write is fiction). She works as a full-time copywriter in Edmond. To learn more about Carleigh and her work, visit carleighfoutch.weebly.com.

OU SCHOOL of VISUAL ARTS, DEGREE OFFERINGS:

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Schedule a tour to visit OU SoVA.

Large-scale immersive art in Tulsa: What will you EXPERIENCE? “Get it, Tulsa!” -Meow Wolf

“It’s easy to get lost in THE EXPERIENCE in space, time, and wonder.” -Tulsa Voice

“An interactive, multimedia art adventure” -Tulsa People

Now open! Learn more: ahhaTulsa.org #TheExperienceTulsa #KeepTulsaCreative

Pictured: Science Fiction-inspired tunnels with eye-opening video art, both by one of five EXPERIENCE Lead Artists, Daniel Sutliff.

Destiny Jade Green, The Between. Blanket., 2018, digital photograph

Destiny Jade Greenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recent work illustrates liminal

Born and raised in upstate New York, Clare Paniccia

spaces through photography utilizing light and digital

is a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State University,

media manipulation in collaboration with models.

where she works as an associate editor of the

She is fascinated with the uncanny and handmade

Cimarron Review. Her poetry has been featured in

objects. Green holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the

or is forthcoming from Indiana Review, TriQuarterly,

University of Texas at Austin and continues her art

Grist, Haydenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ferry Review, Puerto del Sol, Best

practice in Oklahoma, her home state.

New Poets, and elsewhere.

ekphrasis

EKPHRASIS: Art & Poetry edited by Liz Blood

Swaddling This morning I woke to see a barn swallow laying its egg on the edge of a cleaver. This isn’t abnormal; they say even in offseason, a blade’s glimpse can turn a bird out of pattern faster than she can sing. No, the oddity was in the egg’s caul, the sweet drip of its crowning & how she tried to hold all of it in. Of the womb, Freud notes our desire to return should be the only instinct. A bird willing its chorion back into darkness. Lately, my horoscope has been telling me to wear varying shades of red. To chew mint under the duress of lunar upheaval & ward off any imbalance. Isn’t it such a charm to be as predictable as a scheduled dose? This, to block the cleaver’s shine. There’s a story about my mother refusing to give birth during winter for fear the cold would shock her, the baby. While doctors induced

Artist Destiny Jade Green has described the blanket (which she made) in her photo as “an apparition of [her] own feelings.” Poet Clare Paniccia saw in it a binary between comfort and exposure. Together, they form this installment of Ekphrasis, our magazine’s ongoing series joining verse and visual art.

through a blizzard’s mouth, my mother begged to be re-sewn. I watch as the barn swallow loses her egg to the tick of a sure thing; my mother losing control. All night, she wraps the baby again & again. The baby never gets warm.

e k p h r a s i s 25

OVAC NEWS

FALL 2018

This fall we kicked off our 2018-2019 iteration of the Oklahoma Art Writing & Curatorial Fellowship with our Fellows gathering in Tulsa for their first session in August. They will meet six times over the course of a year to work on their critical writing skills and discuss issues in contemporary artmaking and curatorial practice. With four of those sessions, OVAC will host public panel discussions with the visiting Mentors so the public can also gain access to these nationally esteemed leaders in the arts. Visit our website or follow us on Facebook to find the dates, times, and locations. In July, our members gathered in Tulsa at the Philbrook Museum of Art for our Annual Members’ Meeting to reflect on the success of the previous year and to provide feedback on OVAC’s services and programs. Our main takeaways this year revolved around member mixers/ networking events, digital recordings of workshops, and affordable photography services. The OVAC staff and board are working to come up with solutions for these needs, so keep an eye out for new exciting things to come! Krystle Brewer, Executive Director

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In response to our feedback from last year’s meeting, we have significantly expanded our Artist Survival Kit series. In the previous year, we held 3 ASK Workshops, and last year we had 10 ASK Workshops, Artist Forums, and Office Hours! But we

haven’t let the momentum slow down and we are on track for 15 events this year. We don’t want you to miss out on these great opportunities and resources, so check our website for upcoming events! In July, we announced our year-long 30th Anniversary Campaign and goal of $200,000 to support our Grants for Artists program and last month we had a special 12x12 Art Fundraiser as a kickoff party for the campaign. Now that the party is over, we are continuing to raise funds to reach our goal and ask you to help us in this effort. As many of the grants we receive do not allow regranting, these funds are crucial to growing our Grants for Artists program. By investing these funds and distributing the income each year, we are able to increase the amount we can give out to artists and ensure the grants continue to grow for years to come. This truly is a gift that keeps on giving. You can make a donation, check our progression, and learn about OVAC’s rich history on our minisite found at ovac30th.org. Sincerely,

Krystle Brewer Executive Director

Thank you to our new and renewing members from May through July 2018 Craig and Jenan Alleman Kristy Andrew Alan Atkinson Margaret Aycock Fran Barton Carol Beesley Eric Bloemers Elyse Bogart Marjorie Bontemps Bryan Boone Tracey Brauer Krystle Brewer Jack and Lynn Bryant Zach Burns Pattie Calfy Cady Dill Carlson Claudia Carroll-Phelps Dian Church Julianne Clark Karen Collier, Fiber Artists of Oklahoma Sheridan Conrad Susan Cooper Sheryl Cozad Ken Crowder and Audrey Schmitz Bryan Dahlvang

Leslie Dallam Kiana Daneshmand Sarah Day-Short and Kevin Short Becky Deed Brian Dehart Elizabeth Downing and Gavin Manes Alana Embry Nicole Emmons-Willis Jon Fisher Lauren Florence Dan Garrett Kristen Gentry Irmgard Geul Joeallen Gibson Jr. Burt Harbison William D. Hawk Bob and Janet Hawks Medeia Starfire Herndon Mycah Higley Nick Hill Larry K. Hill Heather Clark Hilliard Gina Lindley Hoffman David Holland Jan Holzbauer

Brooke Hoover Theresa Hultberg Bob James J. Jann Jeffrey Metra Johnson Farooq Karim and Blossom Crews Kelsey Karper Jody Karr Yvonne Kauger, Oklahoma Judicial Center Mary James Ketch Jini Kim David Knox Carol Koss Jana LaChance Roger K. Lawrence Bethany Lee Tera Leigh Mark Lewis William B Livingston Rebecca Lowber-Collins Cynthia Marcoux Dru Marseilles Mark Maxted Suzanne Wallace Mears John Mesa

Michelle Metcalfe Susan Miller Natalie Miller Jacque Mitchener Dedra Morgan Caryl Morgan Regina Murphy Regina Murphy, Studio Six Lawrence Naff Marilyn Nicely Katy Nickell Christopher M. Owens Gay Pasley Jennifer Payne Bryon Perdue Chris Ramsay Suzanne King Randall Mat Reed Loyal Roach Amy Rockett-Todd Claudia Sawyer Audrey Schmitz Bert D. Seabourn Jim Sharp Carl and Beth Shortt Silver Mark Sisson

Sterling Smith Cheryl J Smith Shannon N Smith Sue Moss Sullivan Sheri Talkington Allison Thompson Chuck and Ann Tomlins J. Diane Trout Harwood James and Regina Turrentine Sean Tyler Dusty and Kristen Gilpin M. Teresa Valero Cathy Vaughn Antoinette Vogt Diamond Walker Jarica Walsh Jim Weaver Tom Wester Jessica Willis John Wolfe Jenny Woodruff May Yang

o v a c n e w s 27

Gallery Listings & Exhibition Schedule Ada

Chickasha

Durham

Guthrie

Recollections Audrey Schmitz August 27- October 12, 2018 64th Annual Faculty Exhibition October 25 – November 28, 2018 Senior Exhibitions December 3 – 14, 2018 The Pogue Gallery East Central University 900 Centennial Plaza (580) 559-5353 ecok.edu

Nesbitt Gallery University of Science and Arts Oklahoma 1806 17th St (405) 574-1344 usao.edu/gallery/schedule

Metcalfe Museum 8647 N 1745 Rd (580) 655-4467 metcalfemuseum.org

Hancock Creative Shop 116 S 2nd St (405) 471-1951 hancockcreativeshop.com

Edmond

Owens Arts Place Museum 1202 E Harrison Ave (405) 260-0204 owensmuseum.com

Altus Wigwam Gallery 117 W Commerce St (580) 481-3150

Alva Layered Lives Jena Kodesh, Jill Webber October 5-30, 2018 Artist Round About November 2-27, 2018 Christmas Show and Sale December 2018 Graceful Arts Gallery and Studios 523 Barnes St (580) 327-ARTS (2787) gracefulartscenter.org

Ardmore Platonia: Martin Weinstein October 23, 2018 – January 2019 The Goddard Center 401 First Avenue SW (580) 226-0909 goddardcenter.org

Bartlesville Women Artists of the West: Juried Show September 21 – November 4, 2018 Art of the Tree December 1 – December 25, 2018 Price Tower Arts Center 510 Dewey Ave (918) 336-4949 pricetower.org

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Claremore Art off the Hill October 12-13, 2018 What are you Wearing Opening Reception October 25th,2018 Senior Capstone Art Opening November 30th, 2018 Christmas Sale Show December 3-7th, 2018 Foundations Gallery Rogers State University 1701 W Will Rogers Blvd (918) 343-7740 rsu.edu

Davis Chickasaw Nation Welcome Center 35 N Colbert Rd (580) 369-4222 chickasawcountry.com

Duncan Patsy Nixon: Gems, Junk, and Rainbow Shards September 6 – October 11, 2018 Tiger Art: The Legacy Lives On Dana Tiger, Christie and Coleman October 18, 2018 – January 16, 2019 American Farmer November 2018 Chisholm Trail Heritage Center 1000 Chisholm Trail Pkwy (580) 252-6692 onthechisholmtrail.com

Durant Centre Gallery Southeastern OK State University 1405 N 4th PMB 4231 (580) 745-2000 se.edu

Donna Nigh Gallery University of Central Oklahoma 100 University Dr (405) 974-2432 uco.edu/cfad Edmond Historical Society & Museum 431 S Boulevard (405) 340-0078 edmondhistory.org Tracy Wente October 2018 Behnaz Sohrabian Opens November 8, 2018 Jennifer Hustis December 2018 Fine Arts Institute of Edmond 27 E Edwards St (405) 340-4481 edmondfinearts.com Flight of the Elephant exhibit installations by Stacey Holloway October 4 – 25, 2018 Melton Gallery University of Central Oklahoma 100 University Dr (405) 974-2432 uco.edu/cfad University Gallery Oklahoma Christian University 2501 E Memorial Rd (800) 877-5010 oc.edu

El Reno Redlands Community College 1300 S Country Club Rd (405) 262-2552 redlandscc.edu

Guymon All Fired Up Art Gallery 421 N Main (580) 338-4278 allfiredupok.com

Idabel Museum of the Red River 812 E Lincoln Rd (580) 286-3616 museumoftheredriver.org

Lawton The Leslie Powell Foundation and Gallery 620 D Avenue (580) 357-9526 lpgallery.org Museum of the Great Plains 601 NW Ferris Ave (580) 581-3460 discovermgp.org

Norman Downtown Art and Frame 115 S Santa Fe (405) 329-0309 Horsepower Kristen Vails and Dusty Gilpin September 21 – October 20, 2018 Holiday Gift Gallery 2018 November 9 – December 22, 2018 Extended Shopping Hours: Friday, November 16 and December 7, 2018, from 6 – 8 PM Firehouse Art Center 444 S Flood (405) 329-4523 normanfirehouse.com

Jacobson House 609 Chautauqua (405) 366-1667 jacobsonhouse.org Still Looking: The Photography Collection of Carol Beesley Hennagin June 12 – December 30, 2018 Still Looking Gallery Talk 1 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18 Ticket to Ride October 5 – December 30, 2018 Daren Kendall: Threshold with Me October 16 – December 30, 2018 Fred Jones Jr Museum of Art 555 Elm Ave (405) 325-4938 ou.edu/fjjma Lightwell Gallery University of Oklahoma 520 Parrington Oval (405) 325-2691 art.ou.edu MAINSITE Contemporary Art Gallery 122 E Main (405) 360-1162 mainsite-art.com Moore-Lindsey House Historical Museum 508 N Peters (405) 321-0156 normanmuseum.org The Depot Gallery The Garden Chronicles September 14 – November 2, 2018 Small Works VIII November 9 – December 23, 2018 200 S Jones (405) 307-9320 pasnorman.org

Oklahoma City Acosta Strong Fine Art 6420 N Western Ave (405) 453-1825 johnbstrong.com One Thousand Tears September 6 to October 13, 2018 Exquisite Corpse October 31 – November 24,2018 Greg Burn’s Southwest Series December 6 – January 12, 2018 [ArtSpace] at Untitled 1 NE 3rd St (405) 815-9995 1ne3.org Brass Bell Studios 2500 NW 33rd (405) 361-3481 facebook.com/BrassBellStudios Contemporary Art Gallery 2928 Paseo (405) 601-7474 contemporaryartgalleryokc.com Dorshak Blok September 13 – October 7, 2018 Harvest October 11 – November 4, 2018 Jewelry Show November 8 – December 2, 2018 The Art Market December 6 – January 6, 2018 DNA Galleries 1705 B NW 16th St (405) 371-2460 dnagalleries.com Exhibit C 1 E Sheridan Ave Ste 100 (405) 767-8900 exhibitcgallery.com Gayle Curry: Unknown Origins October 4 – February 9, 2018 Gaylord-Pickens Museum, home of the Oklahoma Hall of Fame 1400 Classen Dr (405) 235-4458 oklahomahof.com

Grapevine Gallery 1933 NW 39 (405) 528-3739 grapevinegalleryokc.com Howell Gallery 6432 N Western Ave (405) 840-4437 howellgallery.com In Your Eye Studio and Gallery 3005A Paseo (405) 525-2161 inyoureyegallery.com Individual Artists of Oklahoma 706 W Sheridan Ave (405) 232-6060 individualartists.org

Welcome to the Traffic Jam August 7 – October 31, 2018 Inasmuch Foundation Gallery – Oklahoma City Community College Gallery 7777 S May Ave (405) 682-7576 occc.edu

Park Hill

Tahlequah

Cherokee National Historical Society, Inc. 21192 S Keeler Dr (918) 456-6007 cherokeeheritage.org

Cherokee Arts Center 212 S Water Ave (918) 453-5728 cherokeenationart.com

Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to Arts & Crafts Movement October 13, 2018 – January 6, 2019 Oklahoma City Museum of Art 415 Couch Dr (405) 236-3100 okcmoa.com

Figuratively Speaking: Behnaz Sohrabian September 8-October 7 The Vault Art Space and Gathering Place 111 East Paul Avenue, Suite 2 (405) 343-6610

Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center 3000 General Pershing Blvd (405) 951-0000 oklahomacontemporary.org

JRB Art at The Elms 2810 N Walker Ave (405) 528-6336 jrbartgallery.com American Indian Artists: 20 Century Masters September 1, 2018 – May 12, 2019 Horseplay November 17, 2018 – July 14, 2019 Small Works, Great Wonders Winter Art Sale November 9, 2018 National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum 1700 NE 63rd (405) 478-2250 nationalcowboymuseum.org th

Nault Gallery 816 N Walker Ave (405) 642-4414 naultfineart.com Nona Hulsey Gallery, Norick Art Center Oklahoma City University 1600 NW 26th (405) 208-5226 okcu.edu

Oklahoma State Capitol Galleries 2300 N Lincoln Blvd (405) 521-2931 arts.ok.gov Suzanne Owens & Suzanne Randall October 2018 The Dorothy Woolbright Painters November 2018 SmallArt Show December 2018 Paseo Art Space 3022 Paseo (405) 525-2688 thepaseo.org Red Earth 6 Santa Fe Plaza (405) 427-5228 redearth.org Into the Fold: The Art and Science of Origami Open until January 13, 2019 smART Space Science Museum Oklahoma 2100 NE 52nd St (405) 602-6664 sciencemuseumok.org

Pauls Valley

Ponca City Ponca City Art Center 819 E Central (580) 765-9746 poncacityartcenter.com

Shawnee Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art 1900 W Macarthur (405) 878-5300 mgmoa.org

Stillwater Gardiner Gallery of Art Oklahoma State University 108 Bartlett Center for the Visual Arts (405) 744-4143 art.okstate.edu Oklahoma State University Museum of Art 720 S Husband St (405) 744-2780 museum.okstate.edu Modella Art Gallery 721 S Main Modellaartgallery.org

Sulphur Chickasaw Visitor Center 901 W 1st St (580) 622-8050 chickasawcountry.com/explore/ view/Chickasaw-visitor-center

Tonkawa Eleanor Hays Gallery Northern Oklahoma College 1220 E Grand (580) 628-6670 noc.edu

Tulsa VisionsMakers2018 October 5- November 2, 2018 Northeastern Oklahoma Wood Turners Association December 7 – January 20, 2019 108|Contemporary 108 E MB Brady St (918) 895-6302 108contemporary.org Aberson’s Exhibits 3624 S Peoria (918) 740-1054 abersonexhibits.com Whitney Forsyth: Reveal November 2018 - February 2019 Atrium Art First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa 709 S Boston Ave 918-584-4701 atriumart.org Exploring the Big Trail May 1 – December 31, 2018 Gilcrease Museum 1400 Gilcrease Road (918) 596-2700 gilcrease.utulsa.edu TAC Members Show October 5 – November 25, 2018 The Experience June 30 - Current AHHA 101 E Archer St (918) 584-3333 ahhatulsa.org (continued to page 30)

g a l l e r y g u i d e 29

(continued from page 29) Albert Bierstadt: Witness to a Changing West November 3, 2018 – February 10, 2019 Henry Zarrow Center for Art and Education 124 E MB Brady St (918) 631-4400 gilcrease.utulsa.edu/Explore/Zarrow

Joseph Gierek Fine Art 1342 E 11th St (918) 592-5432 gierek.com

Alexandre Hogue Gallery University of Tulsa 2930 E 5th St. (918) 631-2739 utulsa.edu/art Holliman Gallery Holland Hall 5666 E 81st Street (918) 481-1111 hollandhall.org

Mainline 111 N Main Ste C (918) 629-0342 Mainlineartok.com

Living Arts 307 E MB Brady St (918) 585-1234 livingarts.org

M.A. Doran Gallery 3509 S Peoria (918) 748-8700 madorangallery.com Lovetts Gallery 6528 E 51st St (918) 664-4732 lovettsgallery.com

BEAN DANCE: HOPI KACHINA CARVINGS August 3, 2018 – January 6, 2019 Philbrook Downtown 116 E MB Brady St (918) 749-7941 philbrook.org Amazing! October 14, 2018 – January 7, 2019 Philbrook Museum of Art 2727 S Rockford Rd (918) 749-7941 philbrook.org Pierson Gallery 1307-1311 E 15th St (918) 584-2440 piersongallery.com

Collector Level + Community Supported Art (CSA) Program $1,000 ($85 a month option) 2 original and quality pieces of art by Oklahoma artists 2 tickets to CSA Launch Events twice a year 2 tickets to 12x12 Art Fundraiser $400 of this membership is tax deductible All of below

PATRON $250 · · · · ·

Listing of self or business on signage at events Invitation for 2 people to private reception with visiting curator 2 tickets each to Momentum OKC & Momentum Tulsa $200 of this membership is tax deductible. All of below

FELLOW $150 · · · · ·

Acknowledgement in Resource Guide and Art Focus Oklahoma Copy of each OVAC exhibition catalog 2 tickets to Tulsa Art Studio Tour $100 of this membership is tax deductible. All of below

FAMILY $75

· Same benefits as Individual, for 2 people in household

INDIVIDUAL $45 · · · · ·

Subscription to Art Focus Oklahoma magazine Monthly e-newsletter of Oklahoma art events & artist opportunities Receive all OVAC mailings Listing in and copy of annual Resource Guide & Member Directory Invitation to Annual Members’ Meeting

Plus, artists receive: · Inclusion in online Artist Gallery, ovacgallery.com · Artist entry fees waived for OVAC exhibitions · Up to 50% discount on Artist Survival Kit workshops · Affiliate benefits with Fractured Atlas, Artist INC Online, Artwork Archive, and the National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture.

STUDENT $25

· Same benefits as Individual level. All Student members are automatically enrolled in Green Membership program (receive all benefits digitally).

Tulsa Performing Arts Center Gallery 110 E 2nd St (918) 596-2368 tulsapac.com WaterWorks Art Center 1710 Charles Page Blvd (918) 596-2440 waterworksartcenter.com

Weatherford SWOSU Art Gallery 100 Campus Drive (580) 774-3756 swosu.edu

Wilburton The Gallery at Wilburton 108 W Main St (918) 465-9669

Woodward Plains Indians and Pioneers Museum 2009 Williams Ave (580) 256-6136 nwok-pipm.org

Urban Art Lab Studios 2312 E Admiral Blvd (918) 747-0510 urbanartlabstudios.com

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.

· · · · ·

Tulsa Artists’ Coalition 9 E MB Brady St (918) 592-0041 tacgallery.org

MEMBER FORM ¨ Collector Level + Community Supported Art Program ¨ Patron ¨ Fellow ¨ Family ¨ Individual ¨ Student ¨ Optional: Make my membership green! Email only. No printed materials will be mailed. Name Street Address City, State, Zip Email Website

Phone

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?

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

Kate Bunce, Musica, ca. 1895–97. Oil on canvas, 40 3/16 x 30 3/16 x 1 3/4 in., Birmingham Museums Trust (1897P17). © Birmingham Museums Trust

Art Focus

Ok l a h o m a

UPCOMING EVENTS Oct 6:

ASK Workshop: Networking Skills for Artists

Oct 8:

24 Works on Paper opens at SWOSU Art Gallery, Weatherford

Oct 15: Oct 20: Dec 3:

Grants for Artists Deadline OAWCF Panel Discussion, University of Tulsa 24 Works on Paper, The Wigwam Gallery, Altus

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

730 W. Wilshire Blvd, Suite 104 Oklahoma City, OK 73116 The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition supports Oklahomaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visual arts and artists and their power to enrich communities. Visit ovac-ok.org to learn more.

Dec 8: ASK Workshop: Good News! Press Releases and More Dec 15: OAWCF Panel Discussion, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa

Curatorial Theory & Practice: Panel Discussions Moderated by Kirsten Olds, PhD, panel discussions are free and open to the public.

October 20, 2018, 1-3pm | University of Tulsa, Tyrrell Hall

heather ahtone, Senior Curator, American Indian Cultural Center and Museum Zoe Larkins, Assistant Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver Kate von Steenhuyse, Founder and Executive Director, Harvester Arts

December 15, 2018, 1-3pm | Philbrook Musuem of Art

Lauren Haynes, Curator of Contemporary Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Jennifer Scanlan, Exhibitions and Curatorial Director, Oklahoma Contemporary Catherine Whitney, Chief Curator and Curator of American Art, Philbrook Museum of Art Encouraging informed, articulate, and inspired writing that engages audiences in contemporary art. Photo: 2018 Fellows viewing Rena Detrixheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Red Dirt Rug at Philbrook Downtown, Tulsa

write-curate-art.org