Where The Artists & The Important Conversations Are

This October, the Art World was busy exploring Frieze London and Art Basel Paris where collectors, gallerists, and artists mingled in the ether of hoped-for big sales. That was not for me. Instead, I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to attend the second annual Tulsa Artist Fellowship Open House weekend.

A few words of explanation: Tulsa has several programs to attract people to live in Tulsa. There is Tulsa Remote which offers $10,000 and free desk space to remote workers who move to Tulsa. There is Tulsa Bound which invites people who might consider living in Tulsa, to try it out for a 30 day workcation. And, most important, as concerns my visit, there is Tulsa Artist Fellowship (TAF) which invites artists to live in Tulsa for a three-year period and provides them with a housing allowance, a stipend, and a studio in which to create their work. And for the last two years, they have started a program where the first weekend in October, Tulsa Artist Fellowship holds a weekend of programming featuring their fellows (current and those who have chosen to remain in Tulsa).

A few years ago, my friend and former editor Boris Dralyuk moved with his wife, an Oklahoma native, to Tulsa to raise their twins. Boris is a Tulsa Artist Fellow and when I heard from him that he would be at the Open House, how could I not show up? I suppose I was waiting for the excuse to be on Tulsa time.

TAF Open House is a free and accessible arts centered weekend where events are held in galleries, museums, studios, workspaces, and even outdoors in parks. The Theme of the weekend was, in the words of the TAF press release, “[to] enhance our collective understanding of the cosmos, humanity’s interconnectedness, and the passage of time.”in the words of the TAF press release, “[to] enhance our collective understanding of the cosmos, humanity’s interconnectedness, and the passage of time.”

Here’s how Carolyn Sickles, Executive and Artistic Director of TAF, describes the intention for the event: “Tulsa Artist Fellowship believes that groundbreaking arts practices are propelling the State of Oklahoma forward. Our annual Open House invites the local community and allies from around the nation to come together in the presence of art, share meals, exchange stories, and learn side by side.”

The weekend began with Earthbound, an art exhibition held at a space called “Flagship” right in the center of the renovated arts district, home to the Woody Guthrie Center, The Bob Dylan Center, The Guthrie Park, all supported by The George Kaiser Family Foundation, who are also behind the Tulsa Artist Fellowship program. Open House programs are supported as well by the Bush Hughes Foundation for Progress.

The artworks in Earthbound were all presented in a darkened room as “an invitation to reclaim the night sky.” Amidst didactic information about light pollution and how to foster greater access to the night sky, were works by Mattaniah Aytenfsu, an artist and UX engineer whose work projected galaxies and nebula on a series of three scrims to form a generative light artwork; Dr. Sian Proctor, NASA Astronaut, Artist and Geologist whose work Artemis Collection, who was exhibiting a series of laser prints, some on canvas, some on wood, of a female figure dancing; Tyler Thrasher, Artist and Chemist, had a striking installation that was a phosphorescent garden, glowing in the darkness; Marena Myles, a Digital artist who is a member of the Spirt Lake Dakota/Mohegan/Muscogee Nation, whose Under the Guidance of the Hanwi, was a work of augmented reality; and Tulsa Artist Fellow Cheyenne Smith, founder of Space for Us whose work, Cheyenne’s Nightstand, was an installation capturing her childhood love of space exploration with a Carl Sagan VHS and an episode of Bill Nye, the Science Guy playing, among other artifacts that shaped Smith’s lifelong fascination with astronomy and exploration.

Something someone said that night stuck with me: “Art is a way to interpret and imagine science.” That seems more true than ever.

There were delicious empanadas from Que Gusto, a nearby fast casual restaurant to which I returned several times during my Tulsa visit.

Tulsa has, as many cities do, a “First Friday” program where cultural centers and other local businesses stay open late, and people wander from place to place – to local galleries such as the 101 contemporary Gallery which had a exhibition by fabric artists Kendall Ross and Taryn Singleton, and on this Friday to the studios of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship which are in a renovated warehouse building. I found Boris in his studio, and we made plans to meet at several of the weekend’s other events.

The following day, there was a series of fascinating discussions at the offices of Build in Tulsa, an incubator workspace. Artist and TAF fellow Le’Andra LeSeur led a discussion, A Dialogue on Being, with Pamela Council, Alexandra Jane, and Jessica Gaynelle Moss discussing, as the program described, “Black art and cultivating space for Black artists’ well-being.”

LeSeur, whose multi-media practice is, in the words of her bio, “a celebration of Blackness, Queerness and Femininity” began the discussion by asking, “What is care in your practice?” This launched a conversation about showing up, showing up for others, how we can have other mothers in our lives, how we need to initiate conversations about well-being, going beyond ‘thoughts and prayers,’ and implementing practical ways to slow down one’s practice and celebrate the special moments, the human moments; having clarity for artists in their agreements with institutions; cultivating discernment, in what you say ‘Yes’ to and what you say ‘No’ to; and, having the ability to, when necessary, “walk away from a bag of money.”

This conversation made me think of artist Mickalene Thomas’ recent exhibition at LA’s Broad Museum, All About Love and the press preview at which Thomas spoke of how important it was for her as a Black woman, a Queer woman, and as an artist to celebrate love, love of one’s self, love of family, and love of others.

We live in harsh times where many feel embattled or threatened. Tulsa has a long history as a site of violence, both to its Black community, and to its Indigenous people. The response to these tragedies, and the present challenges, could also be tough and severe, but offering care, suggesting love, the panelists argued, can be a much more powerful response.

Following a short break, Eyakem Guillat, who as an artist has reclaimed the Ethiopian coffee service as part of his artistic practice, spoke of his own childhood in Ethiopia and how enacting the coffee ceremony has become, he said, “a way to belong in Tulsa.”

Last, but in no way, least, was a conversation between Tavia Nyong’o, a Yale scholar and critic of art and performance, and performance artist Kalup Linzy. In conversation, Kalup described arriving in New York from Florida in 2003, how he slept on couches and would pass out VHS tapes he’d made, and how he became friends with Molly Shannon who helped get him a job as an extra on Saturday Night Live. In 2005, he appeared in a group show at The Studio Museum in Harlem and had a project at The Taxter and Spengemann Gallery, that New York Times art critic Holland Cotter reviewed, with the opening line of “A Star is born…”

Over the following years, Linzy has developed an alter ego, Paula Sungstrong, who has performed songs such as I put a Spell on You which at first Linzy lip-synched. He began to develop a whole nexus of connected characters who would eventually populate an ongoing video art soap opera that remains central to Linzy’s practice.

Linzy spoke to the fact he spends “75% of my time with myself,” and that his performing was part of the challenge to “find the space to be alright with so many people having different reactions to the work.”

In their conversation, Nyong’o discussed that in face of Hollywood’s reaction to Black and Queer stories, “there was a need to create our own media Sankofa” (Sankofa is a word from Ghana that means “learning from the past to inform the future”). Linzy said that his work was very much inspired by his great-grandmother who listened to soap operas on the radio, and that he was using AI and animation “to recreate the stories of my ancestors,” such as his extended performances as Queen Rose, and his performances at his home dubbed, “The Queen Rose Tea House.”

Following the conversations, there was an event for children of all ages involving an indoor planetarium that spoke of the night sky and about the challenges of a flight to Mars. This was followed by an outdoor film screening of “Indigenous Star Films” on the Guthrie great green lawn, a public square. The evening was introduced by actor Wes Studi, most recently appearing in the TV series, “Reservation Dogs.” There was a series of animated films from the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, as well as a documentary about Willfred Buck by Lisa Jackson. Buck is an expert in Indigenous lore about the Stars, and First Nations Astronomy, and speaks about the astronomical knowledge of Cree, Ojobway and Lakota Peoples.

Sunday, I got to spend time at The Philbrook Museum of Art, an Italianate villa that sits on 25 acres of gardens. More than many small museums, Chief Curator Kate Green, and Kalyn Fay Barnoski, Assistant Curator of Native Art, do a great job of enlivening their holdings by juxtaposing contemporary works in the same room as more traditional holdings in their collection, so that, for example, you may find a portrait by Kehinde Wiley in the same room as a Bouguereau. They make great effort to expand their definition of art to include work in which Tulsa residents can see themselves and that speaks to their heritage.

The Philbrook has a small but beautiful collection of Southwest Native Art that explains both tradition and technique. Timed to TAF Open House weekend, there was a special exhibition in the villa’s rotunda, War Club, which featured various “War Clubs” created by artist Yatika Fields (hockey-stick like wooden creations that are shaped and painted in honor of various Indigenous persons) along with artifacts of Indigenous Activism, including the registry book from when Native American activists occupied Alcatraz Island and Prison between 1969-1971. The Philbrook held a discussion between Yatika, his mother Anita Fields who is also an artist, and the Santa Fe sculptor Bob Haozous whose work is in the Smithsonian, moderated by Barnoski.

“I don’t make art,” Haozous said, “I make stuff. Art is an imposition.” Haozous expounded that the structures of the Art business serve the needs and demands of the White population, whereas he was more interested in “teaching and healing our people first.”

“My art is a means of communication, nothing more,” Haozous said.

Anita and Yakita Fields both spoke of “an evolution of Native identity” and how, in their work, they wanted the rest of the world “not to look at the Indian,” but rather to inspire conversations that would make others learn their history and learn about indigenous knowledge, and then look at themselves.

Carolyn Sickles, Executive and Artistic Director of Tulsa Artist Fellowship, who came to Oklahoma following living in New York where she worked with the Henry Street Settlement, told me that she feels “Oklahoma is such an incredible representation of everything going on in the United States because of its scale and the density of diversity…. You’re coming to a place where the hardest questions will show up here and it’s happening across all forums.”

What drew her to Tulsa was how the George Kaiser Family Foundation was “hyper focused on Tulsa and looking under the hood [for] all the ways through a philanthropic lens [rooted in community-based work] that they could support a city.”

In Tulsa, Sickles concluded, “There’s a lot of texture, there’s a lot of tension, and there’s a lot of healing.” The Tulsa Artist Fellowship, she feels, is a way to sustain and grow Tulsa, both as a home for artists; and as a place for those who want to live in a community that supports artists.

In that light, Sickles said, The TAF weekend of panels and events represents a way, “for Tulsa to say, these are the conversations that are meaningful to us here.” Actually, these are the conversations that should be meaningful to all Americans. You won’t find them at Frieze or Art Basel, but thanks to the TAF Open House weekend, I did find them in Tulsa.