Opportunities and Competition

Colourful Army by Flickr user Maistora. Click image to view source.

This summer has seen a handful of terrific opportunities for visual artists in Oklahoma. Among others, I have just applied for a brand new artist residency at the landmark Skirvin Hotel in downtown OKC.

S.P.A.C.E. - The Skirvin Paseo Artist Creativity Exposition

This is a beautiful program, the first of its kind in our area. The Paseo Arts Association has modeled it off of a similar residency at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It includes studio and gallery space, a stipend, even free lunches - for a year.

The application was not widely publicized. But when I heard about it, I told my friends, I posted it on Facebook, and otherwise helped spread the word. I wanted everyone I knew to apply along with me.

Why create more competition for myself?

The fact that OKC now has an artist-in-residence program of this kind is remarkable. It elevates our entire community. I couldn't possibly keep this to myself, because it's good for all of us.

Competition fosters quality.

I know several of the other applicants, and they are great artists! I had to step up my game to compete with them. If every applicant makes their proposal as strong as possible in order to be competetive, then the winning artist is going to be a truly shining example of visual arts in Oklahoma. They are going to make us all look good by creating excellent art in a public, professional space.

I wish we could all win. Because we'd all be awesome.

But what if I don't win?

My colleague Liz Roth often says that she gets about a 10% rate of return when applying for grants and residencies, meaning that about one in ten of her applications is accepted. That's why she encourages artists to pursue many different opportunities.

I put a lot of energy into my proposal, to make sure it looks professional, is easy to read, and communicates my ideas effectively. If my proposal for S.P.A.C.E. isn't accepted, I still have a great idea to shop to galleries, or use to apply for grants or other residencies. (Need I say that I'll make sure to adapt it as per other submission requirements? It almost, but not quite, goes without saying.)

And hey, there's always next year!

I will be speaking at two Artist Survival Kit workshops this fall about writing effective proposals. Visit the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition's A.S.K. page for more information on dates and registration.

Bonus: There is a slew of good advice about proposal writing at the OVAC blog.

Forms of Inquiry Notebook Cover Collage, 2004

This is the cover from a notebook I used in a graduate seminar at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Can a notebook cover be a work of art? Heck, why not? Decorating mundane objects from daily life differentiates them from one another, plus it's something to do.

I'm no Lisa Frank, but seeing this collage does bring back fond memories of my time at RIT.

Still Life with Vans

Choos, oil on canvas, 2005 by Sarah Atlee. Some rights reserved.

In all my years of art school, nobody told me that mixing brown and white would make blue. Cool.

This still life painting is of one of my beloved pairs of Vans Sk8-Hi Tops. The details are scratched out using an X-Acto knife.

Painted under the instruction of Robert Heischman at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Back to the Figure Drawing Board

Mary (Figure Study), ink on paper, July 2009. Some rights reserved.

I just signed up for Glen Thomas' Figure Drawing class at City Arts Center, which starts in late July. I'm so excited.

I've been a regular and loving attendee of Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School over the last several years. Lately I've wanted to temper that experience with some traditional figure drawing, which I haven't done since I finished school in 2006. Last year I had a wonderful time in Bert Seabourn's acrylic painting class at CAC. I got reacquainted with some basic techniques and experimented outside my normal painting style. I'm eager to take this approach to learning and re-learning the figure.

City Arts Center, located on the Oklahoma State Fair Grounds in OKC, offers a wide variety of art classes for kids and for adults. Visit their website to read about course offerings and enroll. I guarantee you'll enjoy it.

My Naughties

Yeah, I'm a little late to the top-ten-list party. Here are my top ten artistic moments (in chronological order) from the Naughts, 2000-2009 :

2000 I have my first solo show, ____ day of my life, at the now-defunct ASA Gallery at UNM. 2001 My senior thesis show, Actual Size, sells out. I graduate from UNM with a BFA. 2002 Making art on my own in Indiana, I realize that I need more instruction to become a better painter. This becomes my goal in applying to graduate school. 2003 I begin graduate study at RIT. 2004 I learn a heck of a lot about the illustration business, and my personal style really begins to solidify. I start making paintings like this. 2005 I complete my graduate thesis show. One of these paintings is accepted to the Society of Illustrators Scholarship Competition. 2006 I move to Oklahoma, and am warmly welcomed into the artistic community here. 2007 I get a beautiful studio above Mainsite Gallery, and a slot in the Art 365 program. 2008 The Art 365 show debuts, including my series Normal, OK. 2009 I join the fabulous, inspiring, nerdcore community at the Oklahoma City Coworking Collaborative, or okcCoCo.

And from this past year, 2009:

January: I make two drawings for the Seeing Other People show curated by Jennifer Barron. February: I take my family to Society of Illustrators in NYC to see my piece in the annual Book Illustration exhibition. March: I quit my last day job to commit to art full-time. Haaaa-le-lu-jah April: I attend OVAC's Artists' Retreat at Quartz Mountain, where I learn all about residencies. May: I began the Occupied project, on my own, because a) I wanted to and b) I can. June: My drawing of romy is accepted to the 24 Works On Paper travelling exhibition. July: Back to Normal: Normal, OK Revisited opens at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum. August: I join the okcCoCo and move my studio there. November: I'm accepted into OVAC's first Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellowship. December: Looking forward to 2010. There have been so many positive changes for me in recent years, I can't wait to see what comes next.