Living Arts of Tulsa Podcast

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/QVzdVzwMVGU

Jeff sits down with Francisco Treviño, Executive Director of Casa de la Cultura to hear about his life and work in Tulsa as he moved here in 1978 from Monterrey, México at the age of 11.

He reflects about his experiences in Tulsa as a performing musical artist since his teenage years, as the former Executive Director of Greater Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce where he made it a point to collaborate with our local arts community, and about his current work at Casa de la Cultura and as a consultant with Vega & Treviño Consultants, where he helps companies reach their community engagement and diversity representation goals.

He also speaks in a very compelling way about his strong belief in the undeniable link between the arts and business communities and why it's so important for him personally to be able to still get along with others even if they don't agree about the larger issues of life.

The interview as Francisco also shares about what this time has been like during the pandemic for him and his family as well as for the Tulsa area Hispanic and Latin American community in general.

To learn more about Casa de la Cultura and their programs, visit
http://www.findglocal.com/US/Tulsa/1440132309431997/Casa-de-la-Cultura

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/JX6DlbHRBhc

Jeff sits down with artist Hershel Self to hear about his work and some deeper thoughts about transition as he has had the opportunity to experience that recently and offers some very enlightening and inspiring thoughts about his experience over the past several months.

To learn more about Hershel's work, please visit
https://www.hershelself.com/

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/mtIROY61xvQ

Jeff sits down with Heather Duncan, Interim Executive Director of Living Arts of Tulsa, to hear a very compelling and very inspiring story about how she and the team there have pivoted and adapted since mid-March. 

She shares a very personal account of how this process has affected her, about what they have learned through this process, and about their vision and plans for 2021.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/VOSG54vTLfU

Jeff sits down with artist PetraBaye to hear about what her work means to her at a deep level, about how she got started creating art, and about what inspires and energizes her to continue to create work on an ongoing basis.

She also shares about her beCAUSEicare Foundation and how she sells art and other items to raise money to help children in need and how it makes her feel better than anything else has in the world.

To learn more about PetraBaye and her work, visit 
https://www.petrabayeart.com/

Jeff sits down with artist Claire Zevnik to hear about her work with fused glass and her photography as she has a vast collection of pictures that she has taken at rock concerts since the late 70's.

Jeff sits down with artist Anita Fields to hear her perspective about the intersection of indigenous art, culture, and language.

She also reflects about the significance of Speak: Speak While You Can, the recently closed exhibit at Living Arts.

To learn more about Anita and her art, visit
https://www.anitafieldsart.com

Born in Oklahoma, artist Anita Fields creates works of clay and textile that reflect the worldview of her Native Osage culture. Her practice explores the complexities of cultural influences and the intersections of balance and chaos found within our lives. The early Osage notions of duality, such as earth and sky, male and female, are represented in her work. 

Heavily textured layers and distorted writing are elements found in both her clay and textile works. These reference the complex layers and distortion of truths found in the written history of indigenous cultures. 

Fields creates narratives that asks viewers to consider other ways of seeing and being in an effort to understand our shared existence.

The power of transformation and transformative actions are realized by creating various forms of clothing, coverings, and figurative forms. The works become indicators of how we understand our surroundings and visualize our place within the world.

Landscapes, environment, and the influences of nature are themes found throughout the work of Anita Fields. They reflect time, place, and how the earth holds the memory of cultures who once called a specific terrain home. 

Fields is currently a 2017-2020 fellow with the Kaiser Foundation Tulsa Artist Fellowship. 

Fields’ work has been featured in American Craft, Ms Magazine, American Style, and First American Art. Her work can be found in several collections, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Art and Design, New York City, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, and the National Museum of American Indian, Smithsonian, Washington, DC.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/ijwuNHHsFZ8

Jeff sits down with the Tony Tiger, the curator and 3 other artists from this exhibition, Antonia Belindo, Joshua Hinson, and Randi Narcomey-Watson to hear their perspective on the connection between Indigenous art and language and how it is all connected to their tribal communities and to the Ancestors.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW AND TO SEE HER ARTWORK THAT SHE SHOWS, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT  https://youtu.be/Y47enNAK38g

Jeff sits down with Cherokee artist and educator Candessa Tehee as she shares very deeply about the connection between her artwork, her work teaching American Indian Studies and coordinator of Cherokee Language Education and Cherokee Cultural Studies Programs at Northeastern State University, and how this is all integrated within a life spent serving her community.

She shares some of her artwork and a story about how she learned finger weaving and the oblique form and about how she has been teaching this centuries-old art form to others as well.

Honored for her finger weaving, Candessa Tehee has helped resurrect this nearly forgotten art form, winning several finger-weaving awards since she began in 1999. She has mastered both the warp and weft form of finger weaving and the oblique form. In 2015, Tehee was an apprentice to Cherokee National Treasure Dorothy Dreadfulwater Ice.

Currently, she serves as an assistant professor of American Indian Studies and coordinator of Cherokee Language Education and Cherokee Cultural Studies Programs at Northeastern State University.

Candessa Tehee received the honor of Cherokee National Treasure in 2019.

Before joining NSU, Tehee managed Cherokee Nation’s Cherokee Language Program and oversaw the Language Technology Department, Translation Department and Community Languages Program.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/TQUoCk64fdk

Jeff sits down with Cherokee artist and writer Roy Boney, Jr. to hear about the evolution of his art, about his life journey, and about his work with the Cherokee Nation Language Program.

He also shares about how this program has adapted to make it easier for citizens of the Cherokee nation and others who are interested to learn the language to communicate with one another using popular electronic devices,

Roy Boney, Jr. is an award winning Cherokee artist & writer. He grew up in Locust Grove, Oklahoma and currently lives in Tahlequah, where he works for the Cherokee Nation Language Program. His work has been exhibited across the US , Paris, and London. 

His writing and artwork have appeared in First American Art Magazine, Native Peoples, Indian Country Today, Oklahoma Today, and Art in AmericaHe is a painter, comic book artist, and digital media artist.

He has also contributed to the graphic novel anthologies Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers, Trickster, Native Graphic Classics, and the newly released Moonshot,

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW AND TO SEE SOME OF BOBBY'S WORK THAT HE SHOWS, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/VvcR3dxCxNY

Jeff sits down with artist and educator Bobby C. Martin to hear about his life journey and what inspired him to begin to create art, about how he and his practice has evolved over the years, and about why he has been deeply moved to utilize older family photographic images as the focal point of his work.

As the conversation concludes, he talks about what the current exhibit at Living Arts, Speak: Speak While You Can means to him at a deeper level and why he feels the sense of urgency to participate in the revitalization of his native language.

To learn more about Bobby and his work, visit
https://www.bobbycmartin.com/

Bobby C. Martin is an artist/educator/facilitator who works out of his 7 Springs Studio near West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma. Martin’s artwork is exhibited and collected internationally. He has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions, the most recent being a one-person exhibition entitled But You Don’t Look Indian… that traveled to multiple venues in 2018-2019. His current project, Altars of Reconciliation, is a three-person show featuring Martin, Erin Shaw (Chickasaw) and Tony Tiger (Sac & Fox/Muscogee/Seminole) that focuses on the experiences of the artists as Native Americans and as Christians, and is currently traveling through Fall 2021. 

Martin’s work is in numerous museum collections, including the Philbrook Museum and Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Museum of the Great Plains in Lincoln, Nebraska. An enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe in Oklahoma, Martin currently holds a Professor of Visual Arts position at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and he frequently leads printmaking workshops and artist retreats at his studio and at various museums and art centers around the world.