Processing: Learning While Creating is an exhibition by two former OU art history graduate students who have also been practicing artists for several years. Singer/songwriter and ceramicist Elizabeth Wise and painter/photographer Mark Esquivel bring their works together as examples of how the process of creating played an important role in their graduate work as well as other parts of life – closely following the research and evidence of brain function while creating, and how art can play a significant role in things like rehabilitation and therapy.

From Elizabeth Wise

When Mark and I met as OU art history grad students in 2018, we realized how important our respective art practices were to how we processed everything we were learning in our research projects.  But it’s a cyclical process where everything – however unrelated – becomes part of the decision making and problem solving that feeds into the objects, and in turn, our research.  Since grad school and further into our art, it’s become even more apparent that the mental space of creating is where information and experience are internalized, grappled with, and personalized in the effort to better understand the world, ourselves, and our place in the world.  Even more profound is how directly in line this is with the evidence from medical research in brain function during the making of art, and why it helps in things like rehabilitation and therapy. 

Born and raised in Virginia, Wise has lived in many places including Memphis, TN; Oxford, MS; Norman, OK; Germany, and New Zealand.  A mostly self-taught ceramicist for over a decade, as well as a mostly self-taught professional original and recording musician for over two decades, Wise holds a BA in Art History from Sweet Briar College and an MA in Art History from the University of Oklahoma (OU).  She also worked as an Andrew W. Mellon curatorial intern at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at OU. 

In music and ceramics, Wise is all about the unexpected and imperfect moments in life where those profound connections with self and others happen.  She strives for constant improvisation by never writing the same song twice, never playing a song the exact same way twice, and never making the exact same form twice.  She approaches music as storytelling using a wide range of styles from rough slide playing to lyrical fingerpicking, and from gravelly and belting to airy and soft vocals depending on the story and moment.  In ceramics, she works organically with each step of the process beginning with a perfect form, and then altering it because the unique is personal, not perfection.

From Mark Esquivel

Lensatic Objects

When Elizabeth and I met as art history grad student at OU and conversed about our preexisting art practices we realized how much they informed our art historical research projects, and later our formal academic training expanded our understanding of the how we make, why we make, and context cognizant of our art. A seemly tautological turn to both academic and artistic practices were both processes for each of us blurred into one. Our academic thinking became more expressive and art making object oriented. 

The objects, of course are the works, however like a lensatic compass, we’ve ambitiously created them to both expand or magnify our understanding of topics important end to each one of us, acting as a compass would, giving direction even if only personal, and tool to identify location or context.  Utilizing horticultural and entomology watercolors on reclaimed trailer truck floorboards I’ve attempted to utilize material and form from a Nahua understanding to bind a hopeful migrant experience, one centered on growth and transformation, to bring to light a shared nexus with non-migrants of the global south of hope and beauty.  

Mark A. Esquivel Espinoza, a Xicano from Texas, is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History within the University of Oklahoma’s School of Visual Arts, and a former Andrew W. Mellon intern at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art. He has a BFA in Drawing & Painting, and BA in Art History from the University of North Texas, an MA in Art History from Arizona State University where he was also curator for ASU’s Institute for Humanities Research, and studio assistant for artists Claudio Dicochea and Saskia Jorda. His art is indigenously centered drawing from a Xicano vernacular that is historical, learned Nahua sensibilities, and informed by a generational indigenous diaspora from the global south. Together with a rasquache approach which draws from bricolage of sources and assembled though a verity of media, his work articulates the in-between realities of those who find themselves ni aquí, ni allá (neither here, nor there)

Opening Reception: Friday, November 8, 6:00 - 9:00 pm

Resoantor is proud to present an exhibition by our resident Art Therapy instructor, Soni Parsons!

Soni Parsons is an accomplished acrylic painter and mixed media artist known for her vibrant use of colors, textures, and words in her artwork. With a strong local presence, she has exhibited her pieces in various galleries and festivals in Oklahoma City, Duncan, and Norman.

Parsons has a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education with endorsements in science and art, as well as a Master's degree in Human Relations focusing on counseling. She is also a licensed professional counselor and a registered art therapist, combining her artistic talents with her therapeutic skills.

In her professional journey, she has taught art therapy classes at the University of Oklahoma and has led an art program called freshstART at the Homeless Alliance in Oklahoma City. Her leadership in the field is reflected in her role as a current member and past president of the Oklahoma Art Therapy Association. Currently, she is facilitating a public art therapy group at Resonator in Norman, further expanding her impact in the community.

ANGST : Artist’s Statement

My body of work is deeply reflective of my inner turmoil. The combination of textures, colors, and words expresses my reactions to current events and offers a unique perspective on how art can serve as a lens through which we understand and process the world around us. Utilizing paint along with old newspaper clippings is a powerful way to juxtapose the past with the present, highlighting the evolution of societal issues and personal emotions.

Incorporating elements like trees and moons shows a connection to the environment. Bold colors, textures, and words add layers of symbolism and depth to the pieces. Mannequins are used to represent the human experience and societal roles, while trees often symbolize life, growth, and connectedness to nature, and moons can reflect phases and change.

Inspired by Basquiat, Matisse, and Frida Kahlo, this work brings together a rich diversity of styles and emotional depth. Basquiat’s raw expressionism and social commentary, Matisse’s vibrant use of color and form, and Kahlo’s deeply personal and symbolic narratives all contribute to a robust foundation for my artwork. Incorporating vivid colors to express strong emotions can create an immediate impact and engage viewers on a visceral level.

Help us welcome back the amazing Lauren Panichelli (Corporeal Ceramics)!!

Public Parks Public Resources.

Much comes to mind when we consider public parks.

A place to breathe.

A place to relax.

A place to take in the beauty around you.

Originally, public parks were designed to provide the greater public with a natural environment where they could appreciate plant life and escape their urban environments. The mind goes to the sprawling environments of the Boston Commons or Central Park. The intention was to alleviate the strain of urban life with constructed natural environments that invoked a greater sense of nature and beauty that would inspire people beyond what they were experiencing every day. Sounds like a dream. Today the internet provides but one of a million social distractions that take one person away from experiencing the beauty around them. Competing architecture and design seems to compete for attention, but time and again humans have proven that their attention can be re-routed to collection and community.

In our contemporary society often without acknowledgement for what came before, public parks hold the potential to be a space that allows people to be people. Much like libraries, coffee shops, and the dwindling number of physical spaces that allow people to exist without purchasing anything, public parks are still sites where people experience societal scrutiny. Despite man-made attempts at constructing beautiful spaces that encourage cohesion with nature, and the imagination, it is difficult for one person to ignite that relationship on their own. Many components of public parks that make them so connective over time is the ephemera and history that they hold. Monuments can offer specific memoriam or cultural significance to a community. We can see those narratives gain new light and shift in narrative over time.

This body of work meditates on the concept and potential of some public resources that we all share. Institutions of public information such as schools and libraries are as necessary as public spaces such as parks to exist. The man made nature of these environments naturally cause societal anxiety in that not everyone is able to experience these resources in the same way. Often we expect that what is for everyone feels the same to everyone when it does not. During a time when humanism, empathy and compassion are more important than ever, we sometimes exist in states where the efforts of structured Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are challenged. Instead of valuing our public resources ‘for all’ as an ever changing and inclusive model or system, we turn a blind eye to those who fall through the gaping craters in those resources.

As a public we could be much more capable in understanding one another, and the lived experiences around us. Storytelling, public art, being in conversation, collective imagining and dreaming of a future are all things that create cohesion between people and their ideas. In a turbulent world it can be important to guide ourselves and each other back to places where we can slow down and focus on actionable things that do good for our communities, and that inject beauty into our worlds.

100% free! — come out and support local art!

Join us for a weekend of live theater courtesy of our friends at Collective Arts Productions!

In September of 1940 in Nazi-occupied France, just outside a rural village, two teenage boys discover a cave filled with the mark of early humanity; wall to wall, it brims with precious paleolithic art. Moved by what they find inside, they return to guard the cave’s entrance through the winter. Positioned between the confluence of pre-history and history, Lascaux imagines how these harrowing nights alone in the December cold might have felt— and what dangers lay beyond the campfire glow.

For tickets and showtimes, visit CoArtsProductions.com/tickets