Allied Arts

Allied Arts supports 20 different local arts organizations (we call them our “member agencies”) with funding, marketing, business development and educational opportunities.

One of our goals is that through this blog, you all will get to know our member agencies better.

Each Monday we’ll be interviewing a different member agency so that you can get the inside scoop on who they are and what they’re up to.

While you wait for Monday to come, we thought we’d give you a sneak peak of a recent all-agencies meeting. As a warm-up exercise, we did a Halloween arts activity. As you can imagine, we had some very creative results!

 

 Bradley Williams – Director of Cimarron Opera – with his ghost of Pavarotti. Isn't that too perfect?!

 

 Some of our board members getting in on the arts action.

 

 A spider created by Jason from Canterbury Choral Society. It’s made with a Tootsie Roll pop as the center.

For the November 1^st home game, Allied Arts is teaming up with the OKC Thunder to encourage creative, artistic and/or ambitious fans to create Thunder-decorated pumpkins. If you bring your Thunder-themed pumpkin to the game, you could get in for free.*

Need some inspiration?Allied Arts commissioned several local artists to create their own Thunder pumpkins. They’re on display at the Thunder Shop (in downtown OKC) and featured in the Thunder’s online pumpkin patch/photo gallery. Check out the photos here. Also, pumpkin carving artist David Holland created several Thunder carving templates to help guide your designs. You can download them from our Web site here.
And we have to show off a few of David’s carved Thunder pumpkins. Aren’t they incredible?!

 

*First 200 fans with decorated pumpkins get in for free. All pumpkins must be registered by 6 pm on November 1, 2009. See Web site (thunder.nba.com) for additional details

On Saturday night, I attended IAO’s Out of Sight exhibit opening reception. The premise of the exhibit was beyond cool – all of the art work needed to be bold and/or tactical, as to allow visually impaired people the chance to experience the different pieces.

IAO partnered with the Oklahoma League for the Blind to ensure the exhibit was appropriate and sensitive to the needs of visually impaired people. For example, each art work’s write-up (you know, the little explanation they put beside the art) was accessible through three senses – touch (Braille), sight (text) and sound (a cell phone tour).

I have to say that I got a little emotional during the event. In the short time I was there, I saw several visually impaired people experiencing the art, primarily through touch. I thought – how cool that they can come in here and touch anything and everything, something that is usually so taboo in art spaces? And that got me thinking…without exhibits like this, visually impaired people are limited to only certain art forms. I was so thankful to Jeff Stokes (IAO director) and his crew for helping to make art accessible to all.

Check out my photos below.


A shot of some of the gallery space.
All the art work is black and white to ensure the most contrast possible for easier viewing for those with low vision.


I thought this piece was cool.
Every bit of it was drawn with words from a Grateful Dead song.


And here’s a pic of me sitting on the “Throned” piece of art work. It is a refurbished rocking chair with Braille on the arms and head phones (a well-rounded arts experience).

Check out www.iaogallery.org for more information. The Out of Sight exhibit will be up through Friday, November 6^th and it’s free!

After taking a slight hiatus, Allied Arts is back blogging with a commitment to more frequent updates. You can count on us to give you the scoop on OKC’s cultural community, as well as keep you informed about the coolest upcoming arts events.

To keep you on your toes (ballet pun), we’ll be offering giveaways to our most loyal readers. We hope you’ll include us on your RSS feed – and take a quick work break to check us out often!
 
And just to introduce ourselves, your main bloggers will be Bailey Gordon and Lindsay McIntyre (although our entire team will contribute to posts at times).

Now on with the show…