Being Oklahoma: Meet the Artists

Being Oklahoma: Exploring the Threads that Define Us is a regional arts partnership designed to celebrate arts practices of Oklahomans. The goals of the program are:  

• To amplify the work of cultural and traditional artists that exist in diverse communities throughout Oklahoma. This includes but is not limited to traditional songs, music, and dance; storytelling, beadwork ,leather work, basket weaving and woodworking.

• To reach and serve established and emerging traditional artists from rural and underserved communities. 

The selected artists for this project have shared their work with thoughtfulness, graciousness, compassion, and joy. Their dedication and advocacy for their practice and community are clear. 

• Beverly Kirk is an expert quilter whose project tells parts of African American history through fabric work. One of her ideas for a tie-in program is for the library to issue a call to photograph and document “our ancestors quilts,”specifically vintage work before 1930, from creators of any race of nationality. This is one example of the ways this project will bring together voices from the community around the themes of storytelling and preservation.
• Francisco Trevino is an educator and musician. His project shares traditional children’s songs from Mexico and Central America and provides context and history to share these cultural traditions. His live performance in April at our library in the heart of the Hispanic community will be a celebration of ancestral music and bring families together. 

This is a project of the Oklahoma Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Metropolitan Library System, seeking to highlight the traditions, cultural practices, and create work that often gets overlooked by the mainstream arts industry.