Jenna Bryan
What's been going on in your world and circles lately?
Lots of being at home and being outside. This year is a great reminder to take time and care in everything. Also that humans don’t really make the rules, nature does. I’ve really appreciated things like going on walks, pulling weeds out by the roots, collecting acorns and clay, watching bees buzzing around in the clover and cardinal squad hanging out in the yard.
Anything in particular you've been working on?
Just did an outdoor installation of shrines and lanterns in the alley behind our house. Worked with clay from Lake Thunderbird. Recently got a camper that I’m gonna fix up and take on the road. Been working a lot on Oscillator with Eric. It’s been great using the press this year to feature some of our friends who are incredible artists. It’s something we wanted to do for a while and finally came up with a good system. We will have a pop-up in December at Resonator with open hours for folks to come shop and peruse prints in small numbers. Also just got some very big news for Oscillator that we’ll be rolling out soon!
Other projects you see happening around that are cool?
Lots of great Mutual Aid projects happening right now like OKC Community Fridge, Freedge OKC and NC4RJ made an advocates fund. I was really impressed with this digital fundraiser organized by Dream Action OK to help families battling COVID-19. They did a live auction of the art donated and it was really cool to watch. I’ve also been seeing more urban farm projects like Lillian Timber Farms, CommonWealth Urban Farms, and Circleculture Farm and Paseo Farmers Market is building a food coop right now so that sounds rad!
Any stories you want to share?
Yeah, I think that comes with being an artist
Future things you are looking forward to?
Major changes in our country. Destroying systems that exploit folks and suck out all the life from us. Building systems that strive to meet the needs of everyone, that make resources and opportunities accessible to everyone, that value everyone not for our productivity but for the diverse perspectives and specialties we each have to offer. Oh yeah, and also getting to do art/music shows again.
Favorite bands / albums lately?
What We Drew by Yaeji
Os Tincoas by Os Tincoas
Forestral Tape by Las Luces Primieras
Children Pets and Clowns by John Tender & Mladen Frank
Righeira - Bambini Forever
Too much good bands to name really but I’ve made some playlists on my Youtube for that reason: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqrN5bDG2ucvvaogUcK7-KQ
Favorite Poems?
Macaroni in a pot
-Cardi B
Visual artists (or whatever people) you've been digging lately?
Some have referred to it as cottagecore ^-^ Artists and illustrators like Pheobe Wahl, Elsa Bestow, Sibylle von Olfers. Animal Sleep Stories. Ebony Flowers. Joohee Yoon. Lots of comics and children’s books.
Links to anything you're involved in you want to share?
Anything else?
DANCE, MOVEMENT, ACTION
Check out Jenna Alyse Bryan’s new design in the shop, proceeds benefit Norman’s Food and Shelter for Friends!
Bella Blaze
Hello!!! My name is Bella Blaze (they/them), and I live in OKC. I've been super excited to collaborate with Oscillator Press to put out this shirt design! Jenna and Eric---U rock ; ) !!! This is the first t-shirt design I've had printed!
I tried to be thoughtful about how I wanted the wearer of the shirt to feel, what the picture would say and to whom it would be speaking. This shirt would be appropriate for eVeRY occasion.. but! is especially ideal for being home alone, watching the geese at the lake, and waving at a friend you haven't seen in 6 months while passing each other from your cars on the street (at least, you think it was them... can't really tell because of the mask... whoever it was, they waved back!)
I've been spending almost all of my time at home because of the pandemic. Lately, I've just been doing my little things on repeat everyday for this 2020 eternity. I've mostly been keeping to myself, and because of this my needs for my clothing have changed. I choose what I wear knowing that the only person that I will see is my own self in the mirror. I wanted to make a shirt for you to wear for yourself.
I've been trying out a bunch of different relaxation techniques to deal with anxiety. One thing I've been trying out, to some success, is guided visualization meditations. The ones where they describe walking through a natural landscape and looking up at the sun through the trees... I was first familiarized with these meditations through cartoons, I think. I remember some angry, exaggerated character told to close their eyes and imagine themself on a beach drinking a pina colada and the steam stops pouring out of their ears... I've only seen the ocean once since the age of 3, and have learned the beach ones do not work for me. Imagining something I'm unfamiliar with taxes extra mental energy that ruins the focus. WHAT THE FUCK DOES SEA AIR SMELL LIKE???
The ones that work for me are the ones that describe landscapes I'm more familiar with. When I'm guided through a forest or alongside a river, it's connected to a real memory of somewhere I've been here in Oklahoma. The landscape I made is loosely based on the last place I went camping. I wanted to replicate the experience of imagining in these guided meditations. They always end with something like "this is a place you can return to at any time you want, wherever you are..." It's comforting to think of these images in this way. As if they're a living landscape folded up in my back pocket, and I can just pull it out to teleport there like magic.
In the fantasy world of this design, there are some cute mandrake-demons lounging in a river outside the mouth of a cave. The viewer looks out from inside of the cave, the mandrakes looking into the cave back at you, and they say, "Together, we will create a world of our dreams." The mandrakes are connected to the natural landscape, and lead you to take in all the little flowers and details and... skulls??.. and stay a while to imagine the sound of the water rolling by... A corner of a vandalized brick-wall, half-submerged in the water, reads, "TEAR IT DOWN." Other loose bricks repeat the motif of an eye, pressed with time into the river-bed. There are small hints at something that was before and is far gone.
As a genre, fantasy can be a place of critique, but it can also be a place for hopeful reimagining. Sometimes when all there is to see is disaster in every direction, it feels like art and entertainment are the least useful things to be putting out. The call for abolition of police, prisons, and ICE has become louder, along with the call to return stolen land to Indigenous peoples. Dismantling these systems requires a total reimagining of our world. This is when people need imagination, relief, comfort, and connection---along with all the other hard world being done. Fantasies of fairy princesses and ultra-exclusive Mars colonies are tired and often harmful. This is how we have super celeb fae music girly ex-anti-imperialist hooked up with the wealth devouring space lord parading across the internet like they're the protagonists of some cute YA sci-fi novel. Fantasy, luxury, entertainment, and recreation need to be written by abolitionists, LGBTQIA2S+, and BIPOC.
In creating hopeful reimagation-type fantasy, I try to think of a future where luxurious experiences and objects are divorced from a capitalist world. This is often not aligned with the real world we live in now. Here in the real world, the rich rich will pollute the entire world just so they can turn that profit into a super yacht with an infinity pool at their second summer home on the beach for relaxing after a long day of robbery and murder. The rest of us are stuck with YouTube guided visualization meditations during 15 minute breaks at minimum wage jobs fighting off a mid-shift panic attack. I try to imagine luxury and recreation that is nondestructive, and accessible to all. Everyone deserves to have times of celebration, to be well, and to feel happy.
Do you see it, too?
Holey Kids
Portrait of the Artist
Holey Kids
You now?
We have centered our works around the idea of collaboration for the last ten years. We conduct practices in which we attempt to further our connection to one another and be seen as one entity.
Central issues?
We have a lot of listening to do. We wanted to create a shirt design to promote the amplification of melanated voices and to encourage everyone to speak out against injustices. Black lives matter. Black Trans lives matter. Black futures matter.
Subconscious influences?
Every interaction we’ve had.
Everyone we’ve ever met or observed.
Mural Fest 66
Conscious goals or ideas?
We know nothing.
Attempting to remind ourselves to remain in the moment. Recognizing every experience is new. We’d just like to live with intent.
Past influences?
Clayton Brothers, Os Gemeos, Blu, Dabs Myla
Mavis Pusey, Chris Burden, Marina Abramovic, Ulay,
Richard Brautigan, Sylvia Plath,
Francesca Woodman, the Beat Generation
Painting DVIS 2019
Near Future?
Get back on track, whatever that means. Create because it’s what we can do. Maybe finding more meaningful projects to get into, projects promoting ideals we have, rather than just concentrating on keeping things afloat.
Personal attitude?
Stagnation. We typically use our art as a vein to work things out therapeutically. For once everything feels so heavy, that lifting a pencil or paintbrush just seems hard. Some days there is that drive to push through it all...but then there’s some glimpse of reality, and it’s harsh, and it just barrels through all of the motivation. Leaving behind some scatter-brained movement and barely any finished product.
Context/Peers/Community?
In so many ways, the system is failing us. Burn it down. Keep fighting!
Sayings That Should Go Unsaid
Psychological Hopes/Fears?
Hopes: Hoping to come out of this pandemic with more clarity mentally, being more mindful in action and in presence.
Fears: Cognitive dissonance. Forming some unwavering personal truth bred from our own individualistic lenses and not allowing any room for growth.
Outcome? Future visions?
Make shit, and have fun with our friends & loved ones while we are here.
Holey Matrimony
Proceeds from Connection T-Shirt Pre-Order benefit Transpire OK (transpireok.org) and the Marsha P Johnson Institute (marshap.org)
Laramie Fain
Laramie Fain
You now?
Here in 2020 with everyone else, watching a system that values profits over life come to it's only logical conclusion
Central issues?
Struggling against white supremacy and capitalism, the roots of all evils
Subconscious influences?
Every piece of media I have ever consumed. Every post on instagram I have ever seen. Every conversation I have ever had.
Conscious goals or ideas?
Keeping my community fed and our bills paid, trying to draw and read in-between.
Laramie Fain, Book of Matches Pg. 7
Past influences?
Two decades of Pokemon, several cultural revolutions, and the social critiques of Francisco Goya
Laramie Fain, Book of Matches Pg. 8
Near Future?
Turning Corpus Christi into a place that lives up to it's namesake
Personal attitude?
We can either struggle for what is right or lie down and die
Context/Peers/Community?
I am fortunate enough to know have known some of the kindest and truest people alive.
Psychological Hopes/Fears?
That the damage that has been done to our physical world will end us before we have time to repair the damage that has been done to our moral world.
Outcome? Future visions?
Let's work for a world where every person can feel the same sun on their face, to walk down the street and breathe the same air. To live unafraid and able to pursue what truly makes them feel alive.
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many water. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand.
- Frederick Douglass
Proceeds from Solidarity Against White Supremacy Pre-Order benefit Corpus Christi Mutual Aid through paypal.me/ccmutualaid
Julie Yang
What have you been involved in over the last few years?
I've been pretty preoccupied with work. I teach art at an elementary school. Being new to teaching has been a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. I end up spending too much of my energy on it and I need to work on that. Once I'm better at that I feel like I'll be able to do more projects and activities I enjoy in the future.
What have you been up to lately/this year?
2020 hasn't been an easy year. Because of the epidemic I've mostly been at home. It's been hard for me to focus on things I need to get done and my mental state has been all over the place. Lately I've been doing what I can to help out with The BLM Movement. As a white person I want to use my privilege in whatever way I can to help others. Donating, protesting, posting, educating myself. In a lot of ways it doesn't feel like enough.
What are you looking to get into in the future?
Just keep working on myself and those I care for.
OKC Art-scene / Music-scene?
There's a lot of amazing local artists here. I feel like it's a bit easier to get yourself out there as an artist because OKC's art scene is still pretty small. When I think about it, there are a few things we need to work on: Creating and continuing discussion on how to keep shows safe places, diversity in the artists and audiences, and how we can give back to our community.
Influences?
Ai Weiwei, Jacolby Satterwhite, Nekojiru, Yoshitomo Nara, and cartoons haha.
Hopes and fears?
Oh man. I hope a lot of changes happen in The United States and the rest of the world. We have to treat each other and our planet better. I guess that's my short answer.
Julie Yang designed the ‘Hide it’ T-Shirt available here. Sales benefit: Derrick Scott Fund // Dream Action OK!
Barry Zimmerman
Barry Zimmerman
I am spreading the word of PEACE and LOVE like I learned in The Children’s Bible Stories my mom read to me when I was a kid to The Beatles who agree with Jesus about PEACE and LOVE and added the magic of creativity psychedelic thinking and imagination as a direction to Hanna- Barbera cartoons to Album cover culture to MAD Magazine to Robert Crumb to Pablo Picasso and BANKSY and BASQUIAT and Poetry and Rock lists and Ads and Ron Asheton’s guitar tone/
Trying to eventually see what a second looks like))) Your project made me streamline my normal attack and focus, like flier making/
My t-shirt idea is saying “I come in peace” it says “THIS IS NOT A WAR SONG” and it points out “me” the wearer of the shirt and it points out “HERE” So it’s “me here no war song” It’s the message I’ve been preaching my whole life)))
Barry Zimmerman designed the ‘NOT A WAR SONG’ Tee in the shop here. Sales benefit the organization: 2nd Chance Animal Shelter in Norman, OK.
Alicia Smith
What have you been involved in over the last few years?
I graduated with my masters in 2018 from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. I went in a printmaker and sculptor and left a video and performance artist. It had an enormously liberating impact on me and connected me with more artists, gallerists and curators whose work I believe in and who believe in my work. I went to Standing Rock, marched with Indigenous Women at the Women's March, being with my relatives always makes me feel so seen and understood and informs my work a lot.
What have you been up to lately/this year?
This year I had the honor of showing my piece "I Believe You" at AIR gallery in NYC, first ever feminist art gallery in the country and once home to artists like Ana Mendieta, Nancy Spero and Agnes Denes who I admire greatly. The show was curated by Carmen Hermo from the Brooklyn Museum of Art who is incredible. I also showed at an SVA Alumni show called "Believing You" (title inspired by the piece) curated by the great Risa Puleo and I have a show coming up this summer at Ellsworth Gallery in Santa Fe curated by Kirsten Fellrath.
Right now Im doing a lot of research and making arrangements to shoot my next piece "Hueatoyatzin" about the Rio Grande and immigration which I cant wait for people to see. It’s my first year to have a full garden, Im growing pre-contact Aztec Black Corn and Prince's Feather Amaranth among other traditional foods. I feel like I've learned more about myself from the corn than maybe anything else and Im honored to be their steward.
What are you looking to get into in the future?
Every decision I've made for almost the last decade is in furtherance of my dream to have an artist residency and homestead. A place where people can eat good healthy food, in safety and security and produce the work that needs to be made in the wake of the anthropocene and white-supremacist patriarchy. It has felt like a kind of Sisyphean task but I think I've finally realized that I have made some real headway. Especially in the last few years. I don't know how much longer it will be but "You put your hand to the plow, you finish the row".
Conscious Goals?
Right now I need to record the song I wrote for Huatoyatzin and get in touch with the guy is going to pierce my back haha that's a teaser.
What type of art/creative scenes have you been involved with?
I feel like Im kind of all over the place. I mostly just want to be around people who are doing the work with integrity and are people I might want to have at the homestead for supper some day. In New York you meet a lot of "networkers" and that kind of extractive relationship just makes me very uncomfortable, I prefer community building. I always come back to my printmaking family though for sure.
Influences?
So so many. Ana Mendieta, Frida Kahlo, Rebecca Belmore, Swoon, Monica Canilao, Merritt Johnson, Meryl McMaster, Daniela Riojas everything Rebecca Solnit, Emily Johnson, Eve Tuck, Gloria Anzaldua have written. I LOVE Andrew Thomas Huang. As I get more into performance I've become obsessed with Pina Bausch, Alan Lake, Daina Ashbee I just think people who can think with their bodies like that are absolutely incredible.
Hopes and fears?
I sincerely hope that I can have the residency started within the next 5 years, in however small iteration it has to take first. Im terrified that the planet is dying and that our choice in November is between a Sociopath and a Centrist who don't give a damn about the planet we are leaving to our children. The residency is kind of an ark to me. An ark of sacred knowledge. Art is sacred.
Anything else?
Black Lives Matter.
Fuck 12.
Alicia Smith designed the ‘Molotov Hare Tee’ currently available in the shop. Sales benefit the organization: Millions for Prisoners NM - Fighting for those in prison and detained by ICE