Edmond educators rummage through mountain

Charles Martin
CNHI News Service

EDMOND— Oklahoma teachers recently spent the weekend wandering though the woods around Quartz Mountain searching for a berry with the perfect hue.
“The goal is to find something they take back and apply directly to the students, and also take something they can be proud of and show to their family,” workshop teacher Bob Palmer said.
Palmer is a muralist who teaches at the University of Central Oklahoma, and is currently teaching Painting with Oklahoma Resources for the Oklahoma Fall Arts Institute. The class is meant to inspire students to find alternate materials and tools to paint with. It is just one of dozens of weekend workshops that are offered throughout the season.
“The idea is to get them out of their comfort zone,” Palmer said. “I want to show them they can take berries, crush them up and paint an entire painting without a traditional medium.”
Palmer is teaching the class because it is a technique that invigorates his creative drive. The paintings that materialize from the experiments may or may not end up in their portfolio. The artists learn about opportunities to toss away their normal methods and tools by finding substitutes in nature. He wants the students to experiment in as many different directions as possible.
“We encourage our students to work on three to four pieces at one time from small to large,” Palmer said, adding they are working on a large class project.
“It’s 4 feet by 20 feet and non-objective,” Palmer said. “Right now (there) is nothing about it you can identify.”
They use any extra paint that the students made from mud, berries, grass or whatever else they find in nature that wasn’t used on their own work, and add it to the class project.
“It seems the theme from the class has been poke berries,” Palmer said. “They produce the prettiest, most majestic color; everybody has been using them.”
Palmer encounters resistance from some of his students.
“Some people are hard to pull out of their comfort zone,” Palmer said. “One lady would not try it because it was too uncomfortable for her, so the whole day she painted very traditional. And then there are some that jump in neck deep. They’ll try anything.”
Edmond resident Peggy Sanders Brennan is teaching “Southeast Native American Basketry,” an unappreciated art that is being resurrected.
She is a part of the Oklahoma Native American Basketweavers, an organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the traditional methods and symbols of basketry. Many of the family and tribal symbols found in baskets were lost with their mass relocation and assimilation.
“When women were removed to Oklahoma, they lost their importance in the culture because their baskets had provided money and it also broke up clans,” Brennan said. “The patterns representing clans were taught to everyone, including white people. For the tribes, it was like losing a religious icon to another religion.”
She began teaching classes after attempting to learn the art herself, only to find there were few teachers who knew traditional twill patterns.
Brennan said the teachers in the class are picking up a unique skill.
The craft is difficult to master, but Brennan has been impressed by her class’s diligence.
“The teachers are eager to soak it up, they will go back to the classroom to work before and after class,” Brennan said. “They would work 10 to 12 hours if I were there.”
Both teachers agree the environment at Quartz Mountain is conducive to creativity.
The fall classes are open to anyone 21 and up, and all teachers are given full scholarships.
“It encourages you to immerse yourself,” Palmer said. “Teachers get so few opportunities to be students; it gives them the chance to relax with no pressure on them.”
OFAI is also enjoyable for the instructors, because they get to work with other teachers who are sometimes more welcoming and less resistive.
“Teachers know what they need,” Brennan said. “Where a student may not say, ‘I can’t see that pattern,’ adults will articulate what they need.”
(Charles Martin may be reached via e-mail at cmartin@edmondsun.com.)

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