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Tonkawa Chosen as Mid-America Arts Alliance Oklahoma Mural Project Community

(Kansas City, Mo.) – Tonkawa, Okla., has been named the host community for a public art project sponsored by Mid-America Arts Alliance, in partnership with the Oklahoma Arts Council.

The two-month Oklahoma Mural Project will begin in March 2010 and will engage Tonkawans of all ages and background in the development, design, and production of a permanent public art piece. Dave Loewenstein, a muralist from Lawrence, Kan., and a specialist in community engagement through public art, will provide consultation to Tonkawa participants as they create their personalized community mural.

Five Oklahoma communities applied to be considered for the project. Through application review and site visits to the finalist communities, Tonkawa was chosen as the host community, due in part to strong support from local organizations and residents, and to its efforts to highlight the community’s economy and related need for community-building activities. Community organizer and Northern Oklahoma College art instructor Audrey Schmitz submitted an application on behalf of Tonkawa and was pleased to learn that her community was selected to participate in the project.

“We applied for the Mid-America Arts Alliance mural project because it seemed a perfect fit for the renaissance we are experiencing in our community through grassroots efforts,” Schmitz said. “With a diverse group of citizens involved in the planning and design of the mural, Tonkawa could embody the meaning of its name, ‘They All Stay Together.’ Even though the community will be very proud to have received a great work of art, we know that the process itself is the real gift, and that all who choose to be involved will be positively changed by the experience. For those who may not want to be physically involved, even viewing the mural in progress will be of great interest and conversation. The energy of art is in the making, and Tonkawa is ready to embrace the mural experience!”

The next step for the Oklahoma Mural Project is to identify a mural assistant in Oklahoma, who will assist Loewenstein from the earliest stages of the project through to its completion, and will be introduced to all of the skills used to shape successful community murals. This project, as well as a sister Mural Project in a Kansas community, will be carefully documented through video, audio, interviews, and photography, with the intent of producing a manual of sorts on how to conduct public art projects in small communities.

“Of the many wonderful places in the state, I am thrilled to be able to work with local people in Tonkawa,” mentor artist Loewenstein said. “It is clear that folks there know the importance of bringing community together around the arts, and I hope that the mural project can help to bolster that creative spirit, active neighborliness, and good will.”

Mid-America Arts Alliance brings more art to more people by annually producing and managing more than 450 exhibition, performance, and professional development opportunities in more than 175 communities with more than 1,500 related educational programs. Each year our programs reach more than one million people regionally, nationally, and internationally. We are especially committed to enlivening the cultural life of underserved communities that lack the resources to provide cultural programs and services to their constituents. Founded in 1972, Mid-America Arts Alliance is a nonprofit regional arts organization based in Kansas City, Missouri. We work in partnership with the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Dave Loewenstein is a muralist, writer, and printmaker based in Lawrence, Kan. In addition to his more than 20 public works in Kansas, examples of his dynamic and richly colored community-based murals can be found across the United States in Missouri, Arizona, Mississippi, Iowa, and New York City, and in Northern Ireland. Loewenstein’s prints, which focus on current social and political issues, are exhibited nationally and are in the permanent collections of the New York Public Library and the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles. He is the co-author of Kansas Murals: A Traveler’s Guide, a 2007 Kansas Notable Book Award Winner, published by the University Press of Kansas; and he is the co-director of the documentary film Creating Counterparts, which won Best Documentary at the 2003 Kansas Filmmakers Jubilee. Loewenstein has been recognized widely for his work, including the 2001 Lighton Prize for Arts Educator of the Year from Kansas City Young Audiences, the 2004 Tom and Anne Moore Peace and Justice Award given by the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice, a 2006 Phoenix Award from the Lawrence Arts Commission, and a 2007 Kansas Press Association 1st Place Columnist Award for his column “Blank Canvas.”

Tonkawa, a rural agricultural town with ties to the petroleum industry, was settled in the last land run into Indian Territory in 1893 and incorporated in 1894. Located two miles east of the heavily traveled I-35 about halfway between Oklahoma City, Okla., and Wichita, Kan., the self-styled “Wheatheart of Oklahoma” is easily accessible by car and close to historical and cultural sites worth a side trip to view. Tonkawa is the home of Northern Oklahoma College, founded in 1901 as a university preparatory school once known as Little Harvard on the Plains. Fabulous oil production in the Tonkawa Oil Fields, familiarly known as Three Sands, gave the town the name of “Billion Dollar Spot” in the 1920s. The Tonkawa Tribe, from which the town takes its name, is located nearby.