Tishomingo “Mingo” Yale is one of the characters from Normal, OK.



Drawing for Normal, OK: Tishomingo Yale, ink on paper, 2007. Click image to view source.

Tishimingo “Mingo” Yale teaches pilates. On weekends, weather permitting, she has a roadside fish fry stand. Bass fishermen stop there on their way back from Lake Goodnight.
Mingo came to fitness instruction in her mid-forties, after years of wearing high-heeled shoes had all but ruined her spine. At the urging of her chiropractor, Mingo took up yoga. The improvements in her health were so significant she decided she must help bring this lifestyle to others.

The final painting, which you can see here, was created using the acrylic gel transfer process detailed here and here.

You can see Mingo in person at Legacy Bank in Edmond through January 2010.

Here’s a fun game to play in the car: When you pass a road sign that has two town names on it, pretend they are the first and last names of a person. Invent a personality to go with that name. Who is this person? Where did they come from? What do they do for a living? What are their hobbies? Sarah Atlee has played this game enough to populate an entire imaginary community.

“Normal, OK is a fictional construct, a place in my head, based on real places around me,” says Atlee. “In Normal, everyone has a second job, a quiet dream, a lost love, or a former life. Normal is a town of entrepreneurs, artists, upstanding citizens, troublemakers, friends, and a few enemies. I hope you enjoy your visit.”

Please join me at the Legacy Bank Holiday Open House on Wednesday, December 9th, from 11 am to 2 pm. I will be there sketching from 11:00 until closing time at 5:00.

Click here to learn more about Normal, OK.

This is the last week to see my current solo show, Back to Normal: Normal, OK Revisited at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum in Oklahoma City (map link). The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday. Click here for hours and admission.

My sincere thanks to everyone who attended the reception last week! It was great to see my friends and meet new people.

Please join me for a reception at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum (here’s a map) in Oklahoma City to celebrate my solo show Back to Normal: Normal, OK Revisted. The reception is this Thursday evening from 5 to 7 pm. Wine and refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Back to Normal will be on display at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum through September 21, 2009.

Click here to learn more about Normal, OK.

Edmond “Mundy” Tulsa was born to a man who was hoping for a boy. Everyone calls her Mundy. She is a prodigious baker, and wins many bake-offs and Opteemah County Fair ribbons.



Young Mundy Tulsa, first underpainting.

The Tulsa family’s money went down with Penn Square Bank when the bottom dropped out. But Grampa Dewright Tulsa had placed gold and silver coins inside sections of pipe and buried them in the backyard. One day Mundy undertakes to dig a vegetable garden and discovers the coins. This becomes the startup capital for Miz Mundy Cookies, and later Mundy Buns.



Young Mundy Tulsa, second underpainting.

Mundy Buns grows so successful that Mundy gets a buyout offer from Nabisco. She declines on account of her personal integrity. Soon after, she strikes a deal with Dobbin Wynn to be the exclusive concessions distributor for the Dobbin & Dixie Family Film Fest.



Young Mundy Tulsa, third underpainting.

The Mundy Buns plant remains the economic heart of Normal. Mundy hires Katie Hennepin to help her branch out into organic baked goods.




Normal, OK: Young Mundy Tulsa, graphite and acrylic on paper, 2009

Mundy is seen here at the Opteemah County Fair in 1944, with the blue ribbon she won for her Sweet ‘n’ Spicy Blackberry Pie.

Back To Normal: Normal, OK Revisited is on display at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum in Oklahoma City through September 19th.

I would like to thank everyone who attended my talk at the show last Saturday, I had a wonderful time. Please join us for the closing reception on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 5 pm.

I’ll be appearing at two OKC gallery events this coming Saturday, July 18. First is my gallery talk and book signing for Back to Normal at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum (map here). I’ll speak from 2 pm until whenever we get tired of eachother. There will be audience participation, followed by lemonade!

Afterward, head over to IAO Gallery at 811 N Broadway for the 24 Works on Paper opening. There you can mingle, and see my drawing of romy, plus 23 other works by Oklahoma artists. IAO is the first venue for this travelling show. Kick off the tour with us from 6 to 9 pm.

My new solo show, Back to Normal: Normal, OK Revisited, is now open at the Gaylord Pickens Museum in Oklahoma City. Come on down!

I’ll be giving a public talk in the gallery on Saturday July 18th at 2 pm.

Meet some of the Normal people in here.

This post is part of NaBloPoMo for July 2009.

Many of the characters from Normal (plus some new ones!) will be on display at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum in Oklahoma City this summer. Details here.

Tishomingo “Mingo” Yale, acrylic on found panel, 2008. Click image to enlarge.

The first Art 365 exhibit came to an end at the beginning of this year. Oklahoma artists and audiences can now look forward to the next one, not to mention OVAC‘s other great events, like Momentum (this weekend!). Fortunately, my series for Art 365, titled Normal, OK, continues to grow. I have booked a new showing of Normal, OK at the Oklahoma Heritage Association’s Gaylord-Pickens Museum in Oklahoma City. The show is scheduled to open the first week of July and run through the end of September 2009. We are tentatively placing the public reception at Thursday 17 September. More details as they come.

I am working on new character portraits for Normal — folks you may have read about in the book, whose faces have yet to be revealed. (Kind of like cylons.) Stay tuned.

Brick Snow, acrylic on found panel, 2008. Click image to view full-size.

Holly Wall of the Urban Tulsa Weekly has named Art 365 the best gallery show in Tulsa this year. Thanks, everybody!

Best Art Exhibitions of the Year: Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition’s “Art 365,” exhibited simultaneously at Liggett Studios and at the University of Tulsa’s Alexandre Hogue Gallery. Six projects by Oklahoma artists were chosen to each receive a $10,000 honorarium and a year of curatorial guidance, and the resulting exhibits were displayed in Tulsa and in Oklahoma City. We definitely think more artists should be given opportunities like this one. The resulting work was quite spectacular.

My series Normal, OK was part of the Art 365 exhibit. The show opened last March in Oklahoma City and is about to come down from its last venue in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I feel so lucky and honored to have been a part of this great opportunity. I look forward to seeing the next one!