OVAC Grant Recipient: Lori Oden

Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition grants support artists' projects and career development. OVAC funded a record amount of artists in the past year, 30, granting more than $16,000, and is on pace to support even more artists' projects this year. Intern Ashley Romano profiled recent Creative Project Grant recipient Lori Oden.

Lori Oden, Edmond: Creative Projects Grant recipient
Oden’s photographs are often inspired by her interest in writing. “Either a phrase will give me a visual impression and I create a photograph, or a photograph will bring words or a phrase to mind.”

For her project, Write Me a Photograph, Oden will send a letter to more than 50 people from across the state requesting a letter about anything they wish to write about, such as “love, forgiveness, anger or even social or political views.” Only 25 letters will be chosen. Once the prose is received and read, Oden will create a photograph based on each letter. The project will be completed in August 2010, when it will be exhibited at Istvan Gallery in Oklahoma City.

Oden is a photographer, specializing in nineteenth-century photographic processes as well as traditional black and white photography. A native Oklahoman, Oden teaches photography at Oklahoma State University and Oklahoma City University. She received her BA in 1997 from the University of Missouri, Kansas City and completed her Master of Liberal Studies in 2006 from the University of Oklahoma.

See OVAC's website for more information on OVAC’s grant opportunities.