OVAC Grant Recipient: Whitney Forsyth

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 Whitney Forsyth.

Whitney Forsyth, Tulsa: Creative Projects Grant recipient

Forsyth uses natural objects as a visual resource for her work, as they have always been an integral part of her life. Her experiences “represent personal stories that allow people and events to become celebrated and sacred, instead of forgotten or unnoticed.”

Forsyth’s proposed project, The Devouring, explores the “complexities of the child welfare system in Romania.” She has created 100 life-sized ceramic crows that will be arranged in a 40-foot long line on six waist-high, fence-like pedestals. Forsyth said her work has been greatly influenced by her volunteer work with abandoned children in Eastern Europe for the past 13 years. “This work will focus on the increasing number of children annually entering institutions and the government’s choice to ignore them.” The installation will be completed by January 2010, when it will be exhibited at Living Arts Gallery in Tulsa.

Forsyth is a ceramic artist and associate professor of ceramics at the University of Tulsa. She grew up in Manitou Springs, Colorado and began working with clay at an early age. She received her BFA in ceramics from Oklahoma State University and completed her Master of Fine Arts in 1995 from New Mexico State University.

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