</i> Next on Gallery America.
An Oklahoma City artist has long left his imprint across the state.
Now he's taking on his biggest work yet a 40,000 square foot piece that will be seen by nearly 2 million people a year, growing up, Wanting to be a professional artist.
You never dreamed that the biggest project of your life is something everybody's going to walk on.
Lisa Smallwood can paint realistic photo like depictions of jazz musicians, but she likes going another route.
Instead, I want to give a little bit of detail, but I'm not going to go into it completely.
I'm going to create an illusion to the brain of like, okay.
Wow.
You know, oh, he's really blowing that SAPs.
Ruth Carter is an Oscar winning costume designer looking to change how African-Americans are seen on the big screen.
And they're honoring African royalty and the empowered way women can look and lead on screen.
Hello, Oklahoma.
I'm Robert Reed and welcome to gallery America.
The show that gets you into creative minds of great artists of Oklahoma and around the nation.
Today we're meeting Matt goad, an Oklahoma city artists, graphic designer, musician, whose imprint is already seen all over Oklahoma city and the state.
But now he's tackling an entirely new medium in a very, very big way.
Have a look And Matt goes, I am an Oklahoma city resident since about the year 1990 ish.
And, uh, I do visual stuff like art and graphics.
You get people ask me what my style is.
And I guess it's an amalgamation of all the things that I've always loved.
You know, you become a fan of a bunch of stuff, and then it all kind of gets mixed together and it becomes who you are.
At least that's the way it is for me.
I worked at a, at an ad agency for a few years in the nineties, and that allowed me to get some of the graphics I did out in the public where people saw them did the E for Edmond with the tree in Oklahoma, keep our land grand going into the trash, the, um, film row logo.
I've done the Midtown vets downtown, uh, elk valley brewery.
Well, Eve is my little girl.
She says 1964 Volkswagen type one in a way unintentionally it's become part of my trademark.
I always love photographing her in front of, uh, a lot of the cool mid-century structures around Oklahoma.
I love the egg church for so many reasons.
It's so dynamic the way it looks.
And when you see it poking up over the trees, you feel like you're in a star wars movie or something.
I think we got a really good shot with kind of seeing that curve and the beetle with the curve or the church.
I've never been a good photographer as far as you know, the f-stops and all that, but I'm pretty good with the iPhone Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Oklahoma city.
The local time is 10:07 AM central time.
Please keep your seatbelts fastened until we are parked at the gate.
And it's such a wonderful addition to our airport.
The cup of seen 134,000 square feet of new space and many new amenities, including a new checkpoint, new airline gates.
You can session spaces in wonderful new art.
I'm so excited for you and all the people of Oklahoma city to see this new front door to our grace In 2019, they had a call for entries for artists to submit for a 40,000 square foot floor.
You know, I assumed, of course, there's no way I could even become a finalist, but it was word is worth a shot.
Frankly, Matt made the decision fairly easy.
I've done a number of arts selection committees, and maths was by far the most thoughtful presentation that I've ever seen.
And I think when people come to the airport and see this, they're going to be wild Growing up, wanting to be a professional artist.
You never dreamed that the biggest project of your life is something everybody's gonna walk on.
All I remember.
As far as my earliest memories is drawing, I was always, always had a pencil.
My mother was extremely, uh, supportive, and she's the one that kept the scrapbook.
It's like a time machine, you know, you know, this could actually be in MoMA now.
I mean, I grew up the son of a traveling preacher, man.
We lived in about a different city every, almost every year.
Um, by the time I was 12, I had lived in, I think, eight states and uh, about 11 cities.
Uh, I came to go to school at Oklahoma Christian in 19 fall in 19 88, 1 of the only schools that had a good graphic design program.
And I didn't know really what that was at first.
It was, but they said it's something to do with art and you can get a job.
And so that led to an internship with a real design studio.
And that was when my eyes were opened to this.
Isn't just a job.
This is awesome.
This is like, you know, this is wow.
Super cool.
I'm a big fan of a mid century.
Modern, if you couldn't tell righty, the aesthetic of it is to me, just something that's, it's a positive.
It's like I'm looking forward in a positive way to the future.
And that always makes me happy.
So I don't ever really say I paint paintings.
I say, I build paintings because the way I do, it's not like a normal painter in the classical sense.
It's like an architect draws it out.
And then you build the house from the drawings.
As far as how I do my work, I always, it's always an idea.
And then it becomes a sketch.
All of these are, uh, like mental notes to myself.
I can do 50 of them and I might like two.
So, but once I have one that I like, I cannot stop working on it.
Usually I'm like giggle, you know, I'm fun.
What I do is I I'll take that line drawing.
Um, and I will bring it into the computer and make a stencil out of it.
Yeah.
I'm kind of a jet.
I was read the illustrator, still got some tape.
I've got it ready and in a little bit of stencil.
So then what I'll do is put a clear just over those spots, then I'm going to prime it.
And then once I have that stencil built, that's when the color comes in For me, color is the hardest part.
That's why it's the most fulfilling.
When I feel like I've accomplished it.
I call this checker boarding and it's kind of where you don't have a color touching.
Exactly.
It's almost like a square dance of colors that happens in my paintings.
It's it's funny how every color has its own little personality.
How it, how it behaves.
Some are more opaques.
Some are just beautiful.
It's kind of like people Pain is going to be intense, like boy Scouts.
That's my joke.
Get an intense Matt is the coolest guy.
I know.
And he, he doesn't even know how cool he is and that's why I love it.
I think we needed some bigger artists to give the space legitimacy so that we could be a platform for more emerging artists.
And I always had the dream of having an original Matt goad.
Really the only guidance we told them was big, as long as it could fit through the door.
I feel like the more you look at this piece, just the more you discover little nod to the Dali clock in the corner And the submarine and the infinity couple It's very much I think I love it.
I think I'm in A little touch up here and there.
My perfectionism is a compensation for the craziness in my head So terrazzo is a medium it's 2000 plus years old.
What it is is it's a mixture of a bunch of different rocks that are all kind of mixed together in a binding agent.
And they all have different colors, a lot of public buildings and public facilities have it.
Everyone's seen it.
It's beautiful.
And you can roll your luggage on it with these maybe January 20, 20, they started to put in the metal strips.
So once I saw those going in, that's when I kind of got to see how vast this was.
It's every part of that project started with the little doodle and, uh, I knew that I wanted to have will somewhere in it over here, he's tipping his hat to the visitor saying welcome to Oklahoma city.
I tried to break it down into what represents the cultures of Oklahoma and the, uh, you know, I thought sports, music, hospitality, and then places, of course, the goal is to kind of just give them an excitement that you're in a world-class city.
And they, a glass curtain wall represents the sky.
If you know, Oklahoma and all, you know, we're a weather center and each symbol represents a different weather event.
And if you go around, it kind of creates a flow.
Yeah, I still, um, can't really grasp the reality of this project for an artist that, you know, wasn't really great at school was kind of okay at drawing.
I don't know.
I still am pinching my stove.
Well, I hope that when people come to Oklahoma city and land in that area, they're going to have an instant, positive feeling about the city.
To see more of mats, our work, visit his website, Matt, go.com or to follow Eva.
The Volkswagen's exploits go to his Instagram account at Matt goad art.
And by the way, all the music you heard in the story, including these little bells you hear now is for Matt goads bands, American boyfriends, and field specters.
Next we're going to Tampa to meet an artist who loves jazz musicians and paints them, not by what they look like, but how their sound makes her feel.
My name is Lisa Martin Smallwood, a K a Lee RC.
I'm originally from Philadelphia.
I'm currently, I'm living out here in Tampa bay and I, uh, visual artists.
Um, I worked with different mediums, such as ink, pastel, and acrylic.
The style is more like impressionistic.
It's like, I'm making a suggestion.
Okay.
And I'm going to give a little bit of detail, but I'm not going to go into it completely.
I'm going to create an illusion to the brain of like, okay, wow.
You know, oh, he's really blowing that sex.
What a trumpet, or, you know, playing that piano.
Like my Nina Simone, I love Nina, you know?
And the, the shades that I use suggests that is abstract, but at the same time, it has a surreal, surreal feel to it.
I can paint some, a painting and make it look like a photograph, but I like to experiment and to project, you know, um, the feeling that it gives me, I think what really separates Lisa from other artists is that she really adds depth and passion into her artwork.
And I think also the use of colors to capture the ambience and give the viewer that, that in depth expression so that they feel like that they're actually a part of that piece.
It's Jason here.
Hey Jerry.
Hey, how are you, Lisa?
I'm good.
I got my Risa Franklin piece.
Jason, how's it going?
Excellent.
How are you?
I'm good.
Thank you.
My favorite art place is one of my favorite places.
I love that piece.
You and me both.
I wish she would sing it to us right now.
Well, you knew I was saying, but I don't do that.
They have welcomed me into this establishment.
I mean, to see the whole production is like to me, a class trip and they work on my art.
They treat it great.
They do my reproductions now, why are you rotating it basically.
So the highlights From the, from the shiny metallic geeks, right?
I first met Lisa, uh, while she was doing a live painting exercise in our gallery in St. Petersburg, we had a musician playing there and she was painting him live as he played.
And I was just blown away by what she did.
Uh, so we talked her into coming.
She showed me some of her artwork, which I fell in love with immediately.
And we just kept talking about artwork.
We hit it off right away.
Uh, she ran into a situation where she needed a framer, uh, to have a piece fixed up.
And she came out to visit us and met the team and saw our operation and was very impressed.
Oh, that looks Good.
And then we'll get a shot.
So once we get the artwork captured in the color, correct, then we can spread it out onto a myriad of things, depending on the venue of where the artwork is going to be sold, that are displayed RDSP CT.
I mean, we get her singing The music, actually.
I don't know.
It's just like in me, you know, every guitar, new chip pluck or whatever, it's like every stroke from me, you know, and that's how the two come together.
Lisa From Philadelphia and Philadelphia has a music scene, unlike any others.
And her father was in the music world.
And you can just tell that it's in her blood.
So when she paints musicians and performances and that type of stuff, it just, the paintings sing.
You can see the music, you can feel the energy, you can feel the emotion that comes out.
And I think that that's one of the things that makes her such a successful artist and makes that her paintings of musicians so popular.
So my father dowel, small wood, junior B, um, was a drummer, a native from Philadelphia.
And he played with Johnny styles in the Manhattans, which was a jazz group back in the 1950s into the sixties.
My father was a great guy and he has really inspired me.
And he always encouraged me to continue to paint.
Um, just the memories and the stories that he would tell me.
I try to put myself there for that moment.
Some of the paintings that I have painted, um, are a lot of times our memories.
Um, it could be his memories that he shared with me and I'm just painting it out and laying out, you know, everything in my mind, in my heart that I felt during that thought process of, you know, processing his story.
I think Lisa's, our work really has a very poetic vibe to it.
And she's actually able to capture those poetic expressions, which creates a real synergy with her work.
You can just look at it and begin to just talk about it in a very poetic manner.
This is so beautiful.
I hope that my artwork can hatch a memory.
Art is very therapeutic and I just want people to enjoy what they're looking at and, you know, open that box of memories To see more work by visit her website, Lee Aussie creations.com.
Lastly, we're meeting an Oscar winner.
This Massachusetts native has created groundbreaking costume designs that have been worn by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, and then seen in films like black Panther meet Ruth Carter.
This is one of Oprah Winfrey's ensembles from the film Selma by director Ava DuVernay.
One of countless costumes, Ruth Carter has designed over her 30 plus year career.
We had Oprah's character who was Annie Lee Cooper who had a scene where she was going to attempt to register to vote.
You worked for Mr. Don down at the restaurant in that ride.
Annie Lee Cooper was a domestic.
So I at first gave Oprah kind of her uniform.
And then Ava said, you know, no, I feel like this is a special occasion for her.
Let's have her tress up in her Sunday best for this.
And why would She have had a approach?
Well, you know, I remember broaches and earrings when I was a little girl in church.
So that's a little bit of, you know, my heart on it in the costume design At the new Bedford art museum.
This is a collection of costumes.
Carter has personally kept over the years from her work on the roots, reboot to a polyester panoply from the comedy dolomite is my name to spike.
Lee's groundbreaking do the right thing all the way to do the right thing.
How overtly political was your work and do the right thing.
We all knew that we were doing a protest film.
This was about one hot day in New York city.
And the colors in do the right thing are very saturated, almost in a surrealistic form that at night you could see these colors almost ignite Carter's career began in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she interned in a college costume shop.
After a brief spell, as an actress, I actually could feel how important my wardrobe was to my, my performance, Her job, she says is literally in the details, the little things she does in color fabric and accessories to manifest a mood, The aging of the jacket, the billowing of the pockets chews that are run over all silently tell the story she's like unmatched in the field.
And, uh, just a really, really special thoughtful Jamie Jarecki is the museum's curator who spent two years sifting through costumes, sketches and mood boards.
But her chief inspiration was the designer's Oscar acceptance speech in 2019 for her work on black Panther, making her the first black person to win an academy award for costume design, Honoring African royalty, and the empowered way women can look and lead on screen.
I think that her as like a powerful black woman who is just like, uh, had her hand in, you know, like over 40 films that are in imperative to understanding American history and the black experience, she makes the experiences of these people feel real.
When she first started out in Hollywood, Carter says there was a limit to how black people were portrayed on camera.
Every time a black person was cast, or they were a gang banger, or they had their hat turned backwards, or they had a big gold chain.
And there were so many more stories in the community that weren't being seen.
Carter is now a world away from that time in the world of Wakanda, the fictional setting of black Panther, her looks came from deep research into African tribes and influences.
And after the films, blockbuster success Carter's designs on Wakanda and culture melded into our own.
I hate to tell you, but you can't get to Wakanda.
It's totally made up, but it's kind of an aspirational place.
We want to create that place that you want to go to because it looks like, you know, the perfect place to spirit culture that has not been appropriated or has not been spoiled by, you know, colonization Spend some time with Carter and you quickly realized she may be most proud of how much research she's done tracing the path of indigo from Sierra Leone through generations of Africans, as she illustrated in roots, noting how tight Martin Luther king Jr kept his color or sitting down at the Massachusetts department of correction to read the letters of Malcolm X Learning was very important to him.
And growth was very important to him.
When I look at Malcolm X, I can see my intent.
The color palette is very vibrant.
When he's young dancer in the dance halls, it kind of washes itself away with the denim in the prison.
And then when he comes out, it's almost like a black and white film, Uh, fitting if not poetic description from a woman who has always been able to dress the part That's all for this gallery America.
But remember you can revisit past episodes by going to our robust archives at dot TV slash gallery America.
And for daily features of Oklahoma art news and art exhibits, follow gallery America online on Facebook and our Instagram account at Otta gallery.
Thank you so much for watching till next time.
Stay already Oklahoma.
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