Process-driven play

Gilcrease Museum’s Drop-In Studio makes the creative experience accessible

Three Sundays a month, a little room off the main hall at Gilcrease Museum becomes a flow state paradise.

Alison Rossi, the museum’s director of education and community engagement, developed the Drop-In Studio program as a way to empower people in their own creativity, no matter their experience. Each month is focused on a different approach (i.e., pen and ink, watercolor, subtractive sculpture), with the attentive but unobtrusive guidance of a teaching artist fluent in that medium, process, or concept.

“This isn’t a ‘make and take’ where you all make masks one day, or pictures of trees,” Rossi said. “It’s not product-driven but process-driven.

“You can wake up that morning and say, ‘I want to go with my friend, spouse, grandma, child, and be creative together.’ You don’t have to invest in supplies, or even make a reservation. You can come once or several times, and stay as long as you want.”

The drop-in program is free with museum admission ($8 adults, $6 seniors/military, $5 college student with ID), and kids 18 and under are always free, so even for a large family it’s basically a semi-private art experience for less than the cost of a couple of coffees.

I dabble in visual art but have scant familiarity with color theory or pastels (the focus during last month’s sessions), so I was eager to get to work during my visit. Teaching artist and art therapist Staci Craven talked with me about using colors to focus emotion and showed examples of different ways to use the materials. I sat at a large table beside an older woman who was happily surprised when Craven remarked that the energy in her drawing was probably coming from the complementary colors she’d used. A family that comes every Sunday sat behind me, adults and children alike busily focused on color wheels and blending tools. A pair of women asked Craven how to give more depth to their landscapes and received expert suggestions that they immediately tried.

The room was so quiet that I could hear the shushing sound of a finger blending colors, and wonder at the feathery swirls a Q-tip made when I rubbed it into a heavy swath of oil pastel. I got so engaged in getting to know the pastels that I was delightedly lost in my own weird world of colors and shapes for almost two hours.

Rossi hopes the program facilitates people’s desire to spend time simply being creative, alone or with loved ones, and maybe discover a medium that makes them realize their own creative ability.

“The word ‘museum’ means ‘house of the muses,’” she said. “We’re constantly in front of computers and smart phones, but there’s this strong desire to use our heart, head, and hands to make something. It’s realizing our most human humanness.”

Gilcrease Museum Drop-In Studio
1st, 2nd, and 4th Sundays of every month
1–4 p.m. | gilcrease.org
1400 N. Gilcrease Museum Rd.