Oklahoma City Museum of Art(15)
- Jonathan Elmore
- Jun 19
- 4 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
OKLAHOMA CITY
I can't tell you how many times I've been to this museum. It's not a ridiculous number, maybe around 10 or 12 times. But every time I have been amazed at the special exhibit they've managed to get in to our fair city. My latest visit was no exception.
Even though I knew the Ansel Adams exhibit was on the 3rd floor, I still like to stroll through the other two floors. For me, it's meditative to walk slowly looking at beautiful artwork. More often than not, it's quiet and not too crowded when I visit museums so I'm able to get the full effect of serenity. Occasionally there is a school field trip roaming the halls. I can even find that to be fun. Watching these kids experience art and try being civilized when they have so much energy and curiosity. It makes me wonder if I was a little goofball on field trips. 100% I was!
I start at this museum in the Chihuly Room. This is a permenant collection of glass works and paintings from the great artist Dale Chihuly. On this visit, I had the opportunity to meet a great security/host/docent guy named Stephen. He knew a great deal about the museum and the exhibit hall he was tending. I love having great conversations with interesting people. As I rounded through the Chihuly Room, I was re-amazed by his work. I've seen these pieces before, but it always catches me off guard at how beautiful and intricate they all are. One new thing I saw was a documentary video about him and his work around the world. It's only about 9 minutes long, which Stephen pointed out before I started it, so it didn't take long to watch and I took away an even bigger respect for the man and the art.
After Chihuly, I walked up the step to the second floor. Y'know, exercise and whatnot. When I got there, there was a glass artists exhibit straight ahead in a smaller room. Even though I've been an artist for years, sometimes I see a piece and am utterly blown away by how it could have possibly been done. There were a couple of those in this room. My favorite was Cityscape by Jay Musler. To me, it was perfect.
On through the rest of the second floor was Oklahoma City MoA's permenant collection. Since I've been here quite a few times, there were a lot of pieces I'd see before, but like the Chihuly works, sometimes seeing them again on a different day, a different year, a different attitude can mean the work means something more than it did two years ago or even two months ago. That's why I visit every gallery even though I know what's in there. The work may be the same, but I'm not.
Then to the 3rd floor and the Ansel Adams exhibit. I had never see any of Ansel's works in person. I've seen them in books for decades, but never up close. My first shock was the size of most of them, merely 8X10s like regular out of the darkroom prints. Since I had seen these photos in coffee table sized books, I thought they would be giant prints. But no, they're not. Once I adjusted my mindset, I began to look deeply into these photos. Some were pretty good, others were okay. But there were true masterpieces in there that I don't think books could do justice. There were photos where it was right time, right place, right season, right cloud cover, right angle, right everything and he took the photo and it was perfect. That's what I came to see. And it was there on the 3rd floor of a great museum in the middle of Oklahoma.
This photo exhibit really made me miss my dad. He was a photographer that could rival Ansel in some instances and maybe exceed him in others. Not bragging on my dad, well not bragging that much. But like baseball player Dizzy Dean said, "It ain't bragging if you can do it." Since my dad passed, it's been difficult to go through his photos, but this exhibit gave me inspiration to do just that. Maybe James Elmore will have an exhibit here someday. It would be well deserved.
415 Couch Drive
Downtown Oklahoma City
405-236-3100
Closed Mondays
These photos are categorized by floor to give some resemblance of organization.
Which is rare for me.
The First Floor - Chihuly Collection
The Second Floor - Permanent Collections
Some of these are on the 3rd floor since the Ansel Adams exhibit doesn't take up the entire floor. It would be an awful waste of space to not fill it with art!
The Third Floor - Special Exhibit - Ansel Adams
You'll notice most of the photos I took are at a bit of an angle. The reason is that all of these pieces were behind glass that reflected the room. I didn't want to be in every photo so I stood to the side. These photos don't really give you the depth of detail that they have. But maybe they'll inspire you to go see these works in person.
I also wanted to let you know about a cool cat that was playing guitar in the lobby of the museum when I came out of the top floor exhibit. He is Maurice Johnson and he's an amazing jazz guitarist. Go see him whenever you can.
