Now Hiring: Norman Arts Council Marketing and Communications Manager

Now Hiring:
Marketing and Communications Manager
Applications Due Friday, June 21, 2024

Job Title: Marketing and Communications Manager

Organization: Norman Arts Council

Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Status: Full-time, exempt, salaried

Compensation: $38,000 - $45,000 depending on skills and experience, health insurance, Simple IRA, and flexible work environment including generous time-off policy and some remote work.

Overview:

The Norman Arts Council is a dynamic and influential organization dedicated to fostering the growth and vitality of the arts community in the region. We provide crucial support and leadership to numerous arts organizations, maintain a vibrant community art space, and serve as a model of excellence for state and regional arts groups. We seek an exceptional Marketing and Communications Manager who can champion the arts, collaborate effectively with the, staff, artists, and arts community leaders, and drive innovation and growth within the organization.

The Marketing and Communications Manager reports to the Executive Director.

Key Functions:

1. Marketing & Communications

• Create annual strategies for marketing campaigns and implement them through social media and other digital platforms, website, email newsletters, press releases, and other tools for communication.

• Create a digital marketing plan, monitoring social trends to keep content current and identify weaknesses to take actions for improvement

• Research trends and best practices in marketing, social technologies, new media and peers in similar non-profit arts organizations both locally and nationally

• Produce and distribute press releases and materials to relevant media outlets

• Ensure that Norman Arts Council brand and identity is adhered to across communication channels, website, press releases and when in collaboration with other, outside organizations.

2. Social Media

• Manage social media pages for Norman Arts Council (Facebook, Instagram, X), 2nd Friday Norman Art Walk (Facebook & X) and MAINSITE Contemporary Art (Facebook & X)

• Expand Norman Arts Council into new platforms, as desired and/or needed

• Coordinate the creation of engaging content to share with followers

• Monitor social media regularly to answer questions and comments from public

• Check social media analytics monthly to identify what is and isn’t working

3. Graphic Design

• Maintain graphic standards of the NAC and a vibrant, creative brand befitting of a vital arts organization

• Design and/or refresh materials and collateral needed for promotional efforts of Norman Arts events and artist opportunities

• Create look/brand of new initiatives, programs and events as needed

• Monthly 2nd Friday poster design

• Create materials for in-house use, including but not limited to annual appeal campaigns, stationary/office materials, ONE Event fundraiser, corporate sponsor packets and more

4. Website

• Regularly update websites (NormanArts.org, 2ndFridayNorman.com and MAINSITE-Art.com) to keep content current (all hosted and designed through Squarespace)

• Expand websites as needed to promote and serve the organization

• Monitor website analytics to establish baseline trends and identify strengths/weaknesses

5. Documentation

• Photograph and/or capture video of gallery openings, 2nd Friday Art Walks, public art and other Norman Arts events

• Coordinate hiring of freelance photographers, videographers and video editors as needed and when budget allows

6. Champion the Community

• Use Norman Arts channels to amplify the marketing efforts of arts organizations and businesses around town, especially those who receive grant support from NAC

• Update Norman Arts calendar of events

• Market both Downtown Norman and citywide efforts when aligned with NAC’s mission

Essential Tools

1. Squarespace (website and public email marketing)

2. MailChimp (press email marketing)

3. Google Suite

4. Microsoft Office Suite

5. Adobe Creative Suite (or equivalent)

6. Meta Business Suite

7. Mac operating system

Qualifications:

• Have a basic knowledge of the Norman Arts Council and our role in the community.

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, or a related field.

• 3+ year’s experience in a marketing position. A leadership role and work with marketing the arts are preferred.

• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work collaboratively with diverse stakeholders.

• Creativity

• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.

• Innovative and forward-thinking mindset.

• Graphic design skills preferred

Salary Range: $38,000 - $45,000

Benefits Package:

• Health Insurance

• Retirement Plan

• Generous Paid Time Off

• Cell Phone Reimbursement

• Flexible Work Scheduling

• Supportive Work Environment

Application Deadline:

Please submit your resume, cover letter, and three professional references by June 21, 2024 to leslie@normanarts.org.  In your cover letter, please address your qualifications and how they align with the Norman Arts Council's mission and goals.

The Norman Arts Council is an equal-opportunity employer. We encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds and experiences to join our team and help us further our mission of supporting and promoting the arts in our community.

Please direct any questions to: leslie@normanarts.org

Norman Arts Announces Winners of 2023-2024 Round 1 Artist Grants, Deadline for Round 2 Fast Approaches

With applications for the second round of 2023-2024 Artist Grants fast approaching, Norman Arts is proud to announce the winners of the first round of $1,000 awards!

Deanna Wong, Reb NoFun and the team of Chase Spivey and Julius were selected from many worthy applications to support their creative endeavors.

Norman-based artists who are interested in applying for their own Artist Grant are encouraged to do so before the deadline this coming Wednesday, May 29. Learn more and apply here!

For more about the selected artists and their projects, read on below.

Deanna Wong

Deanna Wong is a non-binary Chinese-American artist born and raised on Duwamish and Coast Salish land (also known as Seattle). They received a Bachelor in Visual Media Arts with the specialization of Film Production from Emerson College in Boston, leading them to a successful career as a producer for video game marketing in Los Angeles. After several years of working an office job, the pursuit of new challenges and a more meaningful existence beckoned. Deanna returned to the Pacific Northwest to reconnect with land and community, becoming a Harvest Manager at a biodynamic organic farm on Bainbridge Island. In 2020, the pandemic forced another change in work and lifestyle, which birthed the creation of Dwadlings Art - Deanna’s dive into life as a full-time artist. Dwadlings Art utilizes the meditative practice of ceramics to center around glee and whimsy. To dawdle is to waste time. To dwadle is to do so purposefully, recognizing the benefits of taking things slow.

The NCECA Conference is an invaluable meeting of the minds for ceramic creatives. Deanna was offered the opportunity to attend by volunteering my time and was seeking funds to cover costs of transportation to and from this conference. From this experience, she hoped to learn from fellow artists far and wide, be inspired by demonstrations and local galleries, and find areas for future growth. As a self-taught and full-time artist with a limited budget, she struggled to find the resources to grow my art practice while balancing the need to create products for markets and sales. This conference provides a break from production pottery, a rejuvenating breath of inspiration, and a week of intensive learning opportunities.

She was particularly interested in hearing from global voices that I would not normally have the chance to learn from, such as Japanese wheel-throwing techniques, West African philosophies in clay, and adaptive ceramic works during the decolonization of Puerto Rico. There are also practical techniques and classes such as screen-printing on clay and portfolio feedback that will help refine my craft and current artwork.

Reb NoFun

Reb NoFun is an Oklahoma based artist with a lifetime of experience in art and 20+ years in the graphic design industry. She loves to help build the local art community by participating in, and co-producing as many local art shows as possible. She also host workshops and art nights to encourage others to explore art without taking things too seriously. Her public art can be seen around the area at skate parks and alleyways, and she has completed numerous commissions successfully capturing clients’ visions. She often vend at public events, as well as sell online, and she hopes that her love for art inspires and encourages others to pursue their own passions. She paints, draws, collages, sculpts, deconstructs, screen prints, does woodwork, and honestly, whatever else she can get her hands on to create.

In 2011, she organized an event called Art Battle OK, an art show and painting competition designed to raise money for a local charity, as well as participating artists. Four years later, she competed in a similar competition with a much faster time limit (20 minutes per painting, as opposed to 3 hours) in which the proceeds went to the artists and the event coordinators. Since then, she has had a vision to revive Art Battle OK by combining the two events to create a monthly, or possibly semi-monthly speed painting competition that cultivates local artistic talent, stokes some healthy competition, and also serves as fundraising for local charities.

Her artist grant allows for a new Art Battle OK to bring together local artists for adrenaline-fueled speed painting competitions, where they’ll showcase their skills under time constraints, to produce paintings that will then be voted on by attendees, and auctioned at the end of the event. There will be collaboration with local businesses which will include donated prizes for competition winners and also goodies for the event itself. Proceeds from art sales are distributed among the artists and funding future events, and all other proceeds, which will include donations, voting tickets, entry, etc going to a chosen charity.

Chase Spivey & Julius

Chase Spivey and Julius were able to attend the opening reception for their project "Toci," establishing a connection with the Field Projects Gallery in the Chelsea District of New York in the process. In the Spring of 2023, Chase and Julius were approached by Alicia Smith, a graduate of Oklahoma University, to produce an art performance video that will be part of a several year series introducing themes of Mexican indigenous heritage and lore by mixing scifi and surrealistic aesthetics using video and multimedia. The first story in the series features a collection of women whisked away by Toci, the bat woman warrior who is awakened to relieve them of the trauma of colonization by transporting them to Mars where they can establish their own society and process grief from their time on Earth. The video itself is elusive and resembles a ritual where the women slowly descend into madness after arriving in their new home.

The video was filmed in July of 2023 with choreography by Maggie Boyett. The video debuted at the Field Projects Gallery on January 13th at 6 p.m. and also featured a large mural photographed and produced by Julius to accompany the work. This was an incredible opportunity to have two local Norman artist's represent Oklahoma creativity and connect with a gallery in one of New York's thriving and active art districts. The goal of this trip was to meet and generate long term connections between our communities.

Chase Spivey was born in 1983 in rural Texas, but has called Norman home since 2000. He has been a part of several artistic projects over the years, including Ghost of Monkshood, Penny Hill, Welcome to the Ranchero, Prairie Folk Circus, Universe City Art Co-Op, Form & Function Lab, and Uncanny Alley Art House. He serves as a board member for the Norman Music Festival and Norman Arts Council and has four public art works on display throughout the City of Norman. He co-founded the Norman Film Festival in 2017, which he still volunteers for, and is now on the screening committee for deadCenter Film. He is a Film & Media Studies graduate from the University of Oklahoma, and currently owns and operates the digital creative agency Spivey Media.

Julius is a long time resident of Norman Oklahoma getting their start in multimedia and installation through collaborations with Dope Chapel and Resonator. They received their Bachelors in painting from Cameron University in 2015, moving to Norman shortly after graduation to work as a screen printer and has worked in the commercial print industry for the last 8 years. Their experience in freelance video and new media has led to many collaborations with a variety of creatives and organizations around the metro including Chat Pile, 1984 Studios, ArtSpace Untitled, and Oscillator Press. They currently serve as a worker owner at the Opolis in downtown Norman.

More about the Artist Grants

Norman Arts Council operates its artist grant program to serve Norman-based artists and further our creative community. While the longstanding Norman Arts Grant Program has benefited local artists through its support of dozens of arts organizations around town, this furthers NAC’s commitment to directly benefit local artists in a variety of ways.

The program offers three grants of $1,000, each in a different category.

The categories include Community Project, Creative Project and Education/Travel.

• Community Project grants help artists initiate a community-based project that leads to artistic creation. Evaluation is based on quality, the community impact and overall concept. Apply here!

• Creative Project grants support creation of new work or body of work. Evaluation is based on quality of creative opportunity, career building potential, and overall concept. Apply here!

• Education/Travel grants support opportunities to participate in conferences, residencies or workshops that provide education and further one’s artistic practice. Evaluation is based on quality of educational opportunity, career building potential, and overall concept. Apply here!

Artists can apply for all three grant opportunities in each cycle, but a maximum of one grant will be awarded to any artist in a given grant cycle.

Celebrate the Characters We Love to Recreate Ourselves with a Cosplay Culture Exhibition at Firehouse Art Center

The Firehouse Art Center, in partnership with SOONERCON, is proud to display the work of cosplayers in Making Legends: Cosplay Culture, from May 17th- July 31, 2024. A collaborative exhibition featuring nine artists from across the country, Making Legends celebrates over a thousand hours of individual artistry to capture the legends we love. Executive Director/Curator Andy Couch said, “We are ecstatic, to partner with SOONERCON for our upcoming exhibit. Our staff and faculty are looking forward to celebrating cosplay artist locally and from across the country.”

This exhibition is the first show curated by the Firehouse Art Center’s Artist Coordinator, Casey Gilman. Casey would like to share, “we are so excited to highlight artists and craftsman not traditionally seen as artist in this exhibition and showcase their work to our community.” Making Legends: Cosplay Culture celebrates the artist within us all. From a galaxy far far away to a comfortable hole in the ground, the art of cosplay brings characters from media and pop culture to life through hand-made costumes and props. Cosplayers are rarely professional costume designers; they are accountants, parents, and teachers whose passion for creation inspires them to celebrate the books, movies, and video games we all know and love. They become an elven princess, a foul-tempered monarch, or a soldier of the empire. Cosplayers push the boundaries of their own creativity to go where no one has gone before!

An opening reception will be held Friday, May 17th at the Firehouse Art Center from 5:30-8:30 with live music and refreshments. A Foam Cosplay Armor 101 Workshop with Susie Creates will be offered at the Firehouse on Sunday, June 9th, and an Intro to Miniature Painting Workshop with Robert Henderson will be offered on Friday, June 14th. A Firehouse Game Night will take place Friday, July 12th. For our final event, in partnership with [405] Brewing the Firehouse will host Mario Kart 8 with Live Band on Saturday, July 27th. Don’t miss out on this exciting exhibition - after all, it's dangerous to go alone!

The Firehouse Gallery is located at 444 South Flood Avenue in Norman. Hours are from 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM Monday – Friday and 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM Saturday. For additional information on the Making Legends: Cosplay Culture exhibition, contact the Firehouse Art Center at 405-329-4523 or visit www.normanfirehouse.com.

Artists, Scientists Conjure Nature in Biophilia Exhibition at MAINSITE

Opossum - the Misunderstood by Lauren Rosenfelt

Biophilia — an exhibition and slate of programming that conjures nature with artists and scientists — opens with the work of Hannah Harper, Jennifer Larsen, Grace Potter, Lauren Rosenfelt and Nicholas Czaplewski, PhD on Friday, May 10 at MAINSITE Contemporary Art, 122 E. Main, Norman.

Curated by Haley Prestifilippo, Biophilia’s title refers to the theory — first described in the late 20th century — that suggests an innate human desire for connection to other forms of life. All the featured artists (several of whom are also practicing scientists) share a propensity for just that, creating work out of a deep admiration and tether to the various forms nature takes all around us. Their work “considers a few of the analytical and emotional frameworks through which we interpret nature.”

“Nature is often referenced as an independent entity, permeating human experience but separate from it,” Prestifilippo said in a curator’s statement. “It is embodied as a mother, a threat, beauty, violence, something to be controlled and something that controls, something to escape and something to escape into. Humans have sorted the innumerable aspects of nature into scientific fields, building chronologies of evolution, ordered taxonomies, and tables of elements; we perpetually attempt to unveil the hidden infrastructures keeping the universe in place.”

The exhibition runs from its opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, May 10 through a closing reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, July 12, both as a part of 2nd Friday Norman Art Walk. There’s also an artist reception at the midpoint of the exhibit from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, June 14.

As a bonus, there is a full slate of events, including a nature walk, plein air sketch session, poetry workshop and more, that take place in venues across Norman. These are made possible with support from Norman Arts Council, Pioneer Library System and Factory Obscura.

Pioneer Library System will also be on hand at all three receptions at MAINSITE Contemporary Art with activities for the whole family relating to the themes of the exhibition.

The full event schedule is as follows:

Opening Reception: 6-9 p.m. Friday, May 10 at MAINSITE Contemporary Art
Plein Air Sketch Session with Hannah Harper: 4:30-5:30 p.m. Friday, May 17 at Norman East Library | Learn more and register here
Book Making Session with Curtis Jones: 1-2 p.m. Saturday, June 1 at Resonator | Learn more and register here
Poetry Workshop with Julie Ann Ward: 1-3 p.m. Saturday, June 8 at MAINSITE Contemporary Art | Learn more here
Artist Reception: 6-9 p.m. Friday, June 14 at MAINSITE Contemporary Art
Nature Walk with Jennifer Larsen and Nicholas Czaplewski, PhD: 10 a.m. Saturday, June 15 at Sutton Wilderness Trail | Learn more here
Open Mic: 5-7 p.m. Sunday, June 30 at The Standard | Learn more here
Closing Reception: 6-9 p.m. Friday, July 12 at MAINSITE Contemporary Art

More about the artists:

Nicholas Czaplewski, PhD

Nick Czaplewski (Chap-lev-ski) is a paleontologist and biologist of Polish and Neandertal ancestry, born and naturalized in the Great Plains of North America. He enjoys engaging others in all aspects of the natural world and honors its land and peoples through direct interaction, reciprocity/caretaking, mentoring, volunteerism, and making art. He extends these ideas to his work in deep-time earth history to his perception of indigenous ecological knowledge, paleogeography, and the incredible creative evolutionary potential of life. He understands science as a way of thinking that a lot of people share; the way in which most of us have similar means of encountering the world: seeing, smelling, feeling, hearing, and as a result mostly agreeing that something is probably true. Nick worked for 34 years as a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma and as a scientific advisor to the museum’s youth summer field programs.

Hannah Harper

Hannah Harper grew up in the Southern Oklahoma countryside. She was encouraged to pursue creativity at a young age and collected art education from various sources as a child. At 17, she took a workshop with artists John and Terri Moyers at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City who soon after took her under their wing and has mentored her ever since. They encouraged her to take workshops with charcoal master Ned Jacob in both Scottsdale, Arizona and Jackson Hole, Wyoming and a semester at the Ryder Studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2019 with a BFA in studio art and completed her MFA for painting at the University of Oklahoma in 2023.

Jennifer Larsen

Jennifer Larsen grew up in Colorado and now lives in Norman, Oklahoma. She has been lucky enough to spend most of her life living in rural areas and open/wild places feel much more like home to her than urban spaces. She is a paleontologist at the Sam Noble Museum with a background in biochemistry and biology. She was a volunteer at the Oklahoma City Zoo for many years. She enjoys a variety of outdoor activities including running, hiking, biking, kayaking, and horseback riding. A perfect day would also involve reading, drawing, chocolate and having cats lay on her. She currently lives on a remarkably generous piece of the earth amidst a magnificent menagerie of non-human beings.

Grace Potter

Working primarily in ceramics, Grace Potter makes intricate sculptures that consider her relationship to the more-than-human world through the lenses of ecology and spiritual inquiry. Her work often references sites of reverence: reliquaries, mausoleums and cathedrals, as a tool for investigating hierarchies and value systems. Animals, plants and fungi depicted in the work carry metaphors for personal narratives as well as archetypal myths. She approaches making as a ritual, illuminating the mystical in the mundane and venerating the subjects of her sculptures through time-consuming processes and meticulous craft. Accumulated textures and patterns generate surreal compositions, reflecting the disorienting complexity of the natural world and her temporal place within it. Themes of interconnection, transformation and cycles of life and death guide her practice.

Grace Potter (b. 1996) is a visual artist who grew up in rural Appalachia. She received her BFA in Ceramics with minors in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Grace has completed two Post-Baccalaureates in Ceramics, one at Louisiana State University and the other at the University of Oklahoma. Her work has been exhibited across the country, including in the Red Lodge Clay Center Juried National and at Blue Spiral 1 in Asheville, NC. Additionally, Grace has spent time working at the Mendocino Art Center, Cider Creek Collective in Albion, CA, Good Hope Pottery in Trelawny, Jamaica, and IaRex l’Atelier in St. Raphael, France. She is currently living and working in Mendocino, CA.

Lauren Rosenfelt

Lauren Rosenfelt is a freelance, natural science illustrator and artist currently living and working in Norman, Oklahoma. She graduated from the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma in 2014 with a BFA and minor in Liberal Arts. Her work focuses on sharing the importance of native wildlife and plant species. She works with clientele ranging from private commissions to commercial and nonprofit organizations. Her public projects are displayed at “This is Place”, a small public pollinator garden and art space, and habitat signage at the Norman Central library.

Lauren has worked with WildCare Oklahoma, Myriad Botanical Gardens, and the City of Norman, and has artwork on display at Scissortail Park, the Museum of Osteology, DNA Galleries, and Norman Firehouse Art Gallery. She is also an active board member for Inclusion in Art, an Oklahoma art organization dedicated to promoting ethnically, racially, and culturally diverse artists in Oklahoma’s visual arts community.

In January 2022, Lauren began her work as a plant biology master’s student at the University of Oklahoma. She now studies multiple ecosystem functions relating to soils, plants, and invertebrates, specifically pollinators, with the intent to marry her artist mission and ecological research into a career focused on science communication through artistic projects and public outreach. In addition, she works as a graduate research assistant for the Chickasaw Nation at the South-Central Climate Adaptation Science Center as a Sustainability Science Intern.

Norman Arts Opens Up Submissions for Round Two of 2023/2024 Artist Grants

Norman Arts Council Artist Grants
2023/2024 Round Two
Submission Deadline: 11:59 p.m. CST Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Norman Arts Council operates its artist grant program to serve Norman-based artists and further our creative community. While the longstanding Norman Arts Grant Program has benefited local artists through its support of dozens of arts organizations around town, this furthers NAC’s commitment to directly benefit local artists in a variety of ways.

The program offers three grants of $1,000, each in a different category.

The categories include Community Project, Creative Project and Education/Travel.

• Community Project grants help artists initiate a community-based project that leads to artistic creation. Evaluation is based on quality, the community impact and overall concept. Apply here!

• Creative Project grants support creation of new work or body of work. Evaluation is based on quality of creative opportunity, career building potential, and overall concept. Apply here!

• Education/Travel grants support opportunities to participate in conferences, residencies or workshops that provide education and further one’s artistic practice. Evaluation is based on quality of educational opportunity, career building potential, and overall concept. Apply here!

Artists can apply for all three grant opportunities in each cycle, but a maximum of one grant will be awarded to any artist in a given grant cycle.

Only artists who have resided in Norman for the past 12 months are eligible to apply for the Norman Arts Council Artist Grants. Applying artists must be at least 18 years old.

Questions may be directed to Programs & Development Manager Cher Duncan.