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Contact: Rebecca Jim, LEAD Agency, Inc. 918 256-5269 // // 542-9399
September 18, 2009
For Immediate Release
11th National Tar Creek Conference ARTS
 
(Miami, OK) – The 11th National Conference on Tar Creek, “It’s NOT Just Tar Creek Anymore” will be held September 22 -24 at the Miami Civic Center. The public is invited to the Tar Creek Conference to learn more about our environmental and health issues.
The community is encouraged to come to the 11th National Conference on Tar Creek September 22-24 Tuesday and Wednesday 9 to 5 with Thursday ending at noon. There is no charge for Ottawa County residents to attend the conference, though workshops and evening events require small fees. “Our theme this year, “IT’s Not Just Tar Creek Anymore” indicates the broad range of issues that will be included this year. “The arts are again featured this year at the Tar Creek Conference” Rebecca Jim, LEAD Agency Executive Director stated. “Beginning with the opening reception and featuring the artist workshops sponsored through the Oklahoma Arts Council, held each day of the conference.”
With the assistance from the Oklahoma Arts Council, LEAD Agency is offering a set of workshops for youth and the community beginning Tuesday morning, register for the Photography workshop led by Vaughn Wascovich.
Vaughn Wascovich is a fine art photographer and photographic educator. With more than twenty years experience as a commercial photographer and broadcast producer, and has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies and many major advertising agencies. He received his MFA from Columbia College Chicago and has taught there, the University of Missouri and is currently teaching at Texas A&M University. His interests include man’s relationship to the environment, compromised landscapes, environmental issues and the politics of indigenous peoples. “I have been photographing the Tar Creek area since 2002, chronicling the changing landscape and the ending of life as many had known it, with the relocation, buy-out efforts.” Vaughn will be in the area throughout the week and will be giving a free lecture on Friday from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in NEO College’s Learning Resource Center and teaching a free class Saturday 9:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. in Room 213 of NEO’s Educational Technology Center, both in the Library Administration Building. Wascovich will spend part of the Saturday workshop working with students in the field taking photographs.
Wednesday morning enroll in a workshop with Meg Sullivan. Meg received her MFA in Performance as Public Practice from University of Texas at Austin and earned her BA in sociology cum laude from Boston University. As a community-engaged artist, Meg creates original performances that combine movement and gesture with auto/biographical and ethnographic text and explore issues of place, memory, history and justice. Ms Sullivan will be working with high school students and community members as they combine memory, history and place.
“High School students some "grown ups" too -- older folks are welcome to join. My aunt might take the workshop! I think it will mostly be writing and sharing and writing and sharing.”
Join Meg Wednesday evening beginning at 7 pm at the Coleman Theatre with a reading of some of her writing and with permission (unless they want to perform it) of those who attend her workshop. The movie, TAR CREEK will begin immediately after the reading.
Thursday morning’s writing workshop with award winning journalist and scriptwriter Olive Sullivan. Her love of history is contagious. She has combined these facets of her life by specializing in memoirs. “I believe that everyone’s story is important; taken together our lives make up the history of our region and our era.” She has designed a memoir writing workshop to help ordinary people tell their stories using techniques of journalism and fiction to bring the facts to life. This will offer a golden opportunity to capture a way of life before those who lived it disappear.
Registration for the Oklahoma Arts Council workshops begins at 9:00 each morning of the Tar Creek Conference. Rebecca Jim stated “the public is invited to attend both the conference and become engaged with the arts with these fine artists.”
Download information regarding conference Arts Workshops here.
Conference Location: 129 5th Ave NW,
Miami, OK
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