Crosbie Heights Underpass | City of Tulsa
Tulsa, Oklahoma | December 2024
Aerosol on concrete | Collaboration with Scraps Design
This project took me underneath Highway 244 into the Crosbie Heights neighborhood for a public art project with the City of Tulsa, in collaboration with Jamie from Scraps Design.
City projects are always a different experience.
There is a lot that happens before any paint touches the wall. From the initial application and project requirements to insurance, design development, meetings, revisions, and approvals, there are multiple steps involved in bringing a public project like this to life.
Community involvement was also part of that process. We had the opportunity to meet with people from the neighborhood, introduce ourselves, listen, and talk through ideas before moving forward with the artwork.
The collaboration itself challenged me in some new ways. Every artist approaches a project differently, from the way we develop ideas to the way we communicate and make decisions. There were moments where our approaches did not always align, and learning how to navigate those differences became part of the experience for me.
Not every collaboration is going to flow exactly the same way, and I think experiences like this teach you more about your own creative process, how you communicate, and what you value when working with others.
Once we got into painting, though, I enjoyed watching everything come together.
I worked a variety of hours underneath the highway, sometimes during the day and other times late into the night. Painting in a public space also meant constantly interacting with the neighborhood around us. People would walk through, stop to see what we were doing, ask questions, or simply pass by while we worked.
I even ran into some familiar faces along the way.
That is something I have always enjoyed about public art. You are not separated from the environment where the artwork will eventually live. You experience that environment while you are creating it.
By the end of the project, I was satisfied with what we were able to create. Seeing the finished artwork stretching across the concrete underneath Highway 244 made all of the applications, meetings, conversations, approvals, long hours, and challenges along the way worth it.
This project gave me another opportunity to work within the City of Tulsa public art process, collaborate with another creative, connect with the community, and continue learning what it takes to bring artwork into shared public spaces.
