By AUSTIN MORTON, Senior Reporter
What is art? Is it just paintings? Could you describe it as a group of people committed to one goal?
Renee Reizman is a 33-year-old artist from Chicago, Illinois. She has a degree in film work in entertainment.
Reizman used this degree to help produce visual effects for various movies.
Though she said she liked the work, she said she grew unhappy with the industry.
Long work weeks and sub-par pay were factors that made her want a change.
With whatever free time she could manage, Reizman was going to DIY artist spaces and finding a new passion in public engagement art.
She said she always knew she loved art, but never thought she could make a living off of it.
After a stint of working as an artist in administration, she went back to school to receive her MFA from California Irvine.
With school out of the way, and a degree in a field she was passionate about, Reizman began working on her type of art in her specialized way.
Reizman now lives in Los Angeles, California, where she does most of her art.
She works as an artist-in-residence at the Department of Transportation in Los Angeles, where she gets to focus on bringing her interest in city infrastructure into her artwork.
Reizman’s art is focused around social practice and the cultures of under-represented groups. One of her past projects included bringing awareness to deadly street intersections within Los Angeles.
Reizman had people in costumes dressed as traffic signs, and around 100 “children at play” signs located at an intersection.
The intersection used is located near a large and popular park, where multiple accidents also occur.
“Seeing all the signs and costumes was enough for people to slow down and really pay attention to what was going on,” Reizman said.
Reizman has worked in both large and small cities. She said Los Angeles is a home base for her, and she wants to split her time between there and small towns where she can connect with other people.
This is how she was able to find the residency here in Alva.
While searching for opportunities, she came across the application and thought that it would be perfect, she said.
“It was maybe a bit of luck,” Reizman said. “But it also helped they were looking for something a bit different. And I thought social practice would fit perfectly.”
Once she got the job, she made her way from California to Alva. However, instead of flying, she took a three-day drive to get here, stopping along the way to get to know people in small towns and the stories they had to share.
She is now working on campus and getting to know the town of Alva.
“Alva is cute,” Reizman said. “But the weather is horrible. Coming from Chicago, I’m used to wild weather, but this wind just gets in your bones.”
For the residency program, Reizman is putting a piece together to assist with the Native Alliance Against Violence.
The piece will be a purple, teal and red mural of Oklahoma. These colors represent issues the organization assists people with.
Purple represents domestic violence, teal represents sexual assault and red represents missing, murdered indigenous women.
Students will be able to paint their hands one of these colors and add their hand print to the mural to show their support in stopping these issues.
The mural will be up from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursday in the Student Center.
The mural will be up again from 6 to 8 p.m. at the First Friday Art Walk in downtown Alva.
