Marie Bagwell
Staff Writer
Medicine Park’s streets bustled with people visiting the 6th Annual Flute Festival and Art Walk. The Medicine Park Economic Development Authority assembled a variety of wooden flute players and multimedia artists.
Headlining flautist, Jan Seiden, has previously appeared on CNN Headline News, was nominated for the 2009 Native American Music Award, she received an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2006 and also received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Washington, DC Arts Initiative in 2005, according to her website.
“This is my first time here and I love it,” Seiden said. “I was thrilled when Medicine Park contacted me and shared with me that the theme for this year is Women of the Flute.”
Seiden has 22-year background in biomedical research and physiology from Johns Hopkins University but left her field of study after going through many difficult years and began her journey with the flute in 1994/1995.
Seiden said the flute allowed her to peel away Western-imposed ideals of life.
“The flute helped bring me back to a much more authentic way of being with myself and with the world,” Seiden said.
Seiden plays the Native American flute, Anasazi flute and the rim-blown flute. Seiden said she is the first woman to play and record a rim-blown flute. She said, “It’s an incredible experience being a pioneer.”
Seiden said, “I always trust that I find myself where I am supposed to be, we will see where the winds take me and it [Medicine Park] would be a wonderful place to return to in the future.”
Along with the Annual Flute Festival, Medicine Park gathered several different types of artist.
Among the many artists, Steve Sutherland from Lawton exhibited his mixed-media sculptures. Rhonda Nixon, a resident of Anadarko, exhibited her oil paintings. Sculptor Bob Willis not only exhibited his clay bust sculptures but he was sculpting in his booth as well.
Randy Jones of Randy Jones Nature Photography said this was his second year at the Medicine Park Art Walk and thinks it’s a great place to showcase regional art.
Award winning photographer Jason Wallace exhibited his photography at the Art Walk and displayed photography that Wallace said “gravitates towards atmosphere and depth.”
With a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art with a focus in oil painting and a minor in marketing, Wallace found that photography and travelling were his true passions. Wallace said after spending a week painting in Italy, it was a photograph that he shot the morning of his departure that was a turning point for him. After studying the picture over several days Wallace said, “that one shot felt better to me, than any of the paintings I did on the entire trip.”
Wallace has worked on developing his photography since that pivotal trip and thought the Medicine Park Art Walk was a great and different place to showcase his art. He said the character and quirkiness of Medicine Park attracted him: “the entire town seems like an arts district.”