Kaley Patterson
A&E Editor
@KaleyKayPatt
It’s no mystery that Cameron has some talented art students. Their art is displayed in multiple galleries across campus for all to admire. One in particular is senior studio art major Heather Callaway, who back in October won the first Arts Battle in Oklahoma.
The Arts Battle took place on Oct. 11 at the Great Plains Technology Center, which held competitions for painting and cooking portions. The artists had limited time to paint a new piece of work. The audience chose two winners from the first round to advance to the next.
Callaway made it to the final round and was the overall winner.
“So basically, it was just you against time,” Callaway said, “and you had to create this piece of art in 30 minutes while everyone was watching. It was a little intimidating.”
Students who competed were given an assortment of acrylic paints and a 20X20 canvas. For the first round, Callaway painted an abstract portrait of a cat. Callaway created something similar for the second round but used an elephant as her muse instead.
Callaway said she did six practice rounds the night before to get adjusted to painting in a 30 minute time frame.
“I’m normally very slow at working,” Callaway said. “I do a type of glazing method, and it takes me a long time to paint, so I was like, ‘How am I going to paint in 30 minutes?’ I did a lot of practice runs.”
The fee for students to compete in the battle was $10, but Callaway won more than her money’s worth. The Great Plains Technology staff offered Callaway a booth at their fall fest, in which she did a live painting that was given away at the end of the night. Callaway also won a chance to have her own art show at the Lawton Community Theatre from Dec. 6-15.
Before becoming a painter, Callaway was a blacksmith with her late father. She mainly created metal roses and smaller items.
“We had a traveling blacksmith wagon we would take to places,” Callaway said. “We would set up at tractor shows and demonstrate.”
Callaway stepped away from metal working and now focuses on painting. This semester, Callaway started creating masks and incorporating them into her paintings “to create disturbing scenes.”
“I like surrealists’ type art,” Callaway said. “I’ve also been getting into hypo-realistic type paintings, and I’ve been getting into painting really fleshy type like things; right now I’m working on this dead bird. It’s sticking something in somebody’s face that they wouldn’t normally look at.”
After Callaway graduates, she anticipates attending graduate school and hopes to become a teacher at the collegiate level.
Some of Callaway’s pieces hang in the Inasmuch Art Gallery in the east foyer of the MCC. Callaway will also feature her art at the Senior Art Show at the end of the spring 2015 semester.