MARISSA RAGLIN

The Studio Interview

Strolling down the sidewalk in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City, headed to the Skirvin Hilton Hotel, the streets are bustling with walkers and drivers. As you approach the hotel from the West side, walls of large windows give you a glimpse of the dozen or so pieces of artwork made by the 2017/2018 artist-in-residence Marissa Raglin. The year long artist-in-residence program is partnered with the Paseo Arts Association. She was responsible for furnishing the empty space and making it her own. Raglin created a comfy at-home feel with a large area rug, a couple of house plants, a bookshelf filled with personal books and lights strung in the window. On the table lay cut images in no particular order, accompanied by containers of scissors sprinkled around the naturally lit room.

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Originally from Louisiana, Marissa earned her Bachelor of Arts in 2012 from Oklahoma Baptist University and was making abstract paintings at the time. No longer feeling inspired standing at the easel, she began reaching out into new mediums. The book “Creative Block” by Danielle Krysa gives artists new projects to try, and it led Raglin to try her hand at collage making. “The book changed me,” she says. A long time fan of paper and layers, she made her first three collages from thrift store books, and all of them made it into Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition annual Momentum exhibition that year. Since then, her whimsical and organic style has evolved to contain a more deliberate message about women’s issues, time, and domestication. Specifically, social pressures to pursue a family or not, opportunities in the workplace, and gender stereotypes. Using imagery found in books, magazines, and postcards, she combines them together to create clean-cut narratives, often with a little humor. Finishing them with resin, she sees this final process as a preservation of her ideas being cataloged.

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Thanking her father for her ability to find humor in everything, it helps her to poke fun at her mess ups and push through ideas. Creativity was fostered from a young age, working in her grandpa’s wood shop, spending many days outdoors, going to art festivals with her family and playing creative doodle games.

As she wraps up her residency at the Skirvin Hotel at the end of September, she has plans to find a new studio in Oklahoma City. Find more of Marissa’s work this month at Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition's 12 x 12 fundraiser and "Take A Seat" at Oklahoma City University.