Gilcrease Family Festival To Feature Tulsa Student Photography

Some Tulsa students will have their photography on display at an event this weekend put on by the Gilcrease Museum.

The Gilcrease Family Festival will be at the Greenwood Cultural Center.

This is part of an effort by Gilcrease Museum to keep the community engaged while it's closed for construction. The students who took part in the photography workshop got to keep the cameras they used so they can keep sharpening their skills.

If you look closely along the trails at the Oxley Nature Center, you'll find a picture from the Eddie Faye Gates collection. It is the last installation for the Gilcrease in Your Neighborhood program.

“It’s a really beautiful image of somebody relaxing on a Sunday and just enjoying leisure time and that was a really different type of photograph that came from that collection. So we decided to go into that and look at leisure and how black photography can be used to show people’s lives and what they actually did,” Gilcrease Manager of Public Programs Laurel Benson said.

The picture served as inspiration for a photography workshop for Tulsa students, celebrating Black history and culture through photography. Nine middle school students at Crossover Preparatory Academy took part in the workshop.

"Gilcrease reached out and said 'Do you have any students who might be interested in photography?' And it was like, absolutely. We are still a small, private school so being able to provide this opportunity to our students was really exciting,” Crossover Preparatory Academy Girls School Principal Joanna Shrewsbury said.

Now, nearly 30 pictures will be on display at the Gilcrease Family Festival, open to the public, with lots of activities for kids.

"There's going to be art-making activities, a photo booth, a ten-type demonstration where you can learn how to make a ten-type,” Benson said.

As Gilcrease wraps up this program, some students are just getting started.

“We're all excited to go and celebrate them so I just hope Tulsa can turn out and support the kids,” Shrewsbury said.

The event is at the Greenwood Cultural Center this Saturday from 1-3 p.m., and it is the last festival of its kind through the Gilcrease in Your Neighborhood program.

The event is free, but registration is encouraged so they know how many supplies to have ready for families.