FIRST FRIDAYS: DECEMBER 2025

Friday, December 5, 2025 | 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Tulsa Artist Fellowship - Studios
109 MLK Jr. Blvd E. Tulsa, OK 74103

Tulsa Artist Fellowship - Flagship
112 N. Boston Ave, Tulsa, OK 74103

FREE AND OPEN TO ALL

Join us on First Friday, December 5, for our final open studio event of the 2026 season—a festive evening of art, community, and celebration in the Tulsa Arts District. As the year draws to a close, Tulsa Artist Fellowship welcomes you to explore new exhibitions, experience special previews, and connect with the artists shaping Tulsa’s creative landscape.

This special First Friday also offers a limited preview of awardee Alicia Smith’s film series Toci. Guests will have exclusive access to the set of “Chapter 2: The Axolotl Women,” viewable only during this open studios event. The upcoming chapter features Tonacatecuhtli, the Aztec God of Abundance, expanding Smith’s larger narrative universe where science fiction and Aztec cosmology intersect. A Xicana multidisciplinary artist and activist, Smith's work marries ancestral prayer technologies, oral tradition, Indigenous Futurism, and New Weird science fiction to interrogate colonial narratives and reimagine identity. In Toci, Indigenous women flee the 1492 Spanish conquest in a pyramid-vessel—Teocalli—that carries them to Mars, creating a postmodern mythos grounded in historical fabrication and cultural resilience.

In the studios’ entry gallery, NAM common presents a pop-up reading room featuring music videos from the forthcoming Oklahoma Premiere of New Wave, screening the next night at Circle Cinema in partnership with Tulsa Film Collective and Tulsa Artist Fellowship. Blending classic songs, synths, and lyrics in tiếng Việt, New Wave captures how the rise of a sound sparked a vibrant culture of music, fashion, and late-night dance floors, creating sanctuary and release during a challenging chapter for the Vietnamese diaspora. This preview will offer a glimpse into the movement, memory, and creative resilience that pulse through the film.

At Flagship, the evening continues with Le’Andra LeSeur’s Monument Eternal, a moving and incisive exploration of how monuments built to uphold racist legacies have shaped the mental and emotional landscape of Black communities. Through video, sculpture, photography, and sound, LeSeur constructs an embodied archive—one where presence asserts itself against histories of erasure and absence.

Throughout the studios, guests will encounter the final opportunity to experience new blown glassworks by Cedric Mitchell, created during his residency at the Tacoma Museum of Glass. Returning to Tulsa from Los Angeles, Mitchell presents a dynamic collection defined by bold color, playful geometry, and refined craftsmanship rooted in Afro Post-Modernism. This First Friday also marks the last chance to view the striking poster installation by Ernesto Yerena, whose work reflects lived experiences and cultural exchange among Mexican communities on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border. Both presentations will conclude with this event.

Above it all, the roof terrace glows with Franky Cruz’s VM Dome Lab, now in its third iteration. Part immersive sculpture and part living butterfly garden, the Dome Lab invites exploration alongside scheduled talks on pollinator ecology, conservation, and metamorphosis, accompanied by sound-based activations. Extending Cruz’s Vivarium Meconium Laboratory practice, the installation nurtures butterflies from egg to chrysalis, offering a meditative encounter with transformation and interdependence.

To keep the evening spirited and warm, guests can enjoy refreshing pours from Heirloom Rustic Ales and live mixes by DJ Xavier while wandering the Tulsa Artist Fellow studios to meet artists and experience works-in-progress firsthand.

Join us in celebrating the close of another extraordinary year shaped by artmaking, collaboration, and community.

SCHEDULE

ABOUT FIRST FRIDAYS

Since its inaugural year in 2016, Tulsa Artist Fellowship has hosted First Fridays, a free monthly series highlighting our awardees, alum-in-residence, and Tulsa community members. Discover artistic workspaces, exhibitions, workshops, live music, and food throughout our studios, roof terrace, and galleries. First Fridays are free and open to all. Come for the art, stay for the community.

VISITOR EXPERIENCE

Tulsa Artist Fellowship is committed to creating a welcoming, inclusive, and accessible experience for every visitor. All exhibitions and events are free, open to the public, and thoughtfully documented and archived for continued community access.

Flagship | 112 N. Boston Ave, Tulsa, OK 74103
Our Flagship location is fully wheelchair- and stroller-accessible. Visitors will find a variety of seating options, including designated wheelchair seating and distanced standing areas. Family-scale private washrooms support visitors with disabilities and caregivers who need additional space or changing tables. Street-side parking is available via the Park Mobile App and is free after 5 p.m. and all day Saturday and Sunday.

Studios | 109 E. MLK Jr Blvd, Tulsa, OK 74103
The Studios location welcomes all visitors with wheelchair and stroller access, variable seating, and dedicated areas for standing and wheelchair users. Family-scale private washrooms with changing tables accommodate caregivers and guests requiring more space. An elevator is conveniently located at the main west entrance on Martin Luther King Blvd. Street-side parking is available through the Park Mobile App, free after 5 p.m. and all weekend.