Art, Inspiration, and Community in Oklahoma City: Guest blog by Leslie Jackson Chihuly

Leslie Jackson Chihuly is the President and CEO of Chihuly Studio, and today she shares her reflections about the origin and impact of the Chihuly collection at Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
 

Oklahoma City is my birthplace, as well as the city where my mother, Jo Morgan, was raised and where she spent her final years. I visited her often, and during one of those trips, I asked her about the Oklahoma City Museum of Art (OKCMOA). She responded that it was located at the state fairgrounds, so I paid a visit. The museum, then housed in a small, round, nondescript building, felt modest but full of potential. I later met the ambitious museum director, Carolyn Hill, who had big plans to create a new museum in the heart of the city.

In the mid-1990s, Carolyn Hill wrote to me and Dale with an exciting proposal. She wanted to open the new museum with a major Chihuly exhibition, anchored by a commissioned glass tower at the building’s entrance. The new museum would be housed in a beautiful old art deco building in the center of town. Over several visits, Dale and I joined Carolyn in meeting with donors and city leaders to gather support for this exciting project. When a generous grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation came through, we were off to the races.

Given the tragic bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, and the building of the memorial to its victims in 2000, our project became part of a vital new chapter for Oklahoma City—one of beauty, light, community, and healing through art.

On March 14, 2002, the new Oklahoma City Museum of Art opened its doors to a crowd of 9,000 visitors. Dale’s 55-foot Eleanor Blake Kirkpatrick Memorial Tower greeted guests in the atrium, and the inaugural exhibition included a wide-ranging survey of work from Chihuly’s career.

When it was time for Dale Chihuly: An Inaugural Exhibition to close five months later, I received a call from Carolyn. Imagine the joy and surprise when she asked me if Dale and I would consider letting the collection remain at OKCMOA in perpetuity!

Carolyn Hill embodied a rare combination of leadership skills and talents. She was a visionary. She had a dream and a deep love of arts, culture, civic life, and community. Most importantly, she had the drive to make transformational projects happen. When my mother passed away in 2003, it was Carolyn who helped my family memorialize her in the atrium with an incredible performance of “Ave Maria” by a talented opera singer she loved. There is also a lovely Seaform in the collection dedicated to my mother. We lost Carolyn in 2010, but what an honor it was to work with her. The profound impact of both Carolyn and Jo will be felt for years to come.

When I visited the museum in summer 2024, I found the team as enthusiastic as ever. The museum has gone on to do many exciting exhibitions over the past 23 years, and I look forward to seeing how their collections and gallery spaces continue to evolve in the years ahead.

OKCMOA President and CEO Michael J. Anderson, Ph.D., recently shared “The Museum's Chihuly collection has been OKCMOA's most popular collection, attracting generations of visitors and consistently enthusiastic reviews. It has made our museum a destination for Chihuly's countless fans—and for many, OKCMOA is associated with Chihuly's art.”

The idea that the Chihuly collection lives on in the city of my birth is, for me, a living tribute to my mother Jo, and to Carolyn. It is a great privilege and honor to have been able to play a role in this unfolding story of art, inspiration, and community in Oklahoma City.