Oklahoma Arts Institute offers free online workshops for educators

OKLAHOMA CITY – Every year, educators from across the state make a pilgrimage to the Oklahoma Fall Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain (OFAI), where they spend the weekend broadening their creative horizons and learning skills to take back to their classrooms. While the workshops have moved online this year because of COVID-19, the new virtual platform allows for more courses, as well as space for more attendees.

The online Institute, OFAI at Home, is in full swing, with workshop offerings throughout November and December. Teachers, counselors and school administrators can choose from educator-focused classes in such topics as arts integration and social-emotional learning or can seek to further their skills as artists through workshops in photography, visual journaling, printmaking, writing and more. One in-person plein air painting workshop will be held in Oklahoma City on Saturday, Nov. 14, led by indigenous artist Yatika Starr Fields. In all, OFAI at Home will offer over 15 workshops through mid-December.

Thanks to funding through the Oklahoma State Department of Education and private donors, all PK-12 public educators will receive full scholarships covering workshop costs. Some courses have limited enrollment, and registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. For workshop and registration information, visit https://oaiquartz.org/workshops.

Educators scholarships for OFAI at Home are provided by the Oklahoma State Department of Education, Albers Family Fund, Avedis Foundation, BancFirst Charitable Foundation, Cresap Family Foundation, E.L. and Thelma Gaylord Foundation, Edward E. and Helen Turner Bartlett Foundation, Flint Foundation, McMahon Foundation and the Southern Oklahoma Memorial Foundation, with additional program funding from the Oklahoma Arts Council and the Zarrow Family Foundations.

The Oklahoma Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain (OAI) is Oklahoma’s Official School of the Arts. A private, nonprofit organization, OAI has partnered with the State of Oklahoma for over 40 years to provide exceptional multidisciplinary arts education experiences to serve the state’s most talented young artists, as well as educators and other adult artists.