Let There Be Lights

Visitors to the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall may be entering the lobby to see a show, but glass and mixed media artists Tracey and Rick Bewley have ensured that the word “dazzling” isn’t just reserved for the performances on stage. 

Through the expert craftsmanship of two ambient light sculptures, the wife-and-husband art team has made a stunning mark on the $17 million renovation effort of the Civic Center. However, the year-long journey from technical drawings to installation wasn’t easy. 

Rick Bewley, artist and co-owner of Art Fusion Studio, admits he was thinking, “I can’t wait to see how I do this” before submitting the proposal.

Local Artists in the Spotlight

The funding mechanism for the Civic Center renovations came in a 2017 bond issue passed by Oklahoma City residents. As a result of using public funds to restore the Civic Center, per city ordinance, 1% of the total renovation budget was required for public art. This led the Civic Center Foundation to issue a request for qualifications to develop light fixtures in the lobby. 

After checking the requirements for organizations to submit pieces, the Bewleys decided that they and their fused and sculptural glass business Art Fusion Studio would qualify — even though they had never taken on a piece of this size and cost. 

So they were excited (to say the least) when they were invited to submit their design for the $194,000 light sculptures. This opportunity presented a significant milestone in their artistic careers, offering them a platform to demonstrate their talent and creativity on a larger scale.

Going into the presentation, Tracey, who developed the sculptures’ design, extensively researched how their pieces would look within the larger context of the Civic Center’s renovation and restoration to its 1937 roots. This led her to explore a subset of Art Deco style called Streamline Moderne. 

“Streamline Moderne evokes movement through linear elements,” she says, explaining that it shies away from the intense ornamentation that can signal other Art Deco styles. Tracey suggested their adherence to the specific school of Art Deco used in the Civic Center is one element that set their design apart from the other proposals. 

As one of only three finalists, the Bewleys pulled out all the stops for the pieces’ elaborate and intricate design, emphasizing the importance of the local art scene in Oklahoma City. So when they learned that their proposal won and had beaten out an out-of-state professional vintage lighting company that had worked on the Oklahoma State Capitol building, they were ecstatic.

Illuminating Challenges

Reality started to hit after they won the bid. Beginning in October 2022, the Bewleys had months of preparations ahead of them before they even started working on the sculptures. As the Art Fusion duo began creating the technical drawings of the fixtures, they knew they would have to build the two 10-foot by 7-foot light sculptures in pieces. 

Despite the immense size of the Civic Center, there’s no direct way to get through the large load-in doors from backstage to the lobby. That meant that no part of the light sculptures could be larger than three feet, in order to bring the pieces through the front doors.

So piece by piece, Rick began to cut, weld and powder coat the aluminum that’s the primary metal used in these creations. Then, as masters of manipulating glass, he and Tracey used 

a process called slumping to create the white glass domes and panels. The duo laid sheets of white glass into stainless steel forms and fired them in their kiln, which left the convex side of the glass shiny. 

But even with a strong plan, the Art Fusion team encountered challenges from day one. The Bewleys faced supplier delays of months from the project’s start. Their tried-and-true slumping method of 20 years was causing the glass to crack, a first in their studio’s history. Critical aluminum pieces had to be remade in the last 10 days of construction due to an error. 

With these unforeseeable situations, which included external delays from the Civic Center’s other renovation efforts, the Bewleys missed their original deadline. 

“We pride ourselves on being artists that actually do what they say and have it done when they say they’re going to have it done. That is important to us,” says Tracey. “And when we missed [the original deadline] — weren’t even close — we were really, really frustrated.”

Despite the setbacks, the Bewleys kept marching forward on their creation and construction efforts. Even though the pieces wouldn’t be formally assembled on site until the delivery date, they had a dress rehearsal of the installation process sooner. Smith and Pickel Construction, who would eventually install the pieces in the Civic Center lobby, gave the Bewleys access to an empty warehouse and to the team who would eventually install the 2,000-pound pieces in their permanent home. 

“It wasn’t till the last three weeks, four weeks of final construction did we ever even see what it looked like,” says Rick. 

Defying Gravity

On June 14, the pieces were formally introduced to the world with the grand re-opening of the Civic Center Music Hall. The Bewleys report that visitors were “glowing” with enthusiasm for their ornate work.

“It was pretty fun to work on a project that long … and to get to the end and still be happy with the results, as opposed to ‘all I can see [are] the problems,’” says Rick. 

A stellar feature of the pieces is the ability to control the LED lights within each sculpture using a smartphone app. Incorporating these LEDs brought a new level of versatility to the fixtures, allowing the Civic Center staff to be able to change the colors of lights in the sculptures to reflect the show taking place. (The Bewleys have already tested how changing the LEDs to an emerald green looks in anticipation of Wicked’s national tour coming to OKC in 2024.)

When asked about their future plans now that this massive project is wrapped, the Bewleys revealed they were “in talks” with the Civic Center Foundation to create additional Streamline Moderne light sculptures for the three other recessed areas of the lobby. 

This unwavering commitment to design and artistic expression sets the Bewleys apart. Despite a challenging path to completion, these glass and mixed media artists are undeterred from continuing to innovate and create, leaving an indelible mark on OKC’s artistic landscape for generations to come. •

To learn more about the Bewleys and Art Fusion Studio, visit ArtFusionstudio.com. Visitors can see the two permanent light sculptures hanging in the Civic Center Music Hall lobby at 201 N. Walker Ave. in downtown Oklahoma City.