Press Releases for Creativity in Motion 2003 Award

4-10-03
Sculptor and educator Elizabeth Ingraham was named the recipient of the first Creativity in Motion Thatcher Hoffman Smith Prize in Creativity at a recent ceremony at the University of Oklahoma.

The $40,000 biennial prize honoring the creative process was established by OU’s College of Arts and Sciences in collaboration with Oklahoma City philanthropist Jeanne Hoffman Smith. The prize, which recognizes the creative process at it unfolds and is expressed by individuals in diverse ways, is named in honor of Smith’s parents, Grace Thatcher and Roy Hoffman Jr. It is one of her statewide efforts to build programs with educational institutions to encourage the growth and development of imaginative, creative talents and skills in people of all ages.
“My father said, ‘You’re supposed to leave more wood on the woodpile than was there when you came,’” Smith said. “The definition of wood always involves your creative interpretation. Mine has been to support the creative process wherever and however possible.”

Ingraham works in a variety of media. Her current work is a series of life-size, fully dimensional female “skins” – complete with hands, head and feet – that embody such mental states as longing, desire, guilt and regret. Designed to be touched by the viewer, the skins are made of materials as diverse as velvet, neoprene rubber and cotton chintz. Ingraham said the skins “explore how expectation, desire and convention – our own and others’ – form casing which become so familiar they seem like our own skin.”

“Elizabeth Ingraham personifies the spirit of the Creativity in Motion Prize Thatcher Hoffman Smith Prize and is a worthy first recipient,” said Paul Bell Jr., dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Her sculptured works capturing human emotions in skins made of textile are at the same time a unique and approachable form of artistic expression.”

An assistant professor of art and art history at the University of Nebraska, Ingraham also teaches Visual Literacy, a nationally recognized yearlong interdisciplinary foundation design program for students in art, architecture, interior design and textiles. In 2001, she received the Nebraska Arts Council’s Distinguished Achievement Fellowship, its highest honor.
Ingraham earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado, master’s degree from the University of California - Santa Barbara and juris doctorate from the University of Denver. As a master’s student, she was the first visual artist to be awarded a fellowship from the Institute of Interdisciplinary Humanities and was a studio assistant to the installation artist, Ann Hamilton. Before returning to school to train as a sculptor, she was an activist lawyer for Native American groups in Alaska and a participant in the sweeping social change resulting from the federal settlement of aboriginal land claims in that state.

Smith, whose many awards include the 1999 Governor’s Arts Humanitarian Award and the 2001 Mental Health Association Distinguished Service Award, is a member of the advisory board of OU’s international literary journal World Literature Today and established the Jeanne Hoffman Smith Professorship in the OU College of Arts and Sciences’ Film and Video Studies program.

Prizes Established to Award Creative Process

8-29-02

A Creativity in Motion prize, honoring the creative process, has been established at the University of Oklahoma by a substantial grant to the OU Foundation from Oklahoma City resident Jeanne Hoffman Smith. The Thatcher Hoffman Smith prize, that will focus on recognizing people who enrich the lives of others through the creative process, will be awarded biennially, beginning spring 2003.

The Creativity in Motion prizes, established by a substantial grant to the OU Foundation from Jeanne Hoffman Smith, Oklahoma City resident, will focus on recognizing people and organizations that enrich peoples’ lives through the creative process.
“Creativity in Motion was established to recognize, honor and encourage the creative process as it unfolds and is expressed by individuals and organizations in diverse ways,” said Smith. “The goal of both prizes is to stimulate a better understanding of the creative process itself and, hopefully, to motivate creative individuals to develop their own original ideas into projects.”

The $40, 000 Thatcher Hoffman Smith Prize will focus on the dynamics of the creative process of an individual as he or she has conceptualized, outlined and developed an original creation toward completion. The prize was named to honor Smith’s mother and father, Grace Thatcher and Roy Hoffman Jr. The award is open to people in all fields of creativity through self nomination or nomination by another.

For more information about the Creativity in Motion prize and to obtain an application, visit the Web site at www.creativityinmotion.org. All applications are due by Jan. 15, 2003. The prizes will be presented to the recipients at the University of Oklahoma on April 8, 2003.

Smith attended Smith College, received her undergraduate degree from Oklahoma City University and went on to earn graduate degrees from the University of Louisville and the Colorado Center for Psychoanalytic Studies. She worked at the Central Oklahoma Mental Health Center from 1977-81 before going into private practice in clinical social work. The recipient of numerous humanitarian awards, Smith received an honorary doctorate from OCU in 1998, the Governor’s Arts Humanitarian Award in 1999, the Public School Foundation Wall of Fame Award in 2000, the Junior League Mary Baker Rumsey Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, the Mental Health Association Distinguished Service Award in 2001 and the Dulaney Browne Library Award, OCU 2002.

Smith has been an active member on many boards through the years, including the Junior League of Oklahoma City, the Inasmuch Foundation, the Oklahoma Arts Institute, and the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma County.