‘Remembering Through Art’
Teens create paintings of those lost in OKC bombing
Mother-and-daughter gardening enthusiasts Carolyn Ann Kreymborg and Michelle Reeder shared a special affinity for azaleas.
When aspiring artist Kaylee Neighbors was given a chance to paint their portraits, she made sure to bring them their favorite flowers.
“I incorporated a lot of floral elements into both of the paintings, made the piece more about their life — like surrounding them with life — instead of focusing on their deaths,” she said.
Kreymborg, 57, and Reeder, 33, were among the 168 people killed in the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing. They attended an azalea show in Oklahoma City as their last activity together.
“I just wanted to create something that (their family) would love and would really capture these two women as best as I possibly could,” Neighbors said. “This was a really cool project, and the fact that those families will be able to see it, that definitely makes it special.”
Neighbors is part of a group of Broken Arrow High School art students and recent graduates who created portraits of each of the people who died in the bombing for a class project. Although it was temporarily derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project has turned into “Remembering Through Art,” one of two new exhibits opening at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum Monday, the 26th anniversary of the bombing.
“Each kid took a person and researched that person and then painted,” said Kari Watkins, the memorial and museum’s executive director. “They are unbelievable how personal they are. They’re not necessarily portraits of the person — they’re maybe of their hobby or something they loved — but it’s something about them.”
“So, here’s a kid who never met the person — wasn’t even alive when (the bombing) happened — who did the research and learned about them and painted their story. ... And it’s like they’re in the room. Their presence is in the room.”
Remembrance ceremony
The 26th Annual Remembrance Ceremony will be at 8:45 a.m. Monday at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, with a keynote address by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and performance by Grammy winner Mandisa.
Due to the pandemic, the ceremony will be a ticketed event open only to bombing survivors, family members and first responders. The anniversary event will be broadcast at Oklahoman.com, MemorialMuseum.com, www.facebook.com/okcmemorial, on the memorial’s YouTube channel and on local television stations.
Following the remembrance ceremony, the memorial grounds will open to the public, and admission to the museum will be free for Cox Community Day.
Along with “Remembering Through Art,” the museum will open another new exhibit Monday: “More Than Two Decades of Building. Together.” It focuses on how the people of Oklahoma City came together to rebuild and remember following the bombing, ultimately creating the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, where cities around the world now turn to find a blueprint to help with recovering and memorializing after tragedy.
“The museum turned 20 years old a few months ago, and we realized that we tell a lot of stories, but we don’t necessarily tell the story about how the museum and memorial were built by the people of the community and how it’s privately funded. That’s a unique story,” Watkins said.
“There are still daughters who can’t have their dad walk them down the aisle because their dad was killed. The effects are like any tragedy: They live on long after. ... I think these students’ portraits are powerful in such a way, because it’s someone from the outside looking in and then learning from your loved one. That’s a really powerful testament to how 26 years later ... your loved one is still impacting people’s lives.”
Special project
Broken Arrow High School art teacher Jennifer Brown said the inspiration for the project came from seeing the series of memorial tributes printed daily in The Oklahoman and the Tulsa World to commemorate last year’s 25th anniversary of the bombing. From November 2019 to April 2020, both papers ran a
profile a day on the 168 people who died in the tragedy.
“I started cutting them out, thinking, ‘I’m going to do a collage, or I’m going to do something.’ ... And then I just had this epiphany that, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be cool if I could get my kids to do something?’” she said.
“We really like to connect what we do in the classroom with real world. There’s a big disconnect between something that happened 25 years ago, when they weren’t even born. They didn’t go through the experience like we did. People talk about it or tell about it, but I wanted them to read about it and to think about what was left behind.
“Then, the second reason was this for domestic terrorism was the largest amount of deaths ... and for them to understand the devastation that something like that causes on the world.”
After connecting with the OKC National Memorial, Brown and fellow Broken Arrow teachers Jennifer Deal and Brett Gray had their art students each chose one of the 168 people to honor on canvas. Starting in January 2020, the pupils were to research the person they selected and portray them in a personal way, from highlighting their military achievements to depicting favorite foods.
“These kids got into it — I’m going to start crying — these kids got into it way above my expectations,” Brown said. “I had some kids that would finish their thing, it was gorgeous, and they were like, ‘Can I have another one?’ Some of these kids just took it to serious heart.
“And we’re talking kids across the spectrum: We’re talking kids with special needs all the way to advanced placement (students), artists that are better than me. All over the gamut, everybody stepped up, and I think it was the reality of learning about what happened.”
Community support
The project was progressing smoothly until the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Oklahoma, upending the school year. As her mother’s caregiver, Brown had to retire, but when the 2020-21 school year commenced, Deal and fellow Broken Arrow art teacher Kyle Todaro worked with students to make sure all 168 people who died in the bombing were included.
“A lot of the community rallied around the project when we realized we were going to have to try to find funds to pay for frames. We just made some calls, and everybody was like, ‘Well, we can give this and we can give this,’” Brown said, adding that Ziegler Art & Frame in Tulsa gave them a good deal.
Although the initial plans to show their work were canceled due to the pandemic, the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum opted to host the collected student paintings as an exhibit.
Although “Remembering Through Art” opens to the public Monday and continues through the summer, the OKC National Memorial was to host Sunday evening a private preview for family members of the 168 people killed in the bombing, with some of the students and teachers to attend.
“We loved how the students connected to the story, and the teachers did a remarkable job — and the community and the school did a remarkable job — of making it all a reality. It’s a very powerful exhibit,” Watkins said. “Art is a powerful way for people to share both pain and healing — and I think that’s what we see in these pictures.”
For Neighbors, who graduated from Broken Arrow High School last May, many of the special activities of her senior year were spoiled by the pandemic. She said the portrait project finally getting a happy ending is encouraging, especially since family members of those depicted will get to see the art.
“It gives me hope for more exhibitions being brought back and more chances to get my work out there,” Neighbors said. “This gives me more drive to actually make things and put things out there. But it’s not about me, it’s not about the artists, it’s about the families. I’m happy that they’ll able to see them surrounded by the things that they loved.”