Oklahoma City artists really have no idea just how good they have it. At the most, many local artists will be lambasted by nosy social media obsessives for painting a dumb octopus on a public wall. In Enid, however, they don’t even wait for an artist to finish before decrying it as Satanic and other diabolical missives.
Artist Romy Owens has spent the past two years hard at work on her latest creation, the Go Fund Me funded public art installation “Under Her Wing was the Universe” for the city of Enid. While Owen claims the art-piece is a tribute to, in a word or two, mother and mentors, it appears that some Enid city leaders and other local destroyers of creativity, instead, believe it to be a tribute to the Lord...the Lord of the Damned?
From KFOR:
An Oklahoma artist who has spent the last two years designing and working on a public art installation could possibly see her work go unfinished.
“I don’t really let my mind go there,” artist Romy Owens said. “I don’t know what I would do if it got torn down.”
Owens said she had to make it through initial pushback from the public before even breaking ground on her project.
“There’s been some interpretation that Under Her Wing was the Universe maybe means something that it doesn’t. It’s really about relationships. It’s not a pagan monument. It’s not a place for the occult,” Owens said.
Of course, publicly the Enid city leaders are claiming it’s a matter of the piece “taking longer than expected.” Commissioner Jonathan Waddell had that and a few things to say at a recent August meeting, including speaking about the need for the board to “analyze” whether they have or have not made a good decision with choosing "Universe" as their current project.