There are a lot of ways to get to know Norman. Cody Giles has spent the last ten years doing it with a camera in his hand.
His upcoming exhibition, Selfish Art, opens August 14 at Uncanny Art House with 180 framed photographs taken during his decade in Norman, along with a collection of Polaroids from those same years. If you’ve been around Norman’s music and arts scene for any part of that time, expect to recognize some faces.
There are musicians and artists, portraits and live shows, community events and everyday scenes around town. Some of the people in the photographs started as subjects and became friends. Others were already friends. That overlap between Cody’s work and his life here is a big part of the show.
“It is and has always been about the community,” Cody said. “I always ask myself how I can use photography to get to know someone or the community as a whole better.”
Cody came to Norman after teaching high school in Greenville, Texas, and spending time photographing live music in Dallas’ Deep Ellum. He was looking for a place where he could be closer to a creative community. He found one here, and then got pretty involved in it.
In addition to photographing Norman’s musicians, artists and events, Cody has worked with the Norman Arts Council and serves on the Norman Music Festival organizational board, handling everything from photography and PR to graphic design and social media. It has put him in a good position to document Norman’s creative scene, although “document” almost feels too removed for someone who is very much a part of it.
“Being an active participant in the arts community has certainly opened the door to opportunities to create images documenting its impact on everyday life in Norman,” Cody said. He also points to the friendships he’s made with many of the people who have helped shape and build that community. Those relationships show up throughout Selfish Art.
The name comes from a quote by musician Noah Gundersen: “There’s nothing more sincere than selfish art.” Cody carried that idea into the process of choosing what would make the show. He went back through thousands of photographs from the last decade and picked the images he loved, rather than trying to build the collection around what might be the most marketable.
The final 180 are a pretty wide-ranging record of what it has looked like to live, make things, and show up in Norman over the last ten years.
Some capture musicians sweating through a set. Others are portraits, community events, familiar places, or everyday moments that probably would have disappeared if Cody hadn’t been there with a camera. There’s even the particular light of an Oklahoma afternoon that, as Cody puts it, exists for about 45 seconds before it’s gone. Mostly, there are people.
For Cody, that’s the part he hopes comes across even to someone walking into the gallery without knowing Norman at all.
“I would want someone to see how active the community is in supporting the arts and each other,” he said.
For locals, the experience will probably be a little different. Ten years is a long time in a city. Venues change. Bands come and go. Events grow up. People do, too. Seeing 180 photographs from those years in one room gives Norman a chance to look back at a version of itself that might otherwise live in old camera folders and Polaroid stacks.
And when the show is over, Cody hopes plenty of those photographs leave with the people who helped inspire them.
Every framed 11x17 print will be for sale for $15, a price Cody chose intentionally to keep the art accessible to the community at the center of it.
Selfish Art is on display August 14 through September 27 at Uncanny Art House in Norman.
