April 1, 2013

This Machine gets primal in our latest edition, focusing on Oklahoma and Midwestern museums and a still-relevant 70-year-old Panhandle dinosaur dig. WHAT LIES BENEATH: Holly Wall reveals how a WPA-era dinosaur dig is still articulating what we know about life in prehistoric Oklahoma. WILD BLUE YONDER: Artist James Turrell builds a temple out of the Ozark sky on the grounds of a museum founded by Sam Walton’s only daughter. MOM(IDDLE)A(MERICA): A parking lot and an elevator ride are the gateway to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a study in mountains and architecture of the veil between nature and the not-so-natural. CURATED OKLAHOMA: Jars of leeches, two-headed calf skulls, and the toy collection that swelled into a tourist destination—a map of Oklahoma’s smallest museums. THE ILLUSION OF MICHELLE DUBOIS: A West Coast artist obsesses on the images of an Oklahoma woman whose self-portraiture flirts with identity and imagination. ORIGINAL OKIE: Lauren “Rainbow Girl” Lunsford graces our back cover. 2013/#sthash.SFlq5l0C.dpuf