Stay Gold: The 2025 Tulsa Mayfest Collection Reveal
Thirteen Works. One Story. A Shared Meaning.
For Tulsa Mayfest 2025, Stay Gold was not a slogan or a merchandise line. It was a curated collection of 13 original works of art, each offering a distinct interpretation of what Stay Gold means — to Tulsa, to artists, and to the community that surrounds the festival.
The collection was conceived as a storytelling experience, using visual art to explore nostalgia, resilience, creativity, and growth through multiple perspectives rather than a single definition.
The Inspiration
The phrase Stay Gold carries deep cultural significance in Tulsa, rooted in The Outsiders and its enduring connection to the city, the Arts District, and The Outsiders Museum.
For Mayfest 2025, Stay Gold became an invitation rather than a directive — asking artists and audiences alike to reflect on:
What it means to preserve what’s meaningful
How creativity evolves without losing its core
The balance between nostalgia and forward motion
Rather than prescribing a single narrative, the collection created space for interpretation and dialogue.
The Collection
The Stay Gold Collection consisted of 13 original works of art, each contributing to a broader visual and conceptual story while standing on its own.
Together, the works explored themes of:
Personal and collective memory
Place, identity, and transformation
Youth, aging, optimism, and resilience
Authenticity in changing environments
Viewed as a whole, the collection functioned as a visual conversation — layered, reflective, and intentionally open-ended.
Featured Works & Creative Direction
From the full collection, two original works were selected as standout interpretations of the Stay Gold theme, helping shape the visual language of Tulsa Mayfest 2025.
Jessica Scheffel’s hand-carved stamps and artwork were selected for their tactile quality and timeless symbolism. Her work was adapted for use on the Mayfest 5K t-shirt, extending the Stay Gold story into a participatory experience attendees could carry beyond the festival weekend.
Shelly Collins’ folded paper artwork stood out for its dimensionality, craftsmanship, and narrative depth. Her piece became the creative inspiration behind the 2025 festival graphics and overall theme, influencing visual elements across marketing, signage, and festival programming.
These selections allowed individual artistic voices to meaningfully inform the festival’s broader creative direction.
The Reveal
The Stay Gold Collection was unveiled at a dedicated reveal event designed as both a cultural moment and a community gathering.
The evening featured a kabuki drop, revealing all 13 works at once and creating a shared moment of anticipation and surprise. Donors, community leaders, artists, and University of Tulsa staff mingled throughout the space, reflecting the collaborative spirit behind the collection and the festival itself.
At the time of the reveal, the Stay Gold exhibit was shown alongside the “Black Gold” exhibition, presented by the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, which explored the history of Black baseball in Tulsa. After the Black Gold exhibition concluded, that gallery space was transformed into the Mayfest Invitational Gallery — an invitation-only exhibition featuring visual artists across all mediums.
The Stay Gold Collection remained on view throughout this transition, anchoring the space as programming evolved and reinforcing continuity between exhibitions and Mayfest’s broader visual arts programming.
Why It Mattered
Large festivals often rely on abstract themes. The Stay Gold Collection made the theme tangible.
It:
Centered artists as storytellers
Created a theatrical and emotional entry point for audiences
Deepened Mayfest’s connection to Tulsa’s cultural and academic institutions
Demonstrated how curated art can meaningfully shape festival identity
By integrating original artwork into both programming and visual direction, Stay Gold reinforced Mayfest as a platform for intentional, artist-driven expression.
Stay Gold, Going Forward
The response to the Stay Gold Collection affirmed the value of intentional curation, artist-led storytelling, and shared moments of discovery within large public festivals.
By allowing multiple voices to define a shared theme — and by situating that work within a broader cultural context — Tulsa Mayfest 2025 demonstrated how art can hold complexity, community, and continuity at scale.
Interested in producing something meaningful?
If you’re planning a festival, exhibition, or public event and want thoughtful programming, strong systems, and calm execution behind the scenes, let’s talk.
