Sheryl Oring, VCU’s inaugural chair of fine arts, has spent two decades capturing Americans’ hopes and fears

By Kim Catley

Artist Sheryl Oring can often be found seated behind a desk, dressed in the style of a 1960s secretary. With her fingers poised above a vintage typewriter, she waits to dictate messages from everyday people who want to write a letter to the president of the United States.

Over the last 22 years, Oring has transcribed more than 5,000 messages capturing Americans' hopes and fears on postcards that have been exhibited in museums, libraries and college campuses across the country - all as part of her ongoing project "I Wish to Say."

Born in Norman, Oklahoma, and raised in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Oring can trace the origins of her creative practice back to the 5th grade when a poet visited her class.

"We wrote poems and made a book together," she said. "This love of books, language and words informs my art practice to this day."

She first took that love to journalism school, then to a fellowship in Berlin where she created a sculptural installation using vintage typewriters. She now blends old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion and critical social issues, and foster an open exchange of ideas.

Oring is also passionate about shaping the next generation of fine artists as an educator and academic leader. Most recently, she was a professor and chair of the Department of Applied Design at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.

Now, her story continues at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts. After a national search, Oring is serving as the inaugural chair of the Department of Fine Arts, overseeing programs in painting and printmaking, craft and material studies, and sculpture and extended media.

"I am deeply honored to join VCUarts at such an important moment," she said. "The three areas coming together bring remarkable histories and faculty expertise into one department."

"I am excited to listen, learn, and work collaboratively to make those strengths more visible, create new opportunities across disciplines, and ensure that VCU remains one of the most compelling places in the country to study and practice the fine arts."

A change in course

Oring's creative path started in journalism school at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she also worked as a reporter and editor on the student newspaper. There, she learned the craft of formulating provocative questions and the power of listening - skills that continue to drive both her creative practice and her academic leadership.

In 1997, Oring was working as an editor at the San Francisco Chronicle but was looking for a change of pace. When she received the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship from the International Center for Journalists, she took a six-month leave and moved to Berlin - and ended up staying six years.

While in Berlin, she discovered Bebelplatz, the site of Nazi book burning in 1933, and now home to "Bibliothek (Library)" by Israeli artist Micha Ullman.

"Over and over, I found myself standing there, peering down into empty shelves, and trying to comprehend what had happened," Oring said. "These questions became so pressing that the first significant work of visual art that I created was a sculptural installation called 'Writer's Block' that I first showed on Bebelplatz."

Oring's transition was gradual and somewhat unexpected. In Berlin, she began learning German, and because she was unable to rely on language in the same way, she found herself thinking much more visually. She became intensely aware of objects, images and public spaces, and of how history could be embedded in them.

To create "Writer's Block," she collected hundreds of typewriters from the 1920s and '30s and then "caged" them in sculptural boxes made of rusty construction steel.

"By imprisoning the typewriters, I visually took away the writer's tool," she said. "The result was a symbolic statement about censorship that led viewers to examine their ideas about free expression."

"Writer's Block" emerged from a very intuitive place - both as a response to the censorship and silencing represented by the Nazi book burnings at Bebelplatz and on a deeply personal level from restrictions on her own voice as a child and later as a woman working in a field dominated by men.

"I think some of that found its way into the work before I fully understood it myself," she said. "I wasn't consciously deciding to become an artist. I was discovering that art could give form to things I couldn't express in other ways.

Oring's time in Berlin proved to be the reset she needed. She decided to pursue art and, after receiving a Creative Capital Award in 2006, she returned to graduate school to study art at University of California, San Diego.

The people's secretary

Oring's Creative Capital Award provided early funding for her signature project, "I Wish to Say," which she started in 2004 and continues to this day. As part of the performance work, Oring sets up a public "office" and takes dictation from people who want to send a message to the president of the United States.

Oring has engaged with thousands of participants at roughly 200 locations across the country, from the Venice boardwalk in California to Bryant Park in New York City and the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

"The individual messages form an extraordinary archive of how people understand democracy across different places and political moments," she said.

In a more recent project coinciding with the nation's 250th anniversary, Oring asked people to reflect on the meaning of independence. "Spirit of Independence" was presented at the U.S. Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2025 as well as at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as part of its "America 250: Common Threads" exhibition.

A forthcoming book, "Secretary to the People," brings together the history and accumulated voices of "I Wish to Say" and other projects.

"My work does not ask participants to agree with me or with one another," she said. "It asks them to articulate what they think, to take their own words seriously, and to encounter the words of other people with an open mind. The slow process of dictating a message to a typist can be unexpectedly powerful. It turns speech into a record and creates a brief relationship between two people who may not otherwise have met."

"Democracy depends on more than elections. It depends on people's belief that their voices matter. At a moment when public trust is fragile, political language is increasingly polarized, and censorship and self-censorship are pressing concerns, artists can create forms of participation that operate differently from debate or social media."

The role of the arts in a changing world

"I Wish to Say" and other projects are Oring's efforts to create an archive that preserves the hopes, dreams and concerns of ordinary people. It also reflects her belief in protecting the conditions that allow people to be heard.

This is a principle that also guides her approach as an arts educator.

Oring aims to teach students how to ask questions and develop research skills, to observe, collaborate and persist even when faced with uncertainty - skills that are essential to artistic creation and in adapting to a rapidly changing world.

"Artists help societies remember, question inherited narratives, and represent experiences that might otherwise remain invisible," she said.

"At a time of rapid technological change, including the growth of artificial intelligence, an arts education must do more than teach tools. It must help students develop a distinctive point of view, understand context and consequences, and decide what is worth making and why."

Oring officially stepped into her role as chair of the Department of Fine Arts on Sept. 21. She brings strong leadership skills to the role. Prior to her role at Appalachian State University, she held academic and leadership positions at the School of Art at University of the Arts in Philadelphia; the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art, Art History, and Design at Wayne State University in Detroit; and the School of Art at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

As Oring looks ahead to her first days, weeks and months at VCUarts, she plans to put her talent for asking questions and deep listening to good use as she gets to know the faculty, staff and students, learns the histories and cultures of the department, and explores Richmond's creative energy. She also hopes to bring greater national visibility to the department.

"Being the inaugural chair provides me with an exciting opportunity to create a clear collective identity for the department while still supporting strong individual programs," she said. "I want students to have a genuine intellectual and creative home in the department while also having permission to cross boundaries, take risks and build practices that do not fit neatly into a single category."

Driven by a passion for fostering interdisciplinary connections across campus, Oring says she was drawn to VCUarts for its distinct place as a public research university where the arts are central to its institutional identity and ambitions. She also finds it serendipitous that her new office will be inside the Murry N. DePillars Building, named for the school's longtime dean whose legacy shows a commitment to the power of art and free expression.

"[VCUarts'] recognition as the top public fine arts graduate program in the country speaks to the extraordinary strength of its faculty, students and programs, but what excites me most is what that reputation makes possible," she said.

"I want to be in a place with the confidence to take risks, where artists are encouraged to cross disciplines, engage the world around them and imagine new ways for art to matter in public life. That is the community I found at VCUarts, and the kind of community I want to help strengthen for the next generation of artists."

This story was originally published on the School of the Arts website.