OU student reshapes sculpture studios while reinventing herself

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Allysia Scherer has reinvented herself more than once. At the University of Oklahoma, the former Navy hospital corpsman found her latest reinvention in sculpture, a medium she says gave her “permission to take up space.”

For the OU junior, that discovery was about more than choosing an artistic medium. After nearly a decade in the U.S. Navy, a medical retirement and a period spent trying to determine what came next, studying art offered Scherer another chance to reinvent herself.

“I have always done art in the margins since I was young, so enrolling in art school was a way to reinvent myself once more by allowing my art to exist outside the margins,” she said.

Today, Scherer is an interdisciplinary artist in the School of Visual Arts in the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts at OU. Her work has included welding, woodworking and other forms of contemporary sculpture as well as painting, printmaking and textiles. Recently, weaving and natural dyeing have become an important part of her work, connecting Scherer not only to nature but also to her family.

Raised by her grandparents in Amarillo, Texas, Scherer grew up in a home influenced by two cultures. Her grandfather is Iranian, while her grandmother is from Texas. At home, she ate Persian food and was surrounded by Persian art and culture; outside the home, she grew up in West Texas.

“Our inner world was very Persian, while our outer world was very Texan,” Scherer said. She recently began exploring her heritage more through weaving, practices with centuries-old connections to Persian art. For Scherer, making art also provides a way to process grief and concern for family members abroad.

“I make art, not because I always want to, but because I really have to,” she said. “That grief has to go somewhere.”

Reinventing a life

Art was not Scherer’s first career. After earning an associate degree in mass communications from Amarillo College, she joined the Navy in her 20s and became a hospital corpsman. Over 10 years, she worked in a variety of healthcare settings, including inpatient, outpatient and executive medicine.

Her assignments included the U.S. Naval Academy, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the White House Medical Unit and Tinker Air Force Base. While assigned to the White House Medical Unit, she traveled in support of the president and vice president during both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Her final duty station was Tinker, where Scherer said she began confronting physical and psychological injuries sustained during her military service. Those injuries ultimately led to her medical retirement. After leaving the Navy, she retreated to the woods, where she focused on her health, her family and nature. She and her husband, Ryan, also tried farming, but her body made it clear that farming was not her next career. So, Scherer returned to something that had been present throughout her life: art.

She enrolled at OU, thinking she would focus on painting. Sculpture changed that plan. The physical demands of sculpture may seem like an unlikely match for someone who uses a wheelchair and cane, but Scherer found faculty willing to approach those challenges as problems to be solved.

Scherer especially credits Leticia Bajuyo, associate professor of sculpture, who she considers a mentor. When Scherer questioned whether her body could handle sculpture, she said Bajuyo responded with “partnership rather than pity” and an attitude of, “Let’s figure out how to make a way.”

“Ally is a thoughtful and determined artist who approaches sculpture with a strong sense of curiosity, problem-solving and persistence,” Bajuyo said. “She is attentive to how materials, processes and physical space shape the experience of making and that awareness has become an important part of her development as an artist.”

That approach has continued throughout the sculpture program. Worktables have been modified so Scherer can use them. Equipment and workspaces have been adapted to make her participation possible. For Scherer, those changes have allowed her to take part in the same processes as other sculpture students – welding, woodworking, metal casting and transforming materials into objects.

Making room

Scherer’s presence at OU has also prompted accessibility changes as she has advocated for modifications to spaces and equipment that were difficult or impossible for her to use when she arrived. Throughout, she has worked with the School of Visual Arts and OU’s Accessibility and Disability Resource Center. The university’s ADA coordinator, who is part of OU’s Institutional Equity Office, also plays a key role in ensuring equal access for all students. Among the changes, Scherer said, are accessible worktables, ramps and thresholds, improvements to an accessible restroom and modifications to equipment and sculpture spaces.

“What has also impressed me is the way Ally approaches accessibility in the studio as both a practical concern and an opportunity to rethink how our spaces and processes function,” Bajuyo said. “Her questions and experiences have encouraged us to look more closely at the sculpture studios and consider how changes can make them safer, more functional and more accessible, not only for Ally but for future students as well.”

The ceramics studio is also receiving what Scherer said is the first accessible pottery wheel of its kind in Oklahoma. This semester, she is working with a professor through an independent study to build an accessible computer-guided cutting machine.

Even Cinderella required some problem-solving. Cinderella is Scherer’s service dog and is with her 24/7, but sculpture presents hazards not typically found in a classroom. For iron pours, welding and other work involving heat and potentially dangerous materials, Cinderella now has protective equipment of her own. OU’s accessibility team helped provide goggles, hearing protection, a fire-resistant shirt and boots to protect her paws.

Scherer still evaluates each environment before bringing Cinderella into it. She has concerns, for example, about exposing the dog to silica dust in ceramics spaces. “I love Cinderella and want her to be around for a long time, even after she retires,” Scherer said.

Scherer believes accessibility should be considered from the beginning when educational and artistic spaces are designed, rather than added later when a student encounters a barrier. “Accessibility isn’t an afterthought or a luxury,” she said.

Her experience has also shaped what she hopes to do after OU. Scherer wants to pursue a Master of Fine Arts and has begun visiting potential graduate programs. Ultimately, she wants to teach art at the college level and wants students to have instructors whose bodies do not all look alike. “We need different types of representation in leadership and teaching,” she said.

Scherer continues working in sculpture, weaving, natural dyes and exploring other art forms. A scholarship from Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee and a grant from the Norman Arts Council enabled her to pursue further training in natural dyeing. She is also interested in establishing a small natural-dye garden at OU that could provide plants for student research in textiles, printmaking and painting.

For Scherer, art is very personal, whether working in sculpture, weaving or another medium. “If my weavings never matter to anyone, they matter to me,” she said. “I am so grateful that I get to make them.”

Learn more about the School of Visual Arts in the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts at OU.

Learn about the Accessibility and Disability Resource Center at OU at ou.edu/adrc.