The growing art community is still developing in Lubbock and local gallery owners said that’s a good thing for them. Gallery spaces give artists a chance to showcase their work and are an important part to any budding art community.
“Art is probably the most contemporary aspect of a city,” said owner of the Tornado Gallery, Larry Simmons.. “It is all on the leading edge of what a city is about. If you don’t have those spaces you really lose a vibrancy of your quality of life.”
Gallery owners said that providing space for artist to connect with the public is important to foster an art culture in a city. That’s why gallery owner Charles Adams started the Charles Adams Studio Project, to give space to artists to work on their craft.
“The Charles Adams Studio Project is a non-profit. The mission of the studio project is to produce artist working space,” said founder of CASP, Charles Adams. “We have an artist in residency program we have a group studio, a metal studies, a foundry and we also just have work studios to rent and for artists to live and work.”
These gallery spaces are a way to connect art with the public in Lubbock.
“It’s interesting to me that the arts feel like they have to justify themselves as this extravagant thing and it’s not,” said local artist Chad Plunket. “You look back culturally through art history or anthropology or archeology and the most primitive cultures that were living hand to mouth will take their stick and carve on it. It’s a part of human nature to want to create.”
