This fall season, the Texas Panhandle is seeing an ever-growing number of art exhibitions, events, and art spaces. If you happen to make a trip to Floydada, the self-proclaimed “Pumpkin Capital, U.S.A.,” stop by a few of these events along the way.
Abilene
Next month, The Grace Museum will open two concurrent exhibitions featuring important Black artists in Texas. As I See It: Earlie Hudnall, Jr. is a solo exhibition of Mr. Hudnall’s documentary style photography which highlights the importance of community. Witness: Black Artists in Texas, Then and Now will feature artists across multiple generations, including Kermit Oliver, Roy Vinson Thomas, Harvey Johnson, Charles Criner, Riley Holloway, Delita Martin, Sedrick Huckaby, Letitia Huckaby, Bert Long, and John Biggers. Both exhibitions open on Saturday, October 14, 2023 and run through Saturday, February 3, 2024.
A work by Leigh Merrill, on view at the Old Jail Art Center
Albany
The Old Jail Art Center will host Leigh Merrill’s candy-colored photographic scenes in Garden of Artificial Sugar, up now through January 13, 2024. Ms. Merrill creates unique scenes by gathering visual elements of nature from thousands of individual photographs. These elements are then seamlessly stitched or collaged together.
A work by Pat Donohoo, on view at Lasso Gallery
Amarillo
On October 26 at 7 p.m., at the Amarillo College Concert Hall Theater, the Amarillo Museum of Art (AMoA) will host a lecture on ecclesiastical architecture by former Benedictine monk and Artisanry professor at Boston University, Roberto Cardinale. Now through December 3, 2023, artist Meriden Rubenstein’s collaborative works CRITICAL MASS is on display at AMoA. The pieces depict the home of Edith Warner and the intersection of Los Alamos scientists and Native Americans.
On October 21, Invisible Genie, an alternative art gallery run by artist Matthew Williams, is hosting a group exhibition at the Pull Grocery Annex, a former glass station and now new art park at the corner of FM 1258 and Old Claude Road, 23 miles outside of town.
Lasso Gallery, owned by artist Kegan Hollis, boasts a two-women show opening October 13 and featuring Shanda O’Neill and Brittany Busch. In November, Lasso will exhibit work by Amarillo-based folk artist Pat Donohoo. Mr. Hollis states, “Donohoo is a special and overlooked folk artist. I have been combing through several thousand pieces from his 50+ year career. I think this show will turn some heads!”
Canyon
The Panhandle-Plains Museum (PPHM), the largest history museum in Texas, has gathered symbolic objects from its permanent collection in the tradition of the curiosity cabinet to honor Georgia O’Keefe’s experiences documented in over 200 letters from her time living in Canyon and teaching at West Texas Normal College. According to the PPHM, objects in Georgia O’Keeffe’s Cabinet of Curiosity were chosen “to represent the ways in which [she] was trying to make sense of the vastness, the weather, the speed, and the freedom she found here.” The exhibition is on view through February 2024.
A work by Misty Gamble, on view at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts
Lubbock
Grey Edges Gallery, run by Texas Tech University (TTU) alumna Kelly J. Reyna, will host a Mythical Art Bazaar as part of the upcoming First Friday Art Trail (FFAT); the event will feature sensory stations for kids, a bake sale, and an affordable art sale. Grey Edges will feature art by students from the TTU Burkhart Center for Autism Education and Research Transition Academy at the gallery’s Día de Los Muertos November FFAT event.
East Lubbock Art House (ELAH), the nonprofit workshop, gallery, and library space founded by Danielle East, will host a Multicultural Market and the opening reception for the juried group exhibition Cultura on October 7.
The annual South Plains College (SPC) Faculty Exhibition will be held at Charles Adams Gallery in downtown Lubbock. SPC Faculty include Chris Adams, Allison Black, Mohammed al-Sadoun, Kristy Kristinek, Kara Donatelli, and Scotty Hensler.
Broadway Contemporary Gallery of Fine Art, through a City of Lubbock grant, is hosting this year’s West Texas Watercolor Society 2023 Signature Fall Exhibit as part of the October FFAT. Dyan Newton will give watercolor demonstrations during the event. Over 25 artists are included in the watercolor-specific exhibition, which is juried by Jeannie McGuire.
Misty Gamble’s large-scale ceramic femmes sporting oceanic flora and fauna rococo coifs are currently on display at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) until October 28. LHUCA will be hosting two notable solo exhibitions from November 3 though December 30: Patrick Vincent’s print-based installations in the Helen DeVitt Jones Studio Gallery, and Mohammed al-Sadoun’s conceptual found-object installations and paintings in the John F. Lott Gallery.
UFOs Over Lubbock: Highplains Printslinger Showcase returns to the Charles Adams Studio Project’s (CASP) 5&J Gallery for the October 6 FFAT. Printmakers will have display booths and prints for sale, including Lubbock’s own F2 Design artist Dirk Fowler. Print artist and founder of UFOs Over Lubbock, Carlos Hernandez, explained “The point is to showcase Texas printmakers and artists. There will be affordable prints available, along with this year’s commemorative poster of an alien Buddy Holly. The whole exhibition name is a tribute to the 1951 sighting of UFOs over Lubbock … we like to pretend that Buddy Holly never died, he was just abducted.”
Be sure to catch a glimpse of UFOs Over Lubbock and other art phenomena in the Panhandle this fall — go see some art!
