Founded in 1989, Abilene’s Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA) has been a vital part of the city’s art scene for over thirty years. With the support of the Abilene Cultural Affairs Council, the CCA grew out of an artist collective called The Arts League of Texas. Then, in 1993, the CCA renovated a historic building in the city’s downtown and became an anchor for the revitalization of the area. The building was developed to have classrooms, gallery space, and artist studios.
The CCA is funded by memberships, of which there are three levels: artists, artist educators, and community. In total the organization has over 200 members. During its monthly members meeting, the collective group plans exhibitions and events.
The 10 studio spaces, which range in price from $75 to $125 per month, are so coveted that once an artist is able to get one, they often stay for many years. When there is an opening, artists can apply to be considered to lease a space. The applications are reviewed by Signature Members, who are longstanding members that have additional responsibilities compared to standard artist members. On a recent visit to Abilene, I had the opportunity to chat with a handful of artists who have studios at the center; learn more about them below.
Freddy Gonzales
Freddy Gonzales
Freddy Gonzales is the current Artist Member President for the Center for Contemporary Arts. Though he has been a member for six years, he only recently stepped into the leadership position earlier this fall. Previously, he served as Vice President when Patty Rae Wellborn led the organization. In his current role, he acts as a liaison between artist members and the organization’s board of directors.
Gonzales is a native of Abilene and first encountered the center as a child when visiting the downtown area with his family. Along with organizing exhibitions, the CCA hosts events like a monthly ArtWalk, and educational opportunities such as summer camps and workshops. As an adult, Gonzales began attending the organization’s weekly figure drawing sessions, playfully named Dirty Drawers. Over time he decided to become a member so that he would have opportunities to showcase his work in the CCA galleries and could get more involved with the organization.
Though Gonzales initially received a degree in accounting, he ultimately went back to school to earn a digital art degree. Since then, he has been working at a local print shop, where he runs the digital print room. Artistically, Gonzales, who has worked in printmaking and sculpture, has recently begun working with a 3D printer and a small CNC machine to design and create earrings.
Gonzales told me that for the past decade he has had different studios in Abilene, but many previous ones were housed in old office buildings. He explained, “The difference is [CCA] is a lot more well established and we have a history. There are a lot of artists who have been here for years.”
Peggy Shepard
Peggy Shepard
Peggy Shepard, who has been a member of the center for four years, moved into her studio in September. She works in photography, painting, and mixed media. Shepard spoke of her excitement about being at the CCA. Previously, she had a studio elsewhere, but she explained that the center’s location and its vibrancy, through the programs and events it hosts, have been an exciting new step in her artistic journey.
“I think what I like about being up here at the center is just the energy and the vibe. I’m very proud of the Center for Contemporary Arts and sometimes I even have to pinch myself… I’m an artist at the Center for Contemporary Arts?! We are a very collaborative group… the energy here really promotes creativity.”
Though her new studio space is a little smaller than what she had before, Shepard is finding creative ways to make space to work on multiple projects, while also maintaining storage space and seating for moments of reflection.
Anthony Fuentez
Anthony Fuentez
Anthony Fuentez, who has been a CCA member for 13 years, has had a studio at the center for about six years. Currently he works as a sales representative for Frito Lay and paints in his downtime at night and on the weekends. Fuentez explained that his work is inspired by feelings and emotions, as well as by people he meets throughout the course of his daily life. Many of his works feature a character that Fuentez calls Poet. When I visited his studio, Fuentez was working on pieces for upcoming exhibitions in San Angelo and Santa Fe.
When asked what makes his studio at CCA special, Fuentez immediately pulled out a small handwritten note. He explained, “Once in a while, I’ll find these under my door… when people come to visit, I find these little notes. You don’t get these when you have a private studio because your door is always locked. But even if this door is closed, I have works on the outside and it’s accessible for them to throw something underneath. That’s what makes this space special… when I can touch someone I would never otherwise meet because they came to the center.”
Katy Presswood
Katy Presswood
Katy Presswood has been teaching art for 60 years; 40 of those years were at Abilene High School, ten at the local jail and the juvenile justice center, and she is now in her tenth year teaching at the Kenley School, which serves students with learning disabilities. Presswood explained that when the Arts League first began in the 80s, she did not have the time to be a member of the organization because she had a young family. However, when the organization opened in its current location, in 1993, she joined as a member. She later rented a studio space in 2002, which she has maintained for the past 21 years.
Presswood explained that she knew in 2002 she would be retiring from teaching soon, and saw the opportunity to rent a studio space as a way to invest her time into her own work. She stated, “When you teach high school art, you don’t have much time to do much art. So, in 2004 when I retired, that’s when I really began painting…”
Presswood shared about a recent body of work in which she poured paint into abstract shapes, then used a secondary canvas to blot the original work, creating two pieces with mirrored compositions. Though each pair share compositional elements, she adjusted them by rotating the canvas and adding elements to create related, but not identical abstract works. She explained, “I like intentional, accidental things.”
Looking around her studio, Presswood pointed out shapes and potential narratives hiding in the abstractions. She shared, “That’s the fairy princess, with a fried egg up in the corner… and that’s Moses over there, ya know, and all those warrior people behind him… and then there’s that underground Roman aqueduct… and this is my mother, see that hand on her hip, You better get that room clean!”
Reflecting on why CCA has been important to her, Presswood noted, “I love this place, because I live on teacher retirement and farm income… this [space] made it affordable for artists to come and work without feeling pressure to sell your work to pay your rent… I was just thinking the other day, I’ve been spending about $20,000 on this studio since 2002, but it’s been worth every penny of it.”
Patty Rae Wellborn
Patty Rae Wellborn
Like Gonzales, Patty Rae Wellborn first engaged with the CCA through the Dirty Drawers program. She has maintained a studio space at CCA since the 1990s, and over the last 30 years she has moved studios a few times and currently shares one of the largest studio spaces with her husband. Wellborn recalled that she was part of the first ArtWalk. Thinking back on that time, Wellborn told me, “The downtown area was dead, there was nothing going on here. So, we opened this place and started having ArtWalk and then ABC News came out to interview us because we got an award for the renovation of downtown.”
As a longtime member who has served as President of the CCA three times, Wellborn is a wealth of information about the history of the organization. She spoke of launching the Artreach program with Ruth Jackson, a member who recently died. The program is the educational wing of the organization that offers workshops and learning experiences throughout the city for audiences of all ages, regularly by partnering with organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs, the YWCA, and the Windcrest Alzheimer’s Unit.
Beyond her work to support the artist community through leadership at CCA and the larger community through educational programming, Wellborn is also a successful artist. At the time I spoke with her, she was working on seven large commissions for the city’s Hendrick Health hospital. Wellborn is a self-taught artist and attributes much of her success to her drive and ambition. She told me, “When I had toddlers, I was always at the library, because we didn’t have the internet. I had these big art books, but I wanted to get as many as I was allowed, so I had to bring a bag to carry all of my books… but I learned through the encyclopedias. When I was eight years old, my parents bought the Encyclopedia Britannica and I started looking through all the art. I wanted to do that, I wanted to make art.”
Anthony Brown
Anthony Brown
Anthony Brown is one of the longtime members who has been with the organization since its inception. Thinking about the impact of the CCA, Brown told me, “Being here for 30 years and having the ArtWalk, and having the galleries open for free, and having the artists in here, I think the appreciation for the visual arts and the museum has really increased in Abilene. All of us artists have noticed that we’ve been selling more work.”
Like Wellborn and Pressword, Brown spoke of his time teaching art in the community. Specifically, he worked for six years providing weekly art programs to the juvenile detention center. He noted the experience was eye-opening for him, and taught him that many of the children in the jail system are suffering from a lack of a support system. He also pointed to the benefits of the program, saying that it gives the students an outlet and opportunities to express themselves through art.
Brown worked as a painting contractor for 50 years and retired a few years ago. While he was working, he had a home studio since he was often making art in the evenings after the work day was over. He first began sharing a studio space with an artist at CCA four years ago, and has had the studio to himself for the past two years.
Brown explained that the transition from working to retiring and focusing on his art has been quite a shift. He told me, “That first year, I thought I was going to lose my mind, because house painting for 50 years is so systematic. You do this, you do that, you give them an estimate, you come in, you do the prep, you paint the first coat, the second coat, clean it all up, then you get paid. And then art, you’re looking at the painting, you have an idea of what you want to do but you don’t know what you’re doing. So you just sit… I was doing a lot more thinking than I thought I would be. I thought for that first year that I was a bum because I wasn’t doing anything. But then the paintings started to get finished and I started selling them because I got better, because I was painting all the time.”
In his youth, Brown attended art school, but ultimately left that path and pursued a more traditional vocation. He was interested in sculpture and has made some furniture here and there, but much of his work is mixed media paintings that incorporate sculptural elements. Though he works mostly in landscape, Brown points to the Aztecs and other ancient cultures, who carved in stone or wood to make reliefs, as inspirations. Brown’s imagery and compositions are based off of photo collages he makes from hundreds of photographs he’s taken of various places. He explained that working in this way allows him to piece together the elements he finds most interesting from an area or region, rather than solely relying on a realistic scene for a composition.
Currently, the Center for Contemporary Arts in Abilene has four exhibitions on view. UNDERGROWTH: Soft Sculpture by Braeden Kuppin and the 2023 Artist Member Winter Showcase close on Saturday, January 6, 2024. By Hand: Alternative Processes from the Texas Photographic Society is on view through February 3, 2024, and What Color is Your Couch?, featuring works by Casey La Rue-Chavez and La Rue, will be on view through January 27, 2024. The center is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is open late on every second Thursday of the month from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for the ArtWalk program.
Learn more about CCA via the organization’s website.
