AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) – The Amarillo Museum of Art opened in 1972 to fulfill the need of a visual arts organization in the Panhandle.
“If you look at visual art museums or museums that are totally dedicated to visual art, we’re kind of alone in the Panhandle,” said Alex Gregory, curator of art. “So there was a need for that.”
The Amarillo Museum of Art operates independently from Amarillo College, but Gregory says they are lucky to be on its campus.
To Gregory, visual art is human expression at one of its purest forms.
“You can go back in history and people have been doing things on cave walls. There’s just an impulse for creativity and particularly with visual art,” said Gregory. “So if you don’t have access to that, you just don’t know.”
The Amarillo Museum of Art opened in 1972 to fulfill the need of a visual arts organization in the Panhandle.(kfda)
Having a place like the Amarillo Museum of Art where people can come for free and realize they can express themselves is important.
“You start coming as a kid and you start to realize that you can express yourself and your ideas are valid. You see other people’s ideas expressed and they can be beautiful or they can be challenging,” said Gregory. “They can cover a wide range of human experience, but you’re at least connecting across time and space with artists who have dedicated their life to their work.”
Gregory says these realizations are important both culturally and personally.
An analogy he uses to describe the experience: what would a community be without a library?
“What would it be like if no one could read a book? They would just miss all of that information and all that wealth of knowledge. So a similar thing with visual art,” said Gregory.
If a person can come look at a sculpture or object, they don’t have to make a judgement about it. Gregory says just looking at it, a person can learn something from it.
“Looking at it as a unique object is better than looking through a book of art because you’re not actually seeing the paint on the surface. You don’t know how it was made, so seeing it for real just opens your eyes,” said Gregory.
The Amarillo Museum of Art opened in 1972 to fulfill the need of a visual arts organization in the Panhandle.(kfda)
A lot of times in schools, art is the first thing to get cut.
Gregory says if kids don’t have that appreciation, they just don’t know about the impact of art.
“Being able to provide that for the community and to get that information in front of people and be a place where people can come and learn something that’s unique, and gives them the ability to look at the world differently and to express their own creativity, hopefully,” said Gregory. “You have a lot more to learn if you just come over to the museum and take a look around.”
The Amarillo Museum of Art is located at 2200 South Van Buren St.
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