Still in its infancy, The Plano Museum of Contemporary Visual Art is located downtown in the Chaddick Center.
Plano’s drive to become a fine arts destination goes back several decades.
In 2015, the neighborhood applied to become a designated cultural arts district, a lengthy process through the Texas Commission on the Arts that affords the opportunity to apply for grants.
The application included a list of cultural assets in the historic district, including galleries, Plano International Fest, Dickens and Night Out on 15th. The designation was awarded in December of 2016.
Today, there are many initiatives aimed at furthering the fine arts scene.
The City of Plano is working on a Comprehensive Cultural Arts Plan. Earlier this year, the City brought in a consultant to conduct in-person discussions with area artists, media, cultural groups and the public to include diverse input into a Cultural Arts Plan. The plan aims to span at least five years and create a cultural asset inventory and map, make grant program recommendations, suggest public art and recommend both public and private arts funding.
At the same time, Soheyla Rashidyan and Mike Korman had been working toward the creation of a nonprofit art museum in the district for over six years.
Originally slated to be a contemporary art museum for children, the pair expanded their idea to be more inclusive of all ages and art types, though they’d still like to have a permanent children’s exhibition one day.
“Soheyla has done a lot of reading on how every child, regardless of culture, language, ethnicity, whatever, they all go through the same stages of development of their art skills, so she has come up with some depictions of all of those stages and we would like to have a permanent exhibit that will show all the stages with example of real child art,” Korman says. “The whole spirit of this museum was predicated on that idea.”
Still in its infancy, but now called the Plano Museum of Contemporary Visual Art, the museum is located downtown in the Chaddick Center alongside the Torres Music Academy and shares an office with Trusty Garage Doors. Visits to the museum are by appointment only, where Korman or Rashidyan themselves can walk you through several rooms featuring Rashidyan’s own work, rotating exhibitions and donated pieces of varying styles.
There is no rotating theme here, though — Rashidyan and Korman aim to bring in up-and-coming or under-featured artists of all backgrounds and art types. The museum’s first exhibition featured artist Mi Sook Chung, who works with clay sculptures and even taught a class in the museum’s workshop on ‘Happy Food’ made with clay. The second exhibition featured Mehran Yousefi, whose works focus on the history, legends and poetic imagery of Persian heritage.
“We are really trying to get things that interest people, not just, ‘Oh, this is what our local artists have done,’” Korman says. “Not to demean the local artists, they’re great, but we’re actually trying to help them and the whole community by bringing in artists that could help them raise up the level [of art that is produced] and it can cause a ton of energy.”
Though the museum is in a small rental space for now, the duo has big dreams – dreams that they believe the City is coming closer to with the addition of the Cultural Arts Plan. As part of the plan’s process, an architect came to the museum and created pro-bono designs of “what the building could become.”
To Korman, that dream is multifaceted. Many locations were vetted before finding the current rental space, aiming for a spot that spoke to the character of the museum while making sure to stay within the Plano Arts District, as some of the pioneers of the district’s creation. But the current building is small and even the architect’s design would require donations beyond what the museum is currently seeing.
“What we really want to do is re-energize Downtown Plano,” Korman says.
To get the museum to the next stage, short-term goals include finishing out the museum’s first rooms, designing each to its own personality. And though workshops are not the main focus, after a successful series of art therapy with Shahrzad and Nazaneen and Sook’s clay painting series, more concepts with diverse artists are in the works.
To bring awareness and fundraise for the museum, it is hosting its first art competition with a date TBD, entitled The Great Goat.
Like the exhibitions, the art contest nods to local history by focusing on farm animals and livestock. Korman and Rashidyan expect the theme to become an annual event with art focused on these themes.
Before the contest is finalized and kicks off, the museum is calling for sponsors who will receive naming rights for competition categories like two and 3D awards, Best of Show and Best of Goat.
“You’ll see the sponsorship level is up to $50,000 to [sponsor] the whole thing, because we want the prizes to be exceedingly high compared to what is normal around here right now,” Korman says. “We want this to be something really important and we want it to happen every year.”
The museum is also looking for volunteers of any kind, especially those who are able to serve on the board of directors with applicable skills for titles like development director, grant manager, financial officer, legal advisor and web administrator.
“We want to change the spirit of art in Plano, because we have a lot of artists and they do not get enough attention,” Rashidyan says. “But we also want to bring artists to Plano … and we want everyone to know we are here and want to help because it’s not only for us, this is for Plano now.”