By Tim Holt
Walk into almost any big-box store this time of year and you’ll find the same scene: rows of “Live, Laugh, Love” signs, generic sunsets, public domain “artsy” posters, and abstract blobs printed on canvas, stacked 10-deep.
It’s wall decor by the pallet load – cheap, easy and forgettable. You will never meet the artist who created it, because sometimes it wasn’t created by an artist at all, but rather someone hired to slap some paint on a template, hundreds if not thousands of times.
Meanwhile, just down the street, El Paso is home to a quiet little gallery, the Photographer’s Collaborative, which is full of images made by people who actually live in the area. Photographers who know the light in this Mesilla Valley, the best angles to get those colorful murals in Segundo Barrio, who get up before dawn to stand in the cold, who wait for that one passing cloud to line up with a church steeple or cathedral or the setting moon behind Cristo Rey.
And more often than not, their work is selling for the same price — or less — than those mass-produced pieces at Walmart and TJ Maxx.
Somehow, we’ve been trained to think of local art as “fancy” or “expensive,” something reserved for people with deep pockets and designer homes, or made of some kind of lesser quality. The reality is very different.
In a place like the Photographer’s Collaborative, you’ll find matted prints for the price of a dinner out, framed pieces that cost less than a cart full of big-box decor, and small, gift-able works that easily rival the price of a scented candle and a gift bag. And you very well could meet the artist who created it and get the story of the photo.
The difference isn’t the cost. The difference is the connection.
When you buy a piece from a local gallery, any gallery, you’re not just buying a picture — you’re bringing home a story. A photograph of an old building Downtown isn’t just “urban decor;” it’s part of our shared history. A desert landscape isn’t just “something with mountains;” it’s a place you’ve probably driven past a hundred times without ever seeing it in quite that way.
If you catch the artist in the gallery, they can tell you when they shot it, what the weather was like, why that moment mattered enough to print and frame. Every picture tells a story, as Rod Stewart used to sing.
Try getting that from a barcode.
This matters even more during the holidays. We tell ourselves we want to give “meaningful” gifts, then we rush out and buy whatever is stacked near the front of the store because it’s convenient.
Locally created art is, by its very nature, personal. When you give someone a photograph made by an artist in your own community, you’re saying, “I thought about you, specifically.”
Maybe it’s a scene from a neighborhood they grew up in, a church their grandmother attended, a view they see every day on their commute but never stopped to appreciate. That gift carries a sense of place and memory that no “Tuscan vineyard” or “abstract wall art” print from a faceless, far off factory can touch.
In a local gallery, your dollars help pay the rent on the space. They help a photographer buy paper, ink, frames, and gas to get to the next location. They help keep a creative ecosystem alive — printers, framers, cafes nearby that benefit from gallery traffic, even the landlord who decided to rent to an art space instead of another cell phone store. Your purchase dollars circulate locally instead of evaporating into a distant corporate balance sheet.
There’s also an intangible but very real effect: when you buy local art, you’re sending a message. You’re telling artists, “What you do has value here.” You’re telling the broader community that visual culture matters, that our walls don’t have to look like everywhere else.
In a world where so much is bland, algorithm-driven, and mass-produced, choosing a piece of local art is a small act of resistance in favor of individuality. You are saying “El Paso, this area, these people, are important to me.”
So as the holidays approach and those empty spots on your friend’s and relative’s walls and gift lists start calling for attention, consider skipping the décor aisle and stopping by a local gallery like the Photographer’s Collaborative instead. The prices are competitive. The stories are richer. The gifts are more personal. And the impact — on the artist, on the neighborhood, and on the culture of our city — is far greater than anything that ever sat on a pallet in a warehouse.
Our homes don’t have to look like they came out of a catalog. Our gifts don’t have to be generic. They can look like here. They can look like us.
PEEP Photographer’s Collaborative is located at 1400 Texas Ave., and is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Tim Holt, a local photographer and member of the PEEP Photographer’s Collaborative, would be delighted to have you visit him and discuss photography in the El Paso area.
The post Opinion: Choosing El Paso artists supports community, creativity — and better walls appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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