Artist Kelly Alison established the Contemporary Art Museum Plainview in 2017 when she returned to her hometown after decades in the Houston art scene. The historical warehouse which housed the museum was renovated by her husband Preston Alison to make five exhibition spaces for the BIG ART project they had imagined and a private collections room for his own personal collection.
CAMP is known for the five-year project “BIG ART in a small town,” which included over a dozen major exhibitions and even more community events.
The hundreds of artists that participated in the museum initiative came to the rural dusty Texas panhandle not only to exhibit but often to create and install their work on site. They mingled with the local residents and explored the town that Alison once called home, camped at Caprock Canyon alongside the official Charles Goodnight bison herd, and day-tripped to the Cadillac Ranch.
The museum gained significant critical acclaim, with the Texas visual art magazine Glasstire naming several of its shows as the “#1 art opening to attend” in the state. All of the major exhibitions were named in the state’s prestigious TOP FIVE monthly segment. In 2017, the first exhibition, curated by Alison, was named No. 2 in the TOP FIVE for the year. These reviews put CAMP in the company of Texas greats like the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Dallas Contemporary, the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
Alison’s daughter Madeline Kabiri, as Assistant Director, was an integral part of the community events produced at the museum. Summer Art Camp, Second Saturdays, Fiesta, Just Face It, Covid Fundraiser, and the most rewarding of all: Juvenile Justice programs. In 2019 CAMP was nominated for the Community Foundation of West Texas IMPACT AWARD for its work with this underserved and broken juvenile justice system. They produced three murals and a skateboarding project, which included over sixty skateboards painted by the students, a skateboard exhibition, and a contest.
