SEAD Gallery: Joan & Jose QuintanaSEAD Gallery: Joan & Jose Quintana
by Sarah Kinzbach
In the heart of Downtown Bryan lies an opportunity to experience an interdisciplinary and innovative art gallery called SEAD Gallery. A community development project of AdventGX and part of the international network of SEAD, the gallery merges science, engineering, art and design to create a dynamic visitor’s experience.
Gallery director Cassidy Barton says the gallery “provides an experiential art venue for downtown Bryan.” In addition to the exhibited art, visitors can enjoy an audio and visual commentary through an iPad app that uses image recognition to “read” a piece of art. This technology, developed by AdventGX, exemplifies the intention of SEAD: to explore how science, engineering, art and design interact with one another.
The gallery, which opened in November, is a collaborative effort of AdventGX, The Arts council of Brazos Valley and the SEAD network. Joan Quintana, managing partner for AdventGX, says, “In addition to the gallery experience and adding another dimension to the arts and culture, we also want to bring art business downtown.” AdventGX manages the gallery and Joan says the aim is to expand the idea of the gallery into other communities.
The gallery provides an avenue for artists who desire to sell their work while encouraging economic development in the community. “Every piece sold creates sales tax revenue and what we want to do in economic development is generate sales tax,” says Joan. “Art is a wonderful thing to sell. It’s beautiful.”
“The vast majority of artists do not see themselves as entrepreneurs,” says Joan, whose husband Jose is president and chairman of the board of AdventGX. “They know their widget, but they don’t know any of the back office things that make or break a business.” In addition to providing economic development, SEAD aims to foster entrepreneurship and the incubation of artists as businesses seeking to earn a living through their art. Those are the same goals applied to other AdventGX clients including the incubated businesses at the innovation underground.
For SEAD Gallery, both Barton and Joan have high hopes for that the gallery will provide opportunity to artists and the community. They would like to see the gallery spread to other small communities across the nation to form a network of galleries. “Wouldn’t it be great if we were working in Arkansas and there was a wonderful artist who wanted to get out of Arkansas and we had an artist here who wanted to get out of Texas,” explains Barton. “We could do an exchange. The community would get to see something that they otherwise would never be exposed to.”
In addition to exhibiting artists chosen by The Arts council, the gallery will be using their library room to exhibit international artists, students and other rising stars. The gallery is free and open to the public. The exhibit Anguspaul Colorpalooza will be on display at the gallery until February 22. Artist Scott McDermott’s work will open for exhibit on March 1.
For artists interested in exhibiting at the SEAD Gallery, an application is available online at www. acbv.org. Information about the SEAD Gallery can also be found online at www.seadgallery.com.
