Writer: Michael Morain
Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs

Gabi Torres has been busy these days. The Clinton artist opened an art studio and gallery in February, hosted its first art class this past Sunday, and has been painting ever-larger commissions after her artwork appeared in British Vogue and House & Garden magazines. She is sending work for upcoming shows in Paris, Madrid, Genoa and Milan.

“It’s just been poppin’. I don’t know how else to put it,” she says.

Her journey back to her hometown was a long one. The artist, 42, earned an MFA in poetry in New York, spent six years in South Korea, and crisscrossed the United States on a 100-day road trip to some national parks and “hipster cities”—Asheville, Austin, Portland—before landing back in Clinton.

“We just started looking at houses on a whim and realized all the things we like are right here,” she says.

She got into painting a few years ago, when she was polishing off a poetry manuscript, and realized how much she appreciated the art form as an outlet for creative expression and a tool for healing. As she puts it, “art can create a safe space to work stuff out.”

Soon enough, her painting projects started taking over her house. So she rented a 1,300-square-foot space near the river and opened GBArt Studio & Gallery, where she displays abstract and contemporary artwork by local artists and teaches students of all ages to create some of their own. Her first class was for a family with kids in grade school. (To book a class, email her at gabibirdartist@gmail.com.)

Next she'd like to establish a residency program to host artists who could live in Clinton for a few months, free of charge, and help the community create public art.

“There’s so much opportunity in Clinton right now,” she says. “I think we’re entering a Golden Age here, a real renaissance.”