About The Arts Roundtable

When I moved to Martinsburg several years ago, one of my goals was to establish myself as a fine art photographer in this area. While I was working on my portfolio, I looked for information about the art community here to see what opportunities there might be.

I was unable to find a comprehensive resource where I could find out what organizations, galleries, or other opportunites there might be in the Eastern Panhandle region. I was left to researching on my own, often resulting in a great deal of wasted time.

Over time I have been able to find some valuable resources and I have discovered that there is, in fact, quite a bit of activity in The Arts in this region. I believe there is a need for a regional platform for individual artists and arts organizations to promote their events, share information, resources and ideas, and cooperate to build The Arts community.

While artists are creative and independent individuals, most artists are able find common ground with one another in their desire to do their creative work and have it recognized, with or without monetary reward. I have found that talking with artists in different disciplines can be creatively stimulating and almost always broadens my perspective. An online community of artists and other creative people, exchanging ideas and information, and developing plans for mutual support and activity, could generate a enormous amount of creative energy for the benefit of The Arts community as a whole.

The Arts Roundtable was developed to fill that need.

Rip Smith