Paradise Valley's Best Art Is Made in Private Studios, and the Town Has Two Ways In

On a Wednesday in mid-September, Martin Galbut stood at an easel in his Paradise Valley home studio beside a painting of the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix. The Paradise Valley Independent reports that the casita has been his studio for decades. Four weeks later his paintings were hanging at Town Hall on Lincoln Drive. They will stay there for a year.

That move from studio to Town Hall is the whole idea behind the Town's art program. Paradise Valley has no gallery row. Several working artists live here, though, and they paint, carve and throw clay in rooms behind private driveways. The PV Arts Board has built two programs to bring that work into view. The first takes the art out of a resident's home and hangs it in Town Hall. The second takes small groups of neighbors into the studios.

A Residency With One Firm Requirement

Most artist residencies bring someone in from elsewhere. Paradise Valley's works the other way. As the Independent describes it, the Arts Board picks the artist-in-residence, and the program gives local artists who live in town a year to show their work at Town Hall.

The Board also plans well ahead. At its April 25, 2023 meeting it picked both Curtis Dickman for 2025–26 and Martin Galbut for 2026–27. That meant Galbut's opening was settled about three and a half years before it happened. At the same meeting, the minutes list a holdover item: a report on the artist Rotraut, noted as a Paradise Valley resident, as a possible future featured artist.

Arts Board minutes and the Independent's report on Curtis Dickman's closing year show who has held the year so far:

Some of the work stays after the year ends. Brecker's "Prism" now belongs to the Town, and a Lacy painting hangs in the Mayor's office. Board minutes also record eight paintings by Stan Ekman hanging at Town Hall. The minutes describe them as oil over gesso on board, painted after Ekman moved to Paradise Valley in the 1980s and early 1990s, and say the Board discussed whether the Town should acquire them permanently. Over time, Town Hall has started to build a collection of work by people who lived here.

Martin Galbut's Year on Lincoln Drive

Galbut paints while also practicing law. His firm says he has spent five decades in law, has supported arts initiatives for more than 50 years, and has won the Arizona Bar Association Attorney Artist Painting Award three times. The same 2022 announcement covered his selection to the Phoenix Art Museum Board of Trustees. It also says his paintings hang at the Montage Kapalua Bay in Hawaii.

The Town Hall show is made up of outdoor scenes and still lifes, according to the Independent. The free opening on Oct. 13 ran from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Six members of the Phoenix Symphony played, and Galbut said the Japanese Friendship Garden and Scottsdale Artists' School would also take part. The Friendship Garden painting from his studio ties the show to a place many Valley residents have visited.

The paintings will stay up until about October 2027. Anyone who missed the reception has most of a year left to see them.

The Studio Tour Goes the Other Direction

The Arts Board planned it as an annual spring event starting in 2025, and the first tour was set for Sunday, April 6, 2025, with three local artists.

The tour was designed around small groups from the start. The Board's original plan called for Sunday afternoon visits, shuttles about every 30 minutes, and groups of 12 to 18 people per studio. Each stop began with a short talk by the artist, followed by time to look around the studio and meet them.

By the second year, nobody could drive to the studios. The Town's listing for the April 12, 2026 tour said shuttles would leave Town Hall promptly at 12:45 p.m. and that "individual cars will not be permitted at the studios," citing limited parking and safety concerns. Registration was required, and spaces went to whoever signed up first. On streets built for a few cars per driveway, the shuttle is what lets a working studio host visitors at all.

The 2026 tour stopped at three studios:

• William Daggett, a sculptor whom PHOENIX magazine describes as carving twisted juniper, often gathered in Northern Arizona or Southern Utah, into the shapes he sees in the wood.
• Deborah Garland, a ceramic artist who describes her work as porcelain and black clay drawn from ancient artifacts, nature and simplicity.
• Rotraut, the German-born artist Rotraut Klein-Moquay, whose biography at Tourné Gallery says she keeps her primary studio in Paradise Valley.

Rotraut's stop shows how far the tour can reach. She was born in Rerik, Germany, in 1938 and got her early training from her brother, Günther Uecker. She married Yves Klein in 1962, worked with him on his Anthropométries series, and later founded the Yves Klein Archives in Paris. Her large, boldly colored sculptures began after she settled in Arizona. They have been shown in Saint-Tropez, in Lugano, and at the Desert Botanical Garden. Her work is held by the Centre Pompidou and the Phoenix Art Museum, and in March 2024 France named her an Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. On the 2026 tour, small groups of neighbors visited the Paradise Valley studio where she makes that work.

The 2027 Tour Has Tighter Rules

The original 2025 plan accepted studios "in the Town or close to the Town." The call for spring 2027 is stricter. According to the Town Manager's weekly update, it is open to working artists who live in Paradise Valley, and their studios must be in town too. That matches the residency's rule: the tour now features neighbors working in town.

The 2027 calendar so far:

1. Nov. 2, 2026. Deadline for artist applications for the spring 2027 Studio Tour, and for the 2028–30 Featured Artist Residency.
2. Jan. 13, 2027. Selected artists are notified.
3. Spring 2027. Each chosen artist plans three 30-minute tours for groups of about 12 to 18. The public date and the artists have not been announced.

The residency call is now taking applications for 2028 through 2030. With 2026–27 assigned to Galbut, the Board is already choosing who will show at Town Hall in residency years that begin in 2028.

Seeing the Galbut Show Before Spring

The paintings hang at Paradise Valley Town Hall, 6401 E. Lincoln Drive. The Town does not post separate gallery hours. The closest schedule is the Town Clerk's office in the same building, open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 4 p.m. A quick call to Town Hall before going will confirm when the exhibit is open to visitors.

For the Studio Tour, the Town calendar is where the 2026 registration link appeared, and spaces went first-come, first-served. With 12 to 18 people per group, the 2027 tour will fill quickly once a date is posted.

If you'd like to talk about what makes a Paradise Valley property suited to a working studio or a home collection, I'm glad to help. With Cassandra Cook, you can start with a free home valuation and a conversation about how your home's spaces fit the way you live.