Nowadays, Austin, Texas may be considered a venerable indie music and art Mecca, but only a few years ago, the city’s contemporary art scene was much more transient. The formation of art collectives like Okay Mountain has given artists more incentive to set down roots.
“There wasn’t always a lot going on in terms of spaces, so people just took it upon themselves to kind of just start doing things DIY style and open their own spaces,” co-founder Carlos Rosales-Silva says. “Now, there’s always young people coming through, and it seems like there’s people starting to stick around now, whereas before it was like people would make work for a while and often move to some bigger place.”