Meet the Makers: These Nampa Artists Help City Shine

Courtesy of Betty Mallorca

Art in Nampa, ID, shows up in classrooms, community spaces, historic buildings and everyday moments shared across the city. With outstanding performance venues, museums, cultural centers and large-scale events, creativity here is accessible and lived in, shaped by the people who call the Treasure Valley home. 

That sense of discovery is best experienced by following the path of local artists who are deeply rooted in the community. 

For married artists Betty Mallorca and Lawrence Manning, Nampa has become both home and muse – a place where making art and building relationships happen side by side. 

They moved to Nampa from the Los Angeles area in 2013, drawn to a smaller city where connections come more easily and creative life feels accessible. 

A Shift in Creative Direction 

For Manning, the move also marked a creative turning point. “We had a commercial photography business for years,” he says. “It was community-based – churches, schools, food banks – but it was still about marketing and selling something.” 

As technology reshaped the industry and then the pandemic slowed work to a halt, he made a decisive shift. 

“I decided I was going to become an artist, not a commercial photographer. I wanted to make art. I wanted the work to be about what I felt. Most of my images now aren’t a single moment,” he says. “They’re combinations of experiences. I’m trying to make pictures where time feels suspended, not a beginning or an end. It just is.” 

Courtesy of Lawrence Manning

A Shared Way of Seeing 

That attentiveness has taken the couple beyond Nampa at times, including to the Palouse region on the Washington state-Idaho border, where both artists independently found inspiration in the same landscape. 

“It’s one of the most beautiful places we’ve spent time,” Manning says. “The hills and valleys have a rhythm to them.” 

Mallorca says her focus there, as elsewhere, begins with noticing what might otherwise go unseen. “I look for small moments – a cut of land, a line of trees, light moving across a field,” she says. “Those quiet things can hold a lot.” 

The experience became a collaborative body of work shaped by time spent looking closely. “That project only happened because we spent real time there,” Manning says. 

Art Born From Observation 

Many of Manning’s projects begin by noticing what others pass by or might complain about. 

An ongoing body of work, Murder in Nampa, grew from the city’s seasonal crow population. “We had so many crows it felt like a Hitchcock film,” Manning says. “Once I started photographing them, the story deepened.” 

Reflecting on crows from a historical view, “crows show up in mythology everywhere,” Manning says. “I treat them like characters.” 

For Mallorca, curiosity remains central to her artistic process. “I paint what’s around me – that is, interiors, landscapes, everyday objects,” she says. “The mistakes are the most interesting part. That’s where the work comes alive.” 

Courtesy of Lawrence Manning

On Work and Community 

In downtown Nampa, the couple transformed a historic commercial building into a combined home and art studio. “We loved the idea of living inside the town,” Manning says, describing a setup similar to living above storefronts in Europe. 

“We’re right by the train depot,” Mallorca says. “Being downtown makes everything feel accessible.” 

That closeness to the city naturally led to deeper connections with the people around them. 

One of the couple’s most meaningful projects grew from those connections. “We started by photographing students and the staff at a local charter school,” Mallorca says. “Then it just grew.” 

Hill Street Studios

The project, titled Inside Out Nampa, expanded beyond the school as residents from across downtown were invited to participate. 

With vital support from local organizations, including a donated alley wall from the Elks Lodge and permission from a nearby business, the portraits became a public-facing installation woven into the fabric of downtown. “So many people came down to see themselves,” Mallorca says. “That was really special.” 

When reflecting on life in Nampa compared to big-city life in Los Angeles, Mallorca says the contrast is clear. “The difference between a big city and living in an agricultural community is huge,” she says. “It’s beautiful and a very easy place to get to know people.”