The Lucas Artists Program also supports the creation and presentation of new work by artists in Montalvo’s 1000 square foot Project Space Gallery. Works developed through this commissioning program include: 

• Artists transforming the entire gallery space into an art work, as in the case of Michael Arcega and Stephanie Syjuco’s Montalvo Historical Fabrications and Souvenirs (A Pop-Up Shop), where the artists converted the gallery into a functioning souvenir pop-up shop that responded to Montalvo's 100th Anniversary as well as its place in the history and politics of California.
  
  
• Individual commissions developed in response to a gallery exhibition theme, such as Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik’s MamaSita's Tiny Tea House, a site-specific installation and a diminutive, donation-based, masala chai stall, and Weston Teruya ‘s Menagerie in Phelan’s Garden, a paper sculpture mapping the Montalvo Arts Center's grounds to not only explore its geographic features, but to find the linkages from the historical legacy to its current role.
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• Artists working collaboratively to create new works and design the exhibition space as in Susan O’Malley, Leah Rosenberg, and Christine Wong Yap’s Happiness Is… exhibit, featuring a series of new works exploring the nature of wellbeing; and Scott Barry and Neil Doshi’s O’Great Reverie: Montalvo 1912-2012, an unconventional timeline exhibition inspired by Montalvo’s centennial.