Seattle Art Blog - News, Discussion, and Events

Dec 29, 2006 As we all know, the week between Christmas and the New Year is usually a quiet time in the art world. In fact, some gallery owners choose this time to shut down and take a well-deserved vacation. As glamorous as running an art gallery might seem to outsiders, it is really a tough business with precious little time off since most galleries are open six or seven days a week and close only on Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter.

But, they do like to start the new year off with a bang, so, Sheila Farr has taken this occasion to write an article looking ahead to some intriguing exhibits coming up. Read her article in the  Seattle Times by clicking on this bolded link.

Dec 29, 2006 The Seattle P.I.'s Regina Hackett weighs in with her list of the top 10 exhibits over the past year. She likes nine of them, with current media darling Scott Lawrimore, whose Lawrimore Project debuted this year, leading the list. Number 10, the closing of ConWorks, was her only negative. Read the entire article by following this bolded link.

Dec 28, 2006 Kirsten Anderson, owner of Roq La Rue,  is never afraid to be out there on the edge. However, her current exhibit consists of two emerging New York artists who, according to Jen Graves at the Stranger, "intentionally deviate from the gallery's 'lowbrow/pop surrealism' focus, meaning mostly figurative painting influenced by animation, comics, and kitsch." The artists, MaDora Frey and Jean-Pierre Roy, are showing in concurrent shows running through February 2. Shown is Frey's Little Quiver, about which Jen says," Lofty classicism with criminal tendencies is Frey's stock in trade. In the painting Little Quiver, she places a girl, white as a ghost or an angel, lying on her back on a river bank, one leg drawn to her chest, hidden under a spray of leaves from a hunched-over man rowing by under a black-cloud sky." Read the entire article by following this bolded link.

Dec 28, 2006 Sue Peters, writing for the Seattle Weekly, takes a look back at the year and some of the good and not-so-good exhibits we saw. At the end, she says, "As the year closes, I have to admit I'm a little Chihuly-ed out and have a touch of Trimpin fatigue. Though the inventive sound sculptor may have deserved his yearlong retrospective, I'm not so sure the glass whiz and his lawsuit woes merited a mega–multipart article in a local daily. The real action artwise this year was in UW's galleries, the far reaches of Ballard, the Kirkland Arts Center, Gallery4Culture, unexpected places like Capitol Hill's Joe Bar, and the buzzing hive of the Tashiro Kaplan Building. It was in the work by people like Dawn Cerny, Bootsy Holler, Tra Selhtrow, Etsuko Ichikawa, Chris Crites, Keith Tilford, Chris Jordan, and way too many more talented local artists to fit here."

Dec 23, 2006 I said this during Thanksgiving, and I'll say it again: one of the best ways in the world to entertain relatives who visit during holidays is to spend a day browsing galleries and museums. Most museums have a small entrance fee with the exception of the Frye Art Museum, which is free. The Art Guide Northwest web site has a list of every single gallery in western Washington in business for a year or longer.  You can find the link right here.  The site also has a  list of  the museums in  western  Washington along with  links to their web sites.
The link is right here.  Don't forget to see Doubletake, Paul Allen's personal art collection, which you can still see at the Experience Music Project until January 1.

Dec 21, 2006 Hmmm. Most interesting. Apparently, Jen Graves was fairly annoyed with Regina Hackett's Seattle P.I. blog about Chihuly the other day. She tells her off in the Slog, the Stranger's blog. I'm quoting part of it below, but you really must read the whole thing. Just scroll down until you find her rant.

Graves says, "But there are two things you’re still doing, Regina, that are really pissing me off. One, you’re labeling me a hater, maybe because it’s easier to dismiss me that way. If I was a hater, I’d never write about Dale. Witness my predecessors here at The Stranger. So stop it. I’m having a more interesting conversation than that. Or at least I’m damn well trying.

And two, you called Christopher Frizzelle a “creepy” man on your blog because Christopher asked whether Dale was creepy. Doesn’t that make you creepy for calling Christopher creepy? Don’t be such an easy target, will ya?"

And Regina says Jen is her friend?

Dec 21, 2006 Tacoma Art Museum recently accepted more than 100 pieces of art into the permanent collection, including fifty-two nineteenth century Japanese woodblock prints, and works by Northwest artists such as Dale Chihuly, Akio Takamori, and Brian Murphy.

The Board of Trustees formally accepted Dale Chihuly’s Ma Chihuly’s Floats into the collection. In July 2006, Chihuly gifted the thirty-nine glass orbs that occupied Richard Rhodes’ central stone wave from January to November 2006. This brings the museum’s holding to 110 individual Chihuly pieces.

The Japanese woodblock prints were donated by Al Buck, a direct descendant of Alfred E. Buck, US ambassador to Japan from 1898 to 1902, and his wife, Betsy. The prints range in date from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Despite their age, they are in nearly pristine condition because the family stored them away for more than a century. Images include important works from Hiroshige’s Tokkaido Highway and Tales of the 47 Ronin, as well as contemporary images of westernization and the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95. The prints are in a genre called ukiyo-e, which means, "pictures of the floating world." The genre was produced between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, the theater, and city life. It is the main artistic genre of woodblock printing in Japan.

“The Buck family’s gift is a significant addition to the museum’s fine ukiyo-e print collection,” said Rock Hushka, Director of Curatorial Administration and Curator of Contemporary and Northwest Art. “It perfectly compliments the Constance R. Lyon collection, making Tacoma Art Museum’s Japanese print collection the finest in the Northwest.”

Dec 21, 2006 Makah and Friends, which consists of several Pacific NW tribal communities, is having a holiday sale and art show on December 23 at Old Indian Heritage School at Wilson-Pacific, 1330 N. 90th. Street in Seattle from 10am to 6pm. The sale will feature unique high-quality handcrafted artwork. For more information, call Willard Bill Jr. at 206.252.0948.

Dec 20, 2006 The Tacoma News Tribune has a list of venues open for the gallery walk Thursday night in Tacoma, complete with addresses, a brief show description and telephone numbers.

Dec 20, 2006 Never one to  sidestep controversy, Regina Hackett's blog is full of juicy gossip about the infamous Chihuly lawsuit. She reports that the suit has been "resolved," but her more interesting comments concern the Stranger's arts editor, Christopher Fizzelle. Fizzelle apparently was quoted as asking whether Dale Chihuly was creepy. Regina ends the article with, "P.S. Note to Christopher Frizzelle: No, Chihuly is not creepy, but by asking that question, you are."  That's our girl.

Dec 18, 2006

Third Thursday
Tacoma Art Walk. Tacoma's galleries, Museum of Glass, the Washington State History Museum, and the Tacoma Art Museum are open from 5 - 8pm. All three museums are free. Info line: 253/272-4258.

Edmonds Art Walk. Galleries are open from 5-8 pm. Call 425/776-3778.

Last Thursday
Microsoft Art Collection Tours. Open to the public, free. Please RSVP two weeks in advance to artevent@microsoft.com, a maximum of 40 can register, first come, first served.

Through December 24
Allied Arts of Whatcom County Annual Festival of Fine Art. Live music, open 10am - 7pm. daily. Call 360/676-8548.

Dec 13, 2006 Of course we already  know Art Basel Miami Beach was a big economic success as those of us with internet connections have  been reading the out-of-town papers since it started to find out what when on. Finally, we have a local art critic's take on the fair, and she tells us a little about Aqua Art Miami, the satellite fair where seven Seattle galleries participated. To give you an inkling of the success Seattle galleries had at Aqua Art,  The Stranger's Jen Graves says, "Scott Lawrimore of Lawrimore Project sold something like $35,000 of art the first two hours of the fair and more than $70,000 another day, but the fair wasn't about the money alone. 'Placing seven pieces by four artists in museum collections—that is priceless,'  he said. 'It's about career building.' " Uh huh. Read the entire article here. In The Stranger's blog, called the Slog Jen informs us that the Seattle artists' co-op, Soil, sold $43,000 worth of art this year, a hefty increase over last year's numbers. Soil's prices, of course, are miniscule compared to those of the bigger galleries representing top artists, so even though that number sounds small, everything is relative.

Dec 8, 2006

In his article for the Seattle Times, Matthew Kangas says about the 2006 CoCA  Annual, "Emphasis is put on the seamy, sleazy and ill-constructed in the works of Oregonians Alicia Eggert, Stephanie Robison and Sean Healy. As to the New Yorkers, Gately found Margarida Correia, Christine Gatti and Shen Wei. Photography plays an important role in their work but fails to reveal any original ideas. Were they and the Oregonians really worth including? The Seattleites, on the other hand, leave the others in the dust."  Read all about the exhibit, on view at the Center on Contemporary Art through December 30, in the Seattle Times.

Dec 5, 2006 Cornish College of the Arts main campus center, 1000 Lenora Street,presents Inherent Nature, December 7, 2006 through January 12, 2007. The exhibition will feature the work of Cornish Art Department alumni and explores the different roles that nature plays as inspiration, motivation, style, subject and psyche within the world. The opening reception is December 7, 2006 from 5 pm to 8 pm and is free and open to the public. For more information call 206.726.5011.

D'Adamo/Woltz has invited all their artists to submit photography during the months of December through February 6. Susan Woltz says, "This is a first for the gallery and the show is completely open to interpretation.  There are no restrictions other than photography only so it will be a most intriguing and illuminating show." Opening is Thursday, Dec. 7 from 5-8pm. Call 206.652.4414.

Greg Kucera Gallery has a double exhibit going this month. In addition to Robert Motherwell's previously announced "Studio Editions," which closes December 23, "About a Boardwalk," an exhibit by Seattle artist Scott Trimble will be on view until January 27. For information call 206.624.0770. Pictured at the left is Trimble's Hive.

The Lawrimore Project on Airport Way is showing "Are We There Yet?" a video installation, paintings, sculpture and prints by Sami Ben Larbi. Also showing is a Ben Beres print preview and an Erwin Wurm video. The show runs until December 30, but the gallery is closed from Dec. 5-10. Phone 206.501.1231.

Lisa Harris Gallery presents new work by Pacific Northwest artist Joel Brock. Exploring architectural and still life subjects, the artist works in acrylic as well as pastel and often incorporates gesso and charcoal for rich and engaging surfaces. The artist, who has exhibited with the gallery since 1994, will attend the exhibition opening, First Thursday December 7, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.Pictured is his Migrant Shack Shadows. The show will be up until December 30.

Patricia Cameron Gallery presents: "Attitudes and Gestures" - an exhibition of paintings by Oregon artist Lisa Pounders and ceramic sculpture by Seattle artist Charlotte Renata Simpson.Pounders and Simpson will be in the main gallery space while Crawford's work will be adjacent to the main gallery in the Heger Design Studio. Show dates are December 6 through January 13. Phone 206.343.9647. Pictured at the left is Frida by Renata Simpson.

William Traver Gallery Seattle presents Friends, a solo exhibition featuring new work by glass artist Danny Perkins. Perkins’s first exhibition with the Traver Gallery was in 1985, and since then he has had dozens of solo exhibitions throughout the country. The artist’s work is held in major collections throughout the nation, including the National Museum of American Art, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, the Corning Museum of Glass, and the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio.The exhibit will be on view through January 28. Pictured at the right is his Spring.

Dec 2, 2006 Joel Brock's pastel show opened at the Scott Milo Gallery in Anacortes last night and will remain up until January 30. The gallery features pastels by Joel Brock in addition to work by Dederick Ward, Susan Ogilvie, Sandra Westford, Dick Garvey, Randy Dana, Jennifer Bowman, Lewis Jones and Renate Trapkowski with jewelry by Enid Oates and Jean Crookes, glass by Annette Tamm and sculptures by Ed Bennett and Dick Carlson.  Pictured is Brock's Samish River.