 "Photo: Mary K. Bryant-Likens | The Spectator")
The charming art galleries lining Third Avenue in Pioneer Square are only enhanced by the equally charming historic buildings housing them. Yet these beautiful old buildings were once in danger of no longer being a part of the city.
Judith Rinehart, manager of the Foster/ White Gallery, Pioneer Square’s oldest art gallery dealer, credits the galleries in the neighborhood for saving the now landmark buildings. Many were at risk of being knocked down to extend the downtown business district. Today, much of Pioneer Square is protected as a National Historic District and is known for being the biggest source of hosting artist exhibitions in the Pacific Northwest.
One organization involved with preserving historic buildings in Pioneer Square is Artspace. Artspace began in Minneapolis in 1979 and its mission “is to create, foster, and preserve affordable space for artists and arts organizations.”
The organization has since spread to regions across the country. In Seattle it established the Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts on Third and Washington. Above the artists’ galleries there are apartments for the artists.
Like the Tashiro Kaplan Artist Lofts, the OK Hotel houses gallery space open and artist apartments. What opened as a hotel in 1917 went on to be a café and music venue in 1988, famous for being the venue where Nirvana first performed “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Now, the OK Hotel opens its gallery space to the public on the first Thursday of the month, along with the other gallery owners in Pioneer Square.
Elsa Perez, intern at Gallery 110, believes the historic spaces in Pioneer Square are the perfect center for housing Seattle art.
“By putting contemporary art [in these historic buildings], it pops more,” Perez says.
Similar to the Meatpacking District in Manhattan with high-end fashion boutiques, Pioneer Square is a smaller scale version littered with galleries in a concentrated area.
“Art tends to go where cheap rent is,” Rinehart says.
The smaller scale also allows for a more supportive environment for artists.
“Galleries have good relations [with each other] in Seattle, unlike New York [where it] is cutthroat,” says Catherine Person, gallery director and owner of the Catherine Person Gallery on Third Avenue. “We visit each other’s new exhibitions. We sometimes borrow each other’s power tools.”
Galleries generally welcome passersby—even those not looking to purchase a piece.
“[Seattle] is particularly accessible for the arts,” Rinehart says.
Seattle contains many pieces of public art on sidewalks or among its varied architecture. The organization 4Culture was established to help instill accessible art in the Seattle community, and now 1 percent of all funding for new public structures in Seattle is required to go toward an artistic contribution to the project.
4Culture also sponsors a Public Art Cell Phone Tour, which functions like an audio tour in a museum but for touring the public art around Seattle. Most of these public art structures on the phone tour are clustered in Pioneer Square.
The tour is just one more sign of the art scene in the neighborhood. Showing fresh pieces in old spaces, Pioneer Square’s art scene thrives in bridging the old and the new.
Brittany may be reached at traubb@seattleu.edu
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