Gallery Boom Brings A Bonus For Artists And Art Connoisseurs -- Picture This

You could call it an embarrassment of riches. Or a triumph of optimism over experience.

A burst of new art galleries in and around downtown Seattle has brought art by several dozen new artists to the Northwest. Whether it's a bonanza for collectors, or simply more competition in an already crowded field, is yet to be seen.

We count 151 gallery and museum spaces in the greater Seattle area. That's a stunning number, which doesn't take into account the taverns, bank lobbies, insurance companies, hair salons, and assorted other businesses that feature regularly changing exhibitions of art.

At least two more noteworthy galleries are on line to open soon. The Security Pacific Gallery is scheduled to open Nov. 17 on the ground floor of the Security Pacific Bank, at Second Avenue and Seneca Street. And it's the hottest art gossip in town that Donald Young, an important Chicago art dealer, plans to relocate his gallery to Seattle next summer.

Young represents artists of significant international reputation, including Jeff Koons, Martin Puryear, Donald Judd, Sherry Levine, Donald Flavin, Richard Serra, Sol Lewitt, and Bruce Naumann.

``We want to be in a place where people care more about the environment, and that has a sophisticated enough base to appreciate the art I deal in - international contemporary work, with a lot of formal and conceptual issues,'' Young said by telephone. ``That requires a certain level of sophistication. Seattle definitely has that.''

That assessment could be optimistic. Seattle has proved a good market for Northwest contemporary art, but has provided little audience either for top-ranked New York artists, or for high-priced work by celebrities who also paint.

The newest galleries on the scene aren't just clones of someone else's place. Santa Barbara artists predominate at the new J.J. Mackenzie Gallery, the new Friesen Gallery taps into canvases from the Southwest, and art from the Northwest past takes center stage at Martin-Zambito Fine Art.

Flossiest of the newcomers is the Friesen Gallery, 1210 Second Ave., in the Washington Mutual Tower. (628-9501. Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.)

Andria Friesen celebrated her 30th birthday by expanding her Sun Valley gallery to posh new space in the Washington Mutual Tower a few weeks ago. The move was motivated because ``60 percent of my Sun Valley clients are from Seattle,'' she said.

She'll carry ``no drawings, no limited-edition prints, and very little sculpture,'' Friesen says. The paintings on her walls are by 13 ``nationally and internationally recognized artists'' - contacts she made in her earlier career as director of the art gallery in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. They're priced from $1,000 to $25,000.

After researching the Seattle market, Friesen says, ``I feel it's a good niche to fill here, because there's not a tremendous amount on the market in the $6,000 to $8,000 range, for artists with established national reputations.''

Their reputations haven't all penetrated as far as Seattle. Gallery owner Greg Kucera acknowledged he'd heard of one of them: abstract artist Tom Lieber, whose work is in the collections of New York's Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums, and the Tate Gallery in London.

Friesen's canniest move was choosing a location across the street from the construction of the new Seattle Art Museum.

Even a year before it's open, the new museum is encouraging a flowering of galleries around its perimeter. The Kimzey Miller, 1225 Second Ave., is already an old-timer in the neighborhood, the Security Pacific Gallery will be within a block of the new museum, and the Benham Studio Gallery, 1216 First Ave., a commercial portrait studio, has begun to devote part of its space to photo exhibitions. This month, Michael Gesinger's moody shots of Turkey are featured.

Newest in the neighborhood is the InSync Gallery, 1418 First Ave., where funk and flash predominate. (292-0770. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday).

``We're very excited abut this location,'' says Noemi Chaparro, a partner in the gallery. ``We had the vision three years ago, and we've been waiting for this time.''

She and her partner, Leslie Thompson, operated InSync as a jewelry and accessory boutique before launching the gallery in August. Inspired by South African artist Thelma Chait, they devoted an entire room to her pen-and-ink drawings of faces and figures enclosed in swirling, radiating lines.

The second show, ``Encounters,'' on view through Oct. 31, showcases art from four cultures. Chait's art is joined by paintings by Maria Mijares, from Mexico; Maria Soledad Galloway, from Ecuador; and stone and bone sculpture by Carol Berger Hershman. All four now are Seattle residents.

Chaparro and Thompson brought in a Marilyn Monroe impersonator for the show's opening, which drew more than 100 guests. They plan to expand the gallery space, and show fine art, wearable art, and jewelry all in one blended space.

In Pioneer Square, the biggest news is the J.J. Mackenzie Gallery, in the Union Trust Building at 119 S. Main St. (624-5532. Open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday).

Look for a reader board on the sidewalk to point the way upstairs. Owner Jessie Mackenzie came to Seattle from Santa Fe nine months ago, and after a quick look around, decided conditions were right for a gallery to feature the artists she represented. The big, airy, second-floor gallery space is one of the city's handsomest.

The opening show features realist landscapes by Chris Gerlach, Marcia Burtt and Richard Schloss, all based in Santa Barbara. Walk through to the back galleries to see other artists on the roster: photo montages by Seattle artist Richard Nash, whom many will remember from the days he ran his own gallery on Yesler Way; a pair of ``designer straitjackets'' and an evening gown fashioned of pasta by Seattle designer Renee Sherrer; landscape monotypes by Forest Moses; and quirky montages by Colorado artist Gael Bennett.

Mackenzie is looking for additional artists who'd like to be represented in the gallery.

Next door is a gallery that isn't really new, but still needs an introduction, since it's little known: The Iversen Gallery, 119 S. Main St. (623-8682. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and by appointment). Art historian Wayne Iversen calls himself ``a dealers' dealer,'' but he also sells to collectors. Look to him for canvases by Northwest artists who worked in the first half of this century, and for late-19th- and early-20th-century European art. Much of his work involves authenticating old canvases found in flea markets and attics.

``Most people in Seattle don't care about anything but contemporary art,'' Iversen says bluntly. After operating as a private dealer for several years, he opened his gallery in its present location a year and a half ago. He's open to the public only two afternoons a week, and only occasionally stays open for First Thursday evenings. He shares the space with Jim Flury, a dealer in American Indian art.

There's a similar focus at Martin-Zambito Fine Art, 721 E. Pike St. (726-9509. Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.)

This gallery has been around since last May, but it's still being discovered by many. Owner David Martin is an art restorer from Phoenix who worked briefly at a gallery in Kent before opening on East Pike Street. Although his offerings have included a Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph and a Corot etching, Martin specializes in Northwest art, particularly that produced between 1900 and 1950. Among his special interests are Seattle artist Yvonne Twining Humber, and Myra Albert Wiggins, an early photo secessionist.

Exhibitions are in the gallery's 1,200 square foot main floor, while Martin does his restoration downstairs. The restoration business, incidentally, is swamped. Martin has clients from as far away as New York.

Next door is the new Artisans Northwest Gallery, 717 E. Pike St. (325-4336. Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.)

This artists' cooperative was formed following January's closure of the Textures Gallery in Madison Park. Five of that gallery's artists spearheaded the organization that opened Sept. 23 as Artisans Northwest.

The gallery features both crafts and two-dimensional work, with members contributing time to operate the gallery. Shows change every two months, and vice president Bonnie Aubuchon says children's art will be invited into the gallery for some future shows. Poetry readings and music are on tap for special events. The gallery had 22 members at press time and is looking for up to eight more.

Down in Belltown, two galleries are new. The Gabriel Morales Gallery, 2321 Second Ave., is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (443-1809). Hairdresser Gabriel Morales moved his salon to the back of his Second Avenue space to open a new gallery in front. When his planned October show folded, Morales fiddled around with some hair color on canvas, and voila! a new show was born.

Antonia Morales, who manages the gallery, says they'll show ``whatever happens to pop in.'' Work by some students at Cornish College are on the schedule, and beginning Nov. 2, the gallery will showcase paintings by Spanaway artist James Miller.

Spiritually inspired artists form the shows at the new Bell Gallery, 2207 First Ave. (443-9515. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 8 p.m. Thursday). ``Not New Age stuff - that's commercial,'' says owner Russ Lawson. A Seattle native, Lawson was distressed to return to the Northwest after a 30-year absence and find the art wasn't what it used to be.

``I came back from New York and saw a degeneration in the quality of art,'' he said. To set matters right, he opened the Bell Gallery July 6, on his 50th birthday.

Huichol Indian masks, weavings and yarn paintings fill the gallery until Nov. 30. A Huichol shaman talked about the larger meaning of art in Huichol culture at the show's opening. Expect espresso, poetry, and intelligent conversation to be part of the art experience here. Lawson notes, ``The right people are showing up.''

The biggest of the new galleries, in terms of sheer floor space - about 4,000 square feet - is the Ron Segal Gallery, in the Pacific First Center, 1420 Fifth Ave. (682-6411. 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.)

Art publisher Ron Segal opened the first gallery devoted to selling editions he publishes in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, and the second in Seattle. The gallery's focus is print editions by artists from the Yunnan school, plus half a dozen other artists whose names are new to the Northwest. Three Northwest artists also are featured: glass by Peter Neff, stone sculpture by Gina Murray, and paintings by Mark Nelson. Gallery director Debra Cuddy, a veteran of the Kenneth Boehm Galleries, says she plans six artist-attended openings each year.

Smallest of the new galleries is the Ag 47 Studio Gallery, 163 S. Jackson St. (623-3812. Open noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.) Tucked in beside the Azart Gallery, on the second floor, silversmith Victoria Haven combines her work with gallery displays of work by young, emerging artists. Haven studied painting at the University of Washington and decided when she opened the gallery in August that she would focus on ``local artists with an expressionist edge.''

The gallery is small - just 600 square feet - but as Spencer Tracy once remarked of Katharine Hepburn, ``what's there is cherce.'' Printmaker Gail Grinnell's black-and-white work is featured until Oct. 27.

The Melange, Ltd. gallery, 87 S. Washington St. (233-0205), will celebrate its grand opening at 5 p.m. Nov. 1. The press release calls it ``a gallery without an attitude.'' The aim is to provide an outlet for the ``just-for-fun'' work of Northwest artists. They'll carry photographs, jewelry, literary work - even music.

The mortality rate historically has been high for new galleries. All of these newcomers may not survive, so if you're interested in what they're doing, the time to show support is now.

``If the new galleries are bringing in very good art, then that's good for the entire art scene,'' says Kucera. ``If they're hoping to compete with artists here without representing artists here, then they've got a rough road ahead of them. Local artists definitely have the advantage.''

The welcoming message is echoed by gallery owner Donald Foster, who says, ``I think the art scene in the city needs to be continually stimulated by the infusion of new work. It offers an opportunity for artists in this region to see and draw from work being done elsewhere in the country.

``By the same token I think it's important that artists in the Northwest have the same kind of opportunity to exhibit work outside the area. I'd hope galleries drawing resources from other regions would make a special effort to interest their sources in showing Northwest artists.

``There's so much good work being done in this area by artists who haven't yet had an opportunity to be represented by galleries, I'd hope new galleries would take advantage of our own artistic talent.''