ArtWalk stumbles, but not dead

It’s 6:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month. At the Museum of Glass, people are lining up to watch glass blowers in the Hot Shop. The Tacoma Art Museum has a steady stream through its galleries.

But only a couple of Tacoma’s galleries have more than a handful of people, and the streets are mostly empty. This is ArtWalk: a weekday night when museums are free and galleries stay open late downtown. As a concept, it’s a good idea – but it certainly isn’t working for everyone.

The original ArtWalk began in 1989 with around nine galleries and artists banding together for publicity and to attract more people downtown. “It was just after the Tacoma Renaissance in 1984,” remembers Rick Gottas, who then owned American Art Co. and had, like other gallerists, just moved his business to its present location on Broadway. “The Sheraton had just been built, Broadway had just opened up to pedestrians. (The galleries) were just scraping by, struggling to develop an audience. We wanted to enhance the visibility of the art scene, to get people to come in from the ’burbs.”

Gottas and his fellow gallerists created ArtWalk Tacoma, a nonprofit organization modeled on similar programs in Seattle and Portland. The group collected dues to pay for a brochure and, later, a Web site. About five years ago, the Washington State History Museum, TAM and the glass museum hopped on board, too. More recently, other businesses that have never officially joined ArtWalk stay open late on third Thursdays anyway.

But the concept has morphed over 20 years into an event with its own momentum and beyond the initial intent of ArtWalk. Originally, says Gottas, the crowds were good – around 100 people a night through his gallery. But over time it “petered out.” Now, the spread of galleries has expanded beyond a walkable stretch. The museums get lots of traffic – the glass museum averages 900 people each time – but the galleries see maybe 20 people, and the streets of downtown Tacoma often are just as empty on ArtWalk night as on any other. There are seven paid-up members of ArtWalk, and some 14 other nonmember galleries. Yet the mission of ArtWalk still is to attract people downtown, say organization members. While some people are content with ArtWalk, others say it needs to change to better support the galleries and revitalize downtown.

MUSEUMS HOG CROWDS

Val Persoon is someone who knows ArtWalk well. A watercolorist, she’s both a founding member of the 17-year-old Freighthouse Art Gallery and has her own private studio on Puyallup Avenue. The gallery, says Persoon, was a member of ArtWalk, but “sometimes got left off” the brochure and recently quit because of its location deep inside Freighthouse Square; passers-by either didn’t realize it was open or were reluctant to walk inside at night. Persoon is planning to sign up her private studio for ArtWalk in the fall but sees the whole event as difficult for small galleries. “The museums are free, and that’s competition I can’t stand against,” she says of the crowds who flock to see glass blowing or museum art, which normally costs $10.

Persoon’s comments are backed by many ArtWalk participants: “We’ll just see how long this takes,” said Monica Hern at the glass museum last month, when asked whether she planned to go to galleries. “(Visiting galleries is) too long for our attention span,” said Debra Wilson. At the galleries that night, only The Helm and Fulcrum had more than three people at a time, and those were mostly friends of the gallerist or artist. It’s a far cry from the numbers in the early days.

Map of ArtWalk Venues (Official ArtWalk venues in blue. Other businesses open during the event in orange.) The News Tribune

Persoon thinks the solution to the crowd problem would be to separate the free museum day from the gallery day. Portland and Olympia both have successful gallery art walks (the first monthly, the second biannually, respectively), and neither have a free museum tour as part of it.

Tobin Ropes, owner of Mad Hat Tea Co., agrees with Persoon that the museums are hogging the traffic. His Commerce Street cafe/gallery was empty on January’s ArtWalk night, and that’s not unusual. “I know 85 percent of the art community is going to the museums,” says Ropes. “All the little galleries are struggling.” Ropes recently shifted Mad Hat’s exhibit openings to non-ArtWalk nights to get a bigger crowd, a move echoed by other galleries like Madera and the Grand Impromptu, which get up to 100 people at exhibit openings.

TOO FAR TO WALK

Another problem with ArtWalk, some say, is that it’s not walkable anymore. From the original cluster of Broadway galleries, the span of official ArtWalk now stretches from Sixth and Fawcett to the Thea Foss Waterway. Add in the nonmember venues, you’re looking at walking from the Hilltop to the Dome District, and from Sixth Avenue to South 25th Street.

“I call this an Art Drive,” says Jori Adkins, a regular ArtWalk-goer, who in February planned on visiting four galleries at all four corners of the map.

As many gallerists point out, it’s a lot easier in Seattle and Portland, where galleries can get up to 500 people a night in summer: Both cities have high gallery density, with most venues within a five-block radius. In Olympia, the 19-year-old Art Walk is held only twice annually as a collaboration between the city, downtown businesses and galleries. And it works: More than 10,000 people attend. Some Tacoma gallerists think a biannual or quarterly ArtWalk would work better here as well.

“We’re trying to keep it focused on downtown, trying to keep it a walk,” says Craig Radford, president of ArtWalk Tacoma and current owner of American Art Co., while admitting that – extending from the Dome District through to the Grand Cinema – it’s “a long walk.” He says that although his gallery only gets around 20 people unless there’s an artist opening, the organization is still useful: “It’s a social event that benefits the city, creates a neighborhood feel. And the brochure works 365 days a year, telling people about the galleries.”

INTERNAL TROUBLE

Phyllis Harrison, owner of The Art Stop on Broadway, longtime ArtWalk member and current treasurer, says the answer to ArtWalk nights isn’t so much people visiting all the galleries in one evening. Rather, the point of ArtWalk, she says, is to inform people about the galleries via the brochure, Web site and events for individual visits. But, Harrison acknowledges, it “would help to have a guide with all the galleries making a conscious effort to hand it out to people.”

But the cooperation Harrison would like to see isn’t there right now. The organization has only one annual meeting. Some galleries, like Mad Hat, cannot afford the $360 annual fees required of all members, including museums. “I’d join if it were free,” says Ropes.

One way to get it free might be for ArtWalk to get funding. As a nonprofit, ArtWalk could certainly apply, although it has had problems in the past because some individual members, like the American Art Co., are for-profit entities. Funding might also pay for more publicity and other ideas, such as free art buses between venues. “We really haven’t pursued it,” says Radford. “I’ll follow it up.”

Yet some art spaces, joining the ArtWalk organization isn’t a matter of money. Patricia Lecy-Davis, owner of Embellish – a hair salon that regularly shows up-and-coming local artists – says she tried for years to join and was rejected because 85 percent of her income wasn’t coming from art. Then, 18 months ago, ArtWalk asked her to be a sponsor (a participating business, listed separately from the galleries) rather than a gallery. She declined.

“(The ArtWalk members) have a real idea of what ArtWalk should be,” says Lecy-Davis. “They’re very exclusive.” Other gallerists agree: Alan Gorsuch, owner of antiques shop Sanford and Son, says his middle-floor galleries were rejected “because we didn’t have a regular gallery.” Robert Stocker of the recently-opened Robert Daniel Gallery says he “requested information and never heard back.”

Radford explains why the organization exclude some venues: “The 85 percent rule is our definition of a gallery versus a sponsor. We’re trying to make sure clients going to ArtWalk don’t go to, say, a restaurant thinking it’s a gallery. It’s not meant to hurt people, just to clarify.”

But the third-Thursday art night is working for Embellish: Held every other month, its art and music events draw up to 60 people. Since the space on Court D is open until 9 p.m., it catches the crowds after the museums close. Lecy-Davis, though, says ArtWalk could be much bigger. “It should be much more connected, less exclusive than it is,” she says.

Sarah Traver of Traver Gallery, the daughter of Bill Traver, sees firsthand how the Seattle Traver Gallery flourishes during Art Walk there. “Seattle Art Dealers’ Association (which runs that art walk) has quarterly meetings, cooperative marketing like a monthly brochure and advertisements. That’s a crucial part.” For Tacoma to have that kind of vitality, the galleries “would require more cooperation.”

IS ARTWALK DEAD?

Some newer gallerists, like Lisa Kinoshita, owner of the two-year-old jewelry art space Mineral, are even unaware that ArtWalk exists as an organization. Others, like Fulcrum’s Oliver Doriss, have switched their exhibit openings away from ArtWalk, as their clientele would come anyway and are only vaguely interested in becoming members. Some, like The Helm, have their own crowd, few of whom are doing ArtWalk. Some ArtWalk participants, meanwhile, are unaware of the nonmember galleries, such as first-timers Monica Fitch and Rick Miller, who downloaded the ArtWalk map and stumbled on Sanford and Son by accident.

Radford gets irritated at nonmember galleries using the ArtWalk name in their publicity without paying the dues and sends them an e-mail asking them to join. Sanford and Son was one of them. Asked about newer galleries like The Helm and Fulcrum, Radford acknowledges there’s “not much recruiting. This is just a sideline for us.” The result is that less than half of Tacoma’s art spaces are actually in the ArtWalk brochure.

But some galleries do report slightly more traffic on ArtWalk nights – “Now we’re on the map, people come,” says Impromptu member Dorothy McCuistion. And Tacoma’s museums love ArtWalk. Attracting crowds into the hundreds, they have the resources (such as private sponsorship) to add in performing arts, speakers and parties, creating even more of a buzz. Away from the museums, though, Tacoma’s ArtWalk is empty compared to those in Seattle, Portland and even Olympia. “I don’t think people realize what the scene here could be like, with full horsepower,” says Radford.

REINVENTING ARTWALK

So if ArtWalk isn’t at full horsepower, does it really matter? Tacoma’s art world thinks it does.

“Participating in ArtWalk is important to our community,” says Julie Pisto, director of marketing and communications at the Museum of Glass. “It ensures that everyone has an opportunity to visit the museum and encourages people to get acquainted with all that downtown Tacoma offers.”

“It’s a social event, there’s a neighborhood feel,” says Radford. “You meet people that live downtown … explore the city.”

And of course there’s the reason that ArtWalk began in the first place: to strengthen Tacoma’s art scene, which has been partly responsible for the city’s renaissance.

Whatever the solution to ArtWalk night dilemma, the consensus among art lovers and professionals seems to be that while ArtWalk is a good thing, it needs improving. But as Harrison says: “It’s easy to have lots of ideas. What’s hard is finding the people who’ll put in the effort to make them work.”

Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568

blogs.thenewstribune.com/arts

Third Thursday ArtWalk

Who: Various galleries and museums

When: 5-8 p.m. third Thursday of the month (some galleries open until 9 p.m.)

Admission: Free, including all museums (Tacoma Art Museum free 10 a.m.-8 p.m.)

Information: www.artwalktacoma.com for selected venues, or subscribe to City of Tacoma arts listserv at www.tacomaculture.org/arts/listserv.asp