Kirkland's art identity slipping away

Elka Rouskov hefted the last brown paper-wrapped paintings out of the Lake Street gallery that bears her name.

The show is over.

After three years in Kirkland, Rouskov closed her shop two weeks ago and is seeking a bigger space in Seattle.

"It's time to grow," Rouskov explained. The loss of Rouskov is the latest hit to Kirkland's gallery district, leaving just six art galleries downtown.

A decade ago, more than a dozen galleries lined the city's lakeside streets, a higher concentration than any other place in the state save Seattle's Pioneer Square, according to G.G. Getz, chair and founding member of the Kirkland Cultural Council.

Together with the beloved bronze sculptures that grace the city's sidewalks and parks, galleries helped cement Kirkland's image as a haven for art and artists.

The monthly art walk was not enough time to peruse all of Kirkland's galleries in the mid- to late 1990s, when as many as 17 such venues dotted the neighborhood, local gallery owner Gunnar Nordstrom said.

As galleries have closed or moved, fewer people have shown up for art walks.

Meanwhile, Issaquah, better known for its salmon hatchery, has five art galleries and a monthly art walk held from May to September that pulls up to 2,000 people onto the city's streets, organizer Michael Johnson said. The contrast is not lost on Kirkland.

"We are concerned about the loss of galleries," said Tracy Burrows, Kirkland's intergovernmental-relations manager. "Art is an integral part of our identity."

City Councilman Tom Hodgson said the shrinking cluster of galleries points to a bigger issue: "The whole downtown is struggling with marginal performance and turnover" in retail businesses, he said.

Over time the local dot-com crash and other economic downturns, coupled with inexperienced entrepreneurs, rising downtown rents, and fluctuations in the art market, have picked off the weakest of the herd, gallery owners say.

"When I opened the gallery in 1992 we saw a tremendous amount of people," Patricia Rovzar said of her self-titled Central Way gallery.

In 2006 Rovzar started a second gallery, in downtown Seattle, partly because increased traffic congestion makes it more difficult to get visitors to Puget Sound to cross the bridge to Kirkland, she said.

And forget about getting Seattle residents to make the trip.

"There's almost a chasm now," Rovzar said, "and people don't cross it if they don't have to."

Pat Howard, who with her husband, Dan, owns Howard/Mandville Gallery, said though her gallery is going strong, a perennial downtown problem hinders her business: parking.

Her customers can well afford to pay for parking, but having to do so irks them, she said.

They think, "'I'm coming in here to Howard/Mandville Gallery to buy a $5,000 painting and I can't find parking or I have to pay to park?'"

Georgie Kilrain, owner of Lakeshore Gallery, said Eastsiders also have a bias.

"People from the Eastside feel they have to go into Seattle to buy expensive art, or credible art," she said. At the same time, she added, downtown Kirkland's customers weren't always pleased to see art in shop windows.

"A lot of shoppers overall thought it was kind of out of balance. A lot of them wanted more general retail," Kilrain said. "They don't want any single segment to dominate."

Gallery owner Nordstrom said he misses the "synergy" created by a critical mass of galleries in downtown. More galleries meant more reasons potential customers might come to Kirkland, he said.

City Councilwoman Jessica Greenway said Kirkland's emphasis on tourism will give the galleries a boost but agreed that having more of them would create a bigger draw for visitors.

Improvements are in the works.

To bolster the art walk, Kirkland Downtown Association is planning to add live jazz to several stops on the walk this spring, promotions manager Julie Metteer said.

Kirkland has also worked to improve parking by encouraging downtown employees to park outside the city's core, freeing up street parking for downtown shoppers. Members of the city's Parking Advisory Board, formed in 2004, are also exploring the possibility of a city-owned garage. But no one is tasked with reviving the city's art market — that burden rests on the consumer, Hodgson said.

"You kind of have to let the market decide what kind of businesses succeed," he said.

"It's possible galleries were "over-saturated" in the past and now the local art market is "just finding it's own level," he added.

The City Council wields greater influence over public art than it does on art galleries.

In 2002, the City Council created the Kirkland Cultural Council to save public sculptures on loan to the city that were in danger of being sold by the owner and removed. The group helped the city buy the sculptures and keep them in Kirkland.

Now it will consider the galleries as it draws up its strategic plan for arts this spring, but it's doubtful the volunteer board, which serves an advisory role, could do as much for galleries, said Getz, the council's chair.

She said she hopes developers will help revitalize downtown by building office space that would attract daytime foot traffic, although the size of some proposed projects has sparked controversy.

And not everyone thinks the number of galleries hold any particular significance for the city's arts scene.

"The retail part of it is an important part, but there are so many other aspects that make Kirkland an arts community," said Bill Vadino, executive director of the Kirkland Chamber of Commerce.

Performing arts are thriving, he said, pointing to the Kirkland Performance Center and Studio East, a nonprofit performing-arts school, as examples.

Kirkland loves arts, he said, but as with any for-profit enterprise, it's a tough love.

"To find their market," Vadino said, "some of these galleries have to go to Seattle."

And some of them already have.

In 2003, a year and a half after her family purchased Foster/White Gallery, a fixture on Kirkland's art scene for 11 years, Phen Huang closed it and expanded Foster/White's Rainier Square location.

"It had gotten a little quiet in Kirkland," she said.

Amy Roe: 206-464-3347 or aroe@seattletimes.com