Catalyst Gallery founders convert a fourplex to creative space

It's not really the Goblin House anymore, though you can still see a fading scrawl of that punk-house nickname on its facade. Look further down, and you'll likely see a bunch of friendly smokers, their buddies and dogs, and behind that, one of the coolest new galleries on Capitol Hill.

The three rooms that make up Catalyst Gallery were intended to be John Roberts' first solo apartment in five years. But then his friends Jerad Knudson and Nik Virrey convinced him to move upstairs in the fourplex. The 20-somethings moved here from California a handful of years ago, stayed close and quickly grew tired of aimless partying.

Now they've got a lot more reasons to celebrate. Word has spread around the hill since Catalyst's first show in December. My phone blew up in March when friends wandered through Stephen "EDWON" Shultz's "Fallen Timbers of the Northwest," which made the space a forest with hidden speakers and holograms of a volcano, the Space Needle and campfire magic.

The current show, "Vert Mamalia," is a symbiotic collection of "handmades" and watercolors by two shy friends. Jody Poth's felted creatures include a beautiful musk ox, and a deer curled softly into a bed of tiny beads. Her "Lambi" rests on a stack of vintage books.

They coexist perfectly with Danielle Burton's dioramas in ancient shipping crates, and her watercolors in weathered frames. "To a Warmer Place" is a tender tale, in comic book panels, of a rabbit's journey on an iceberg. It could be a killer children's book.

"Next spring they're going to make a stop-motion film with these animals, and we're going to project it, opening up the spring with that show," says Virrey.

"All of our shows have been first artists. That's what we're hoping to do with the majority. People that don't have that opportunity, or the college degree, can still show work."

And during open hours, limited to the weekends for now, anybody can show up. During my visit, a girl with a hula-hoop and a biology textbook under her arm wandered in from nearby Cal Anderson Park.

Beyond the gallery is Catalyst's "vintage lounge." It holds stereo equipment, lamps, figurines, theater chairs, and the kind of portraits whose eyes seem to follow you. Everything is for sale.

The adjoining unit in the house is the wine-and-cheese area, which dips into a third lounge, aka Virrey's room, but he's cleverly constructed his sleeping loft so that you can hardly tell.

"It's definitely a risk, but the trust is worth it," Virrey says of letting people into his living space.

He's been to Pioneer Square's art walk but doesn't identify with that scene.

"I see it from the outside; that guy owns that gallery, that guy has clout. I see what they're doing down there, but I don't feel like I'm a part of it when I go there as a stranger."

"We really want to do interactive, engaging stuff," says Knudson. "We were more internalized as a community, and we said, lets make something that's accessible to people outside of that."

Rachel Shimp: rachel.e.shimp@gmail.com