Gallery hopping: Spend Saturday night on the Ballard Arts Walk

Five years ago, Renee Pound looked all over Seattle for a place to build her glass-art studio. She tried the usual haunts, including Belltown, then six months into the search came upon Ballard.

"I walked by this little garage with a handwritten for-lease note on the door, and I knew that was it," she recalls. "It was called Larry's Auto, and we still get their mail!"

On the corner of Northwest Market Street and Leary Avenue Northwest, the business is now Art by Fire, with a gallery in front and giant ovens in back for blowing glass.

Increasingly over the last decade, artists and craftsmen have quietly been bringing their skill and vision to Ballard. In the last several years, this creative migration has coalesced into the Ballard Arts Walk, a monthly event — the next one is Saturday — that's refreshing both in location and variety.

But before we get into that, let's face the little jokes head on. Ballard is known more for its lutefisk than its literati. Ballard tends to be associated with slow drivers and Norwegian flags. And that's OK, because the general feeling among many of its residents is that the less cool Ballard appears, the better.

Hence, in the old part of Ballard, where brick buildings go back to the 1890s, an automotive shop sits across the street from Re-Soul, an ultra-hip home-furnishings store. Ballard Bookcase, a purveyor of fine handcrafts, shares the block with tattoo artists.

Quirky is tolerated here. Madame K, an Italian restaurant and former brothel, favors lurid red decor. A floral design shop called The Plaid Dahlia features its own wedding chapel.

Almost no one wants to jinx the current revival by saying Ballard is what Fremont used to be. That might imply an overly gentrified future, but clearly, something is happening here. You see it in the monolithic chunks of condo construction as well as the growth of funky culture.

Not quite chichi

"Our art walk is not as chichi as other arts events around the city," says Dionne Haroutunian, the Swiss-born owner of the Sev Shoon Art Center. (Half Armenian, she gave her studio an Armenian name: black dog.) One of the first artists to "discover" the area in recent years, she's operated a printmaking co-op since the early 1990s. Her old brick building stands on a corner fronted by two stately columns. Floor-to-ceiling windows bathe the rooms with much-coveted southern light.

"In the beginning, when we had open houses, it was marvelous to get even 50 people here, it was so out of the way. Now it's more popular," says Haroutunian. "The good side is my business is doing well and more people come, but I also loved it before — the hardworking blue-collar crowd that wasn't cool. We were just people going to work every day."

So far, she believes Ballard has found a good balance. "I think it's a healthy community. People have been here for years and care about it."

One of the neighborhood anchors and an original art-walk booster is Habitude, a bustling, sweet-smelling spa/salon with generous amounts of room given over to gallery space. December's art-walk feature was a children's art show. This month, Habitude offers a photography exhibit.

Also this month, glass-blowing demonstrations can be found at Art by Fire, provided by Pilchuck-trained Lenoard Whitfield. The radiology-technician-turned-artist enjoys explaining the finer points of working with molten glass — how to manipulate heat that's hot as, and sometimes hotter than, a volcano.

A community revival

Another must-see is found at the southern edge of Ballard's historical district — an international textile show at Earthues. This vast warehouse once housed a flag-making enterprise. Michele Wipplinger turned it into a gallery of world culture. She spends a good deal of the year traveling as a consultant to artisans, mostly in Asia, and the shop is full to the rafters with her discoveries — naturally dyed textiles and yarns, as well as colorful rugs, baskets, pillows and pottery.

"All of these things have stories," she says, "and I want to share them." She does so through workshops, lectures and the art walk.

Cultural creep goes the other way as well — north, up 24th Avenue Northwest, long the domain of watering holes for the working man. A few still exist — places like the Viking Tavern, the Coppergate, and Epp's Place. These days, they coexist with coffeehouses and boutiques, as well as an airy art gallery named for its address: 63 Eleven. The work of six artists is on exhibit there this month, a sampling from shows held in the past year.

Elke Hermann, from the gallery, notes that she and owners Sarah and Steve Angell are not newcomers. They all live in the neighborhood and have a personal stake in seeing the community thrive.

"Some people say Ballard is getting too gentrified, but I think it's a revival," Hermann says. "The art walk is a part of that."

If you go to the Ballard Arts Walk

The Ballard Arts Walk takes place this Saturday (and the second Saturday of each month) from 7 p.m. to 10. It attracts the most patrons and participants during summer, but at least a dozen shops and galleries open their doors for the art walk in colder months.

Most (but not all) of the activity is concentrated in the Ballard Avenue Landmark District, a triangular area of brick buildings. Shops and galleries taking part in the art walk are also located along Northwest Market Street and 24th Avenue Northwest. To make the most of your time, go early, pick up a map and plan your itinerary. Maps are available at participating Ballard businesses identified by balloons outside on Art Walk evenings.

Parking is scarce along Ballard Avenue. Try side streets. There are also several reasonably priced pay lots in the Ballard business core. For a map and a brief history of Ballard and a map, see www.historylink.org/cybertours/ballard.

Copyright © The Seattle Times Company

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