1. Northern Lights at Walden Three
    November 27, 2012 by Walden3

    A busy day collecting art for the Northern Lights exhibition in the Dearborn Gallery. If you missed the Fife/Webb show, it’s a real bummer you couldn’t see it in person, but you can always take the virtual tour, watch the interviews and development of the exhibition online. Still, it was such an amazing show to view in person. You really must come to Seattle for a visit!

    For those of you who don’t know about the Northern Lights exhibit (I can’t imagine how you haven’t, but I suspect it is possible) I’ll give you an overview. The show is our end of the year celebration, highlighting new works from the 2012 calendar year, representing artists from all over the Pacific Northwest. We have about fifty W3 scouts, from Vancouver to Portland, who are always on the lookout for the most dynamic, original and inspired 2 and 3D works (digital media included), that we would never find by ourselves. That, combined with our W3-NLE app (download here), which turns the whole region into a contemporary art treasure hunt, sends thousands of candidates to be considered for the Northern Lights show. It’s pretty amazing so far, and I think it will make for the party/group exhibition of the year.

    About half of the work has already been sold and is on loan, but the point of this annual December show is not so much profit-based, but to uncover new talent, recognize artists outside of our range, and mine for future talent. The phone app allows for you to submit works you see in a gallery or coffee shop or leaning against the artists studio – all you need to do is enter the artists name, the title of the work and some point of contact. And our scouts are diligent, plucking little treasures from student shows and blue chip galleries alike. I do quite a few studio visits and it’s a common experience to be rather unimpressed with a body of work, but be entirely enchanted by a real gem in the mix. The Northern Lights exhibit will show 221 pieces this year – one from 221 different artists, and most of them I have never seen or heard of before. It’s so exciting to see so much new (or recently revealed) talent.

    The open party should be amazing. Group shows always draw a big crowd and throwing in a film crew, a little holiday spirit, and a few glasses of champagne, really makes for a wild night. The 4 Seasons next door is booked solid, and I hope to make it to one of the after parties over there. Who are you going to bring? What are you going to wear? It’s about time Seattle had something to get excited about!

    GL