Lawrimore Project is an odd gallery, but for a reason. It was founded four years ago on a basic, timely principle: that the local and the international could feed each other—that by giving Seattle artists the rockingest possible space to create in, their careers would have the best chance of taking off into the larger marketplace of ideas and commerce, and meanwhile, local audiences would get awesome shows for free. It was about more than selling the work of local artists. It was about deepening the conversation around art in Seattle, while keeping it fun and sexy. The place itself, designed by two artists (Lead Pencil Studio) in an old sign company on Airport Way South, is 5,000 square feet of pure personality. And proprietor Scott Lawrimore established a weekly Art Klatch on Tuesday mornings, open to anyone and he pays for the coffee, at Cafe Presse, where broad art-world issues are thrown into the mix with dialogue about local shows and situations. But last week, Lawrimore sent out a private SOS e-mail to supporters. It began with the title "Where's All the Arts Patrons At?" It went on to say that Lawrimore Project as it's currently configured might be closing.
The gallery's five-year lease with real-estate company Urban Visions (a supportive and patient landlord, Lawrimore notes) expires on Halloween. Lawrimore's weighing his options: buying a building of his own, renting a smaller space, augmenting more modest regular shows with less frequent blowout events in locations around the city. Either way, if he moves, the new place will most likely be smaller than this one—Lawrimore Project is larger than any other commercial gallery in the city and feels like an alternative space, not a retail shop—and the rich, elaborate design of this place will be lost forever, a creative work of interior architecture just gone.
"I thought the space was really big for a gallery in such a small city—I mean, I admired it," says Chris Perez, who has established a major gallery in a minor art city: Ratio 3 in San Francisco, which has similarities to Seattle in terms of its distance from art centers.
On Slog, The Stranger's blog, a commenter wrote in response to Lawrimore's SOS: "I'm a big fan and semi-regular visitor of the Lawrimore Project and Western Bridge. Some of the most creative and thought-provoking pieces I've seen in Seattle have been in those spaces. However, I am merely a spectator and in no position to purchase. I've often wondered how either space makes ends meet."
And therein lie several truths about Lawrimore Project.
First, because it stages such huge projects—real events: a giant, double-height room transformed into a walk-in camera, a simulated rainstorm, a rock/performance-art stage featuring a costume metal band facing a miniature mountain with a woman tethered to the ceiling jumping on it—people don't realize they can, or should, buy anything at Lawrimore Project. Smitten with spectacle, it's easy to miss the fact that smaller works are available: The current show with Indianola native Eli Hansen, who is about to have a prestigious solo debut at a gallery in New York (which will drive his prices right up), has pieces for as low as $300.
Second, Lawrimore Project is seen as a place that, because it is staging such huge projects, must be doing just fine in the money department. But Western Bridge, a space where leading contemporary collectors Bill and Ruth True share their personal holdings with the public, is based on an entirely different business model than Lawrimore Project. In fact, Western Bridge has no business model because it is not a business. It is simply the pet project—a generous pet project, for sure—of a wealthy couple. Meanwhile, Lawrimore Project is the one-man business of a guy who grew up in a California trailer park, learned the ropes by working the desks of Seattle galleries for years, and still has to work just to make rent.
And the third reality is that the recession makes the gallery business in Seattle—already a calling, not an industry (you think these guys make big bucks? This ain't Chelsea, people)—a total slog. The last decade has seen a steady expansion in the size and number of contemporary art galleries in the city, but the economic crash has poked holes in all ships. Howard House, a risk-taking venture that began in the home of Billy Howard and then moved into a proper art venue in Pioneer Square, has struggled to stay afloat in its soaring-ceilinged location on Second Avenue. Greg Kucera Gallery has been open for 27 years and is the steadiest gallery in Seattle art. But even Kucera has begun to draw attention to the fact that he is running a business that needs supporting: Kucera's current group show is called Made in U.S.A., with the intention to highlight that galleries and artists, too, are fragile mom-and-pop shops.
Kucera is the godfather of the high-profile, high-concept contemporary gallery in Seattle, and Lawrimore has expanded upon what Kucera started back in 1983. Kucera, one of the most regular collectors at Lawrimore Project, is upset that more buyers don't recognize its value.
"I think this is very grave," Kucera wrote in an e-mail. "I can honestly say that I think Scott is doing the most exciting shows right now [in Seattle], doing the most to elevate his artists, working tirelessly on their behalves."
"Why don't collectors really see the whole range of art [in Seattle] in any given month? Laziness and self-satisfaction," Kucera wrote. "Why don't they see the need to support the businesses, like Scott's, that are probably doing more good for Seattle's prominence as an art city than all the house-decorating, tchotchke shops put together? More of same." He added in a later phone conversation, "There's no limit to what collectors here could do or spend."
Less than half of the money Lawrimore takes in comes from Seattle buyers, a condition that's common for Seattle galleries, but should be changing as galleries like Lawrimore Project, Howard House, Ambach & Rice, and James Harris have increasingly and successfully promoted artists abroad, proving local artists to skeptical local buyers, in recent years. At Ambach & Rice in Ballard, 75 percent of sales are to collectors outside the city.
John and Shari Behnke are exemplary collectors and supporters of art in Seattle. Last year they established and funded the $12,500 annual Brink award at the Henry Art Gallery, for a promising artist who receives the money and a show at the Henry. The first winner this year is Isabelle Pauwels, whose exhibition has been up at the museum since January.
"I am amazed at the number of people I know in my art social circle, and I say to them, 'Have you gone to see the Brink?' and their answer is no," Shari said in a phone conversation last week. "It blows me away. I just go, 'You haven't seen it? What exactly is your reasoning behind this?' I think Scott has in some ways single-handedly tried to change art appreciation in Seattle, and he can only do so much."
"It's incredibly frustrating that there's only a handful of people collecting good art in this city," Ruth True said. She also admitted she hasn't been to Lawrimore Project often enough herself: "Guilty as charged."
For every opening, Lawrimore Project attracts hundreds of party people to its space—a warren of rooms including a white cube, a black box, a skylighted warehouse, a den with a fireplace, and an office sitting on cinder blocks that's a tribute to Lawrimore's childhood. It's not suffering for popularity. "But there tends to be a lip service to it," says artist Susie Lee, who was responsible for the "rainstorm" in the gallery a few years ago.
Like several artists at Lawrimore Project, Lee's work has landed in prestigious shows (a recent one put her video Consummation next to pieces by Eve Sussman and Bill Viola) and collections while being represented by Lawrimore Project. There's no question his roster is hot: Artists include Anne Mathern (now at the Mountain School of Arts in L.A.), Alex Schweder La (shown recently at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; aside: He recently married and added his wife's last name, La), SuttonBeresCuller (working on an entire pocket park in Georgetown), Susan Robb (her solar-and-wind-powered performance sculpture Toobs has traveled the country), and Caleb Larsen (whose Tool to Deceive and Slaughter, a box that sells itself continually on eBay, has been widely discussed since it made its debut at the gallery last year and is about to be featured in the New York Times Magazine).
"People are like, 'Wow, great shows,' but it's like, we can barely pay the rent—and that's not just for Scott, that's for the artists," Lee said. "It's kind of sad that you can't have a space like that in Seattle. We saw it with ConWorks and CoCA, too." ConWorks and CoCA were thriving nonprofit alternative spaces, while Lawrimore Project is set up to be for-profit. Lawrimore says he's not interested in going nonprofit: Applying for grants to survive would take time away from promoting the art.
Even in a smaller space, artists including Lee, John Sutton, and Lead Pencil Studio (Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo) say they'll stick with Lawrimore—they signed on for his vision, not his physical space. (Han and Mihalyo are Zen about their architecture being abandoned—it happens all the time in the commercial world, they say. The lights just go down, and someone else comes in and changes everything, and that's it.)
But the larger point is that, while Lawrimore Project is unique, it is also emblematic of all serious contemporary art galleries in Seattle. They are all ambitious, because simply representing cutting-edge contemporary art is still an ambitious thing to do in this city. These really are hardworking mom-and-pop shops worth visiting, and considering supporting. Kucera's advice about how to survive?
"For myself, I go to work every fucking day," he says. "I don't skip work, I don't take time off. You have to be committed."
Your galleries are here, committed, ready, and waiting. 
