Kirkland's Blaubak Gallery Closing

After five years in Kirkland, the Blaubak Gallery on Lake Street is closing its doors for good. Owner Christopher Arthur, who’s family has been in Kirkland for three generations, cites high rents and low local interest as key components in the gallery’s failure to thrive.

“It was actually cheaper in lower Manhattan, N.Y.,” says Arthur, who has run Blaubak out of both a successful New York location and on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.

Arthur has spent the last five years supporting the arts in Kirkland by donating time and development skills to local organizations such as the Kirkland Downtown Association, Kirkland Wednesday Market and most of all the Kirkland Artwalk. He managed press releases and signed on several additional locations that helped turnout to the Artwalk increase from an average of 30 visitors to 350 per listed location this year.

“I’ve done my share,” says Arthur. “I knew about the turnover of failed businesses beforehand, but I always assumed it was from bad business concepts.”

Arthur learned business skills by spending most of his childhood helping his grandmother run Carol’s Dress Shop in the 1970’s and 1980’s. She gave him a sense of stubbornness necessary to be a business owner while his mother, a freelance graphic designer and instructor at Kirkland Arts Center in the 1970’s, inspired his artistic side.

After traveling around the United States and abroad for several years, Arthur wanted to share his finds with Kirkland.

“I wanted to bring home artists that I had accumulated from my travels and business networking elsewhere; bring them back to my original stomping grounds, back to the place where I originally was inspired to be an artist from the old Moss Bay Days,” says Arthur of the craft fairs in Kirkland in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

While living closer to family factored into Arthur’s decision to open Blaubak in Kirkland, he also hoped to challenge a somewhat conservative neighborhood with unconservative art.

“I wanted to be on the front lines of an art/consumer interest, to inspire first time art buyers and show things I would be proud to own or display that you would not normally see,” says Arthur who often showed underground or undiscovered artists at Blaubak, which specialized in modern art.

Unfortunately, what proved too much to handle were the 18-hour days, high traffic but low sales, and endless grievances with local metermaids, who he says ticketed him and artists while loading and unloading at the gallery.

“Even though (the business) completely failed, it was worth the try and I have no regrets. I still managed to touch a few local souls willing to explore new creative avenues.”

Arthur plans to pull up stakes, moving himself, the gallery and the artists he represents to an as-yet undetermined location in addition to focusing on website development, graphic design and fashion photography services. He strongly suggests that Kirkland city officials reassess parking ticket strategies.

Community support of local retail businesses is what keeps the economy alive and Arthur feels Kirkland talks the talk of community support, but doesn’t put its money where its mouth is.

Arthur says other downtown businesses are in trouble, but he would not name them, saying that dying businesses don’t make money if the secret gets out.

Blaubak's final exhibit is on Friday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., with nationally acclaimed artist Stephen Edwards.