Crawl Space An Artist-run Cooperative Gallery

Crawl Space was an artist-run cooperative gallery working to further the creation and exhibition of new and innovative artwork by emerging artists and to incite community interest in the visual arts. Since opening in 2003, they have provided curatorial and installation opportunities for over 100 emerging artists in monthly public exhibitions. At one point they were granted sponsorship by the Allied Arts Foundation, who also provided their 501(c)3 identification.

This was their website.

Content is from the site's 2005 archived pages offering just a glimpse of the type of exhibitions presented at the gallery.

Crawl Space
504 E. Denny Way #1
Seattle, WA 98105

*entrance on Summit Ave E, behind a wooden fence
(Where Olive and Denny converge there is a small island in the road. Look for our wooden fence next to the Hillcrest Market.)

 



An aside: It's nice that there is now another gallery is this space which is tucked away behind a wooden fence and a beautiful door. Reviewers have stated that its a pleasantly cozy space, packed top to bottom with jewelry, trinkets, and various artworks by local artists. Love it! They have a small, rotating selection of vintage apparel and beautiful jewelry. And I agree. According to my new neighbor, in it's former iteration as Crawl Space also offered paintings, photography, some sculptures, making it a great place to shop, and buy. I'm a recent arrival here, and I miss the Big Apple - even miss the noise and crowds. My most famous friend, Queens assistant district attorney Benjamin Pred warned me what would happen when I moved away from NYC and that I'd even miss his empty threats to lock me up every time I fouled out in our cherished Ultimate Frisbee matches. Seriously, it did take a while to get used to the peace and quiet - which I now love. So now that I am finally settled in Seattle, have adjusted to my new job, I have started to explore my neighborhood and the rest of the city. My neighbor has been here for over twenty years and I get all the latest scoop, plus a lot of back history about the area. Thus my learning about how the Crawl Space gallery location is now the Ghost gallery also offering paintings, photography, some sculptures, lots of jewelry, fun frames, and a wide range of prices. Next time I am there I am going to ask about the Crawl Space and if the present owner is in any way connected to the former Crawl Space. And I'm determined to get Ben out here to see what he's missing.

 



 

ISAAC LAYMAN:
"PORTRAITS"

 
April 16, 2005 - May 15, 2005
 
 
 

Crawl Space Gallery is pleased to present Isaac Layman in his first solo show since returning from a year of intensive studio work in New York City. In "Portraits," Mr. Layman presents a series of large-scale photographs of personal household objects. In these works, he combines the techniques of drawing and three-dimensional collage and through the photographic process collapses these spaces into the surface of the print.

Viewers will find the objects immediately recognizable but may be confronted with the challenge of discerning what exactly they are looking at. This intersection of drawing, collage, and photography brings an opportunity to revisit the nature and iconography of these everyday possessions.

Isaac Layman received his BFA in Photography from the University of Washington in 2002. Since 1997 his work has been shown in Seattle, New Zealand, Rome, and New York. He recently returned from a year in Brooklyn and lives in Wallingford with his wife. They are expecting their first child this summer.

 



 

SID INC: INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION

 
September 17th - October 2nd, 2005
 
 
 
Crawl Space is pleased to present an interactive installation looking at the artistic process of Sound Industrial Design Inc., the collaborative duo Cathy McClure and Seth Sexton. Using the gallery as a temporary studio space prior to the show, SID Inc. creates an overwhelming and chaotic immersion into their dissection and reconstruction of mechanical plush toys.

Unlike circuit benders who may use circuit boards and sound cards pulled from a variety of electronic instruments to make novel and synthetic sounds, SID Inc. purchases discarded electronic plush toys from local thrift stores and pares them down.

The plush toys and their reconstructions are based on recurrent action sustained through consumer whimsy. All of the mechanisms selected by SID Inc. are activated by motion, sound, or touch that stress the importance of education through entertainment.

The marketing, purchase, and speedy donation of these toys allude to a consumptive market characterized by buying escapism and frenzy. Toys have a very short shelf life that leads to an even shorter home life. SID Inc. believes that consumer involvement in this repetition is a blazing sign of its success.

 

 

 

 



 

TODD SIMEONE
"FROM A TO A"
 
May 21 – June 12, 2005
 
 

Click Image to view show
 
Crawl Space Gallery is pleased to present From A to A, an exhibition of large-scale digital photographs and installation by Seattle artist Todd Simeone. In his first solo show Mr. Simeone presents selected work from a series created during his past two years as an undergraduate photography student at the University of Washington. Recognizing the first solo show as a notable event in the artist's life, he found it of the utmost importance to create one single artwork that reflected everything he has come to know and understand over the years as a smooth and confident progression; in short, he sought to complete the trip from point A to point B. In search of the B Simeone found another A. This show presents this discovery by revealing that life's big moments can be found in the most obvious places.

In this carefully selected suite of images, common yet significant objects such as games, charts and chairs are taken from the artist's personal settings then photographed and digitally manipulated to reflect underlying concepts. Using a combination of digital erasures and additions as symbolic gestures, Simeone's photographs offer a unique take on his own experience and environment and create an entirely new experience for their viewers. Confronted with the transfiguration of something familiar, the willing participant can find that Simeone expresses himself in spaces in between: the strange and familiar, truth and fiction, the poetic and the prosaic, and most notably for this exhibition, in between what things were and what they have become

 

 



 

KRISTEN T. RAMIREZ
"IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE"

 
January 5 -18, 2005
 
 
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IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE Kristen T. Ramirez presents her first solo exhibition at Crawl Space Gallery. Irrational Exuberance is a celebration of high and low art, fueled by political traditions in printmaking, modern packaging design, contemporary installation art, and crude street graphics all over the planet. This exhibit includes drawing, collage, screen-printing, letterpress, and a large multi-media installation. Irrational Exuberance is work about place. More specifically, it is nostalgia-laden work that Ramirez has created about the disorienting, urban, American experience in her own attempt to understand what “America” is. Ramirez aims to bring beauty and dignity to a place where messages create a noisy collision of textures, colors, stylistic and cultural contrasts. She knows there is no way to perceive at once our contemporary chaos of gigantic, lurid signs, big box dollar stores, red-and-white striped chicken buckets, seas of asphalt parking lots, and horizons punctuated by utility poles. Instead, Ramirez embraces the exuberance of icons, signage, and visual clutter, imbuing it with dignity and no small amount of good, old-fashioned TLC.

Kristen Ramirez is an artist and arts educator from San Francisco, California who now calls Seattle home. She completed her MFA in printmaking from the University of Washington in 2004 and works in all types of print processes, but especially loves letterpress, silkscreen and relief printing.

 

 

 



 

 
 
 
 
 
 
     
LANDMARK
FENCING YOUTH
PLACE/SETTING
COMING OF AGE
DELETERIOUS
CURRENT WORKS
BRAD BIANCARDI - INSISTENT IMAGERY
MICHELLE FRIED - TANTRUMS
... PASS TIME
CHAD WENTZEL AND A STAR-STUDDED CELEBRATION OF INFINITUDE AND PERPETUAL BEAUTY
DIANA FALCHUK: SWEET REMAINS
NICHOLAS BROWN – WILLIAM LAMSON
BIG PAINTING
JASON WOOD:
MEMORIES AND MARQUETRY
SYMBIOSIS:
ORI ORNSTEIN
CENTENNIAL JURIED EXHIBITON
CURRENT WORKS:
A two part exhibition featuring our members
LANDSCAPES FOR PHANTOM LIMBS:
RG REGION CS2 : Wyndel Hunt
TRIAL AND THE TRIBUNAL : Anne Mathern
PISS PRESIDENT: Brad Biancardi
GROWN ACCUSTOMED: New Video
EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED ALL AT THE SAME TIME: CHAD WENTZEL
PERSONALLY PUBLIC:
The Personal,Interpersonal and Intimate Face of Public Art
DIVERGENT PATHS: W. SCOTT TRIMBLE
NON-NON-REFERENTIAL PAINTING
DISILLUSION: SHAWN PATRICK LANDIS
COLLECTIONS:
Work From the Artist's Who Run Crawl Space
ZEBRA SKIN CAKE KNIFE: DIANA FALCHUK
SID INC : Interactive Installation
ROOTS: JASON WOOD
COMMON: A Celebration of the Mundane
FROM A TO A: TODD SIMEONE
PORTRAITS: ISAAC LAYMAN
IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE:
KRISTEN T. RAMIREZ

 

CrawlSpaceGallery.com