Stacey Winston, owner of the Seattle contingent of the Winston-Wachter Fine Art Gallery of contemporary art at 203 Dexter Avenue N. believes everyone needs to be exposed to and educated about art.
Stacey and her staff love to have school groups come in for a tour, young adults who may just be learning about art, and non-art gallery people who are enthusiastic and eager to learn. The name of the gallery comes from a combination of her name and that of her long-time friend Christine Wachter, who owns the New York contingent of Winston-Wachter.
Most Seattleites equate art in Seattle with The Seattle Art Museum and the art galleries in downtown Seattle’s Pioneer Square. They may receive a little more exposure through the First Thursday art walks that have been held monthly since the 1960’s. As the owner of the Winston-Wachter Seattle gallery, Winston made a conscious, ‘non-lemming’ decision to locate her gallery away from ‘the madding crowd in lower Queen Anne.’
Winston (educated in art history and business at Columbia University in New York) and Christine Wachter, (educated in art history and business at the university in Zurich) met as young women while living in New York in the 1980’s. They operated a very successful art touring and art consulting company in New York, eventually garnering the respect and support of benefactors and high-end clients such as The Lauder Family (Estee Lauder). Such connects enabled them to open their own gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York’s Westside. When Stacey’s husband’s work brought him to Seattle, the west coast gallery was opened. The gallery has clients from all over the world, which include corporations, private collectors and buyers.
Megan Des Jardins, the director of the Seattle gallery, has been there for 10 years. “I love it here…Stacey is such a smart, savvy, business woman…. I am always learning something new.”
Some of the other qualities that Megan admires in her boss are her fearlessness, willingness to take risks, and her un-erring eye for choosing promising artists and their work. When the gallery first opened in1995 most of the artists came from all over the United States but more and more the gallery is focusing on local artists with whom Winston and her staff can develop a mutually beneficial relationship of caring and intimacy as an artist grows.
So, how does Winston choose an artist? For one thing, she downplays the drama. “No more difficult artists…I had enough of them in my 20’s,” Winston said.
Otherwise it comes down to trusting her “eye” to identify the qualities for an up and coming artist and then follow their career for a period of time before making a commitment that entails caring, guidance, and support. Recent artists that the gallery has shown include: James Allen, Bo Bartlett, Susan Dory, Betsy Eby, Ann Gardner, Piper O’Neill, Michael Schultheis and Julie Speidel.
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