Nearly two years ago, Walla Walla artist Squire Broel contacted other local artists with the prospect forming of a cooperative gallery. With the commitment of five other members and an office space located at 13 ½ East Main Street, Art Space 1 was born.  

Currently, Art Space 1 is operated by three artists, two of which are Whitman professors: Broel, visiting professor Mare Blocker and adjunct assistant professor Charly Bloomquist.  

Walla Walla has a rich community of practicing artists, but there are relatively few spaces to exhibit work.  

“It’s a pretty thriving art community as far as people who make art, but the venues to show art aren’t so prolific,” said Bloomquist.

For its three active members, Art Space 1 fills this need. “I joined because I wanted to contribute to my local arts community and I wanted to have a public space to show my work on a regular basis,” said Blocker.

While the Walla Walla wine industry has provided more opportunities for artists to display their work, the wineries typically want to decorate their walls with art that is sure to sell.  

“It tends to be a little more commercial,” said Bloomquist of the art in the winery galleries.  

Art Space 1 was founded on the principle not of making money, but of simply showing art. Broel, who is responsible for bringing to Whitman the ever-popular fish sculpture located on Ankeny Field, said, “We are not a gallery whose main purpose is to generate income, so we are able to take greater risks with our work and can broaden the scope of the viewer’s interaction with the work.”

“In a co-op you have more control over what you want to do: you don’t have a gallery saying they can’t show your work because they don’t think they can sell it since it doesn’t go with anyone’s sofa,” said Blocker.

Bloomquist’s latest installation, which is having its official opening Saturday, March 7 from 3p.m. to 5p.m., is s as a fitting example of what Broel described as “work that may not bode well in a more commercialized setting.”   “Soul Survivor,” as Bloomquist has titled his piece, is a sparse room with a row of socks pinned to the walls. Each sock is from a pair that lost its partner in the laundry.  

“Humor can make you aware. That awareness is released in laughter,” said Bloomquist.  

Bloomquist said he received “tremendous support” from Blocker and Broel for the installation. In some ways, Art Space 1 provides a bridge between the artistic community of Whitman and that of greater Walla Walla. “The relationship is based on the end-goal of an environment for ongoing creativity,” said Broel.

“Having faculty show regularly in a local venue makes us seem more integrated into our community…having a place were tourists and locals can meet artists is a good thing,” said Blocker.  

The exhibition of less commercial and more conceptual art is perhaps the greatest contribution of the Art Space 1 group to the Walla Walla community.   “It’s about putting art on the walls.   Hopefully people will look at and re-contextualize their lives,” said Bloomquist.