Connect: Life of art shapes vision for gallery

Downtown Spokane looked different in 1996. The Davenport Hotel sat empty and silent. River Park Square had seen better days. There were no First Friday arts tours, even though there was a gallery or two – and the museum of course.

So when Lorinda Knight saw an article in The Spokesman-Review, she knew instantly what to do.

“It said what Spokane needed was a contemporary gallery that would be in it for the long haul,” she says. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do next.”

In the fall of ‘96 she opened the doors to her gallery on West Sprague.

“It took four years to really get going,” she says. “And you know, we always had the artist receptions on the first Friday of the month.”

Born in Akron, Ohio, Knight grew up as an only child surrounded by a close-knit group of friends.

“When we could drive, what we’d do is pile into a car and drive up to the Cleveland Museum of Art,” she says.

One of the shows that made a huge impression on her back then was by Mark Tobey.

“And he’s a Northwest artist,” she says. “There’s just something about going to the museums – seeing art in person. You can’t see it the same way on the computer or on TV; it’s just not the same.”

The road from Akron to Spokane took her from college to college – and to Canada for awhile.

After she graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts in 1963 and met her husband, Harry Silverstein – now a philosophy professor at Washington State University in Pullman – the couple moved to Chicago, where Silverstein finished his Ph.D.

“We lived there for three years. I loved it,” she says. “Then we moved to Toronto and I attended an alternative art school there. This was the ‘60s, remember?”

From there, it was back to Baltimore where Knight’s two daughters were born, before the family made the cross-country trek to Pullman in ‘72.

“That was quite a contrast to Baltimore, if you can imagine,” Knight says, laughing.

She graduated from WSU with a master’s degree in interior design in 1977.

“But there was no place to practice (interior design) in Pullman, so in ‘77 we moved to Spokane,” Knight says. She took a job with an architectural firm and her husband kept his position at WSU, where she later taught interior design and became an adjunct professor at the Interdisciplinary Design Institute.

“There was a time where we both commuted back and forth to Pullman,” Knight says. “We had a small apartment there, and our daughters were older, so it was doable.”

Lorinda Knight Gallery is the sum of all these parts: years of teaching and researching and writing and working with art and design. But turning to the gallery business was not an overnight decision.

“I like to think things over a lot. I visited lots of galleries and museums,” Knight says. “I’d never worked in a gallery before so I had to figure that out.”

The memory of how everything lined up makes her beam.

“Designing the space for the gallery was easy,” she says, gesturing at the white walls, the tall ceilings and the blond floors. “People love this space. That means so much.”

Among the business advice she gathered along the way was how much money she needed to get started – “I don’t want to talk about that,” she says with a smile – and also how to pick the right artists.

One mentor was Seattle Gallery owner Francine Seders.

“She said, ‘Only show the artists you really like and try not to worry too much about sales,’” Knight says. “‘Just show innovative and great art,’ she told me. And amazingly, it’s worked.”

Knight is a small woman, yet she exudes big energy and steel-set determination. She picks her words carefully, pausing frequently, taking her time to contemplate an answer.

“I really like to travel. Isn’t it peculiar how some people don’t?” she says. “My husband doesn’t like traveling as much as I do, but he’s fine once we get there.”

A trip to China five years ago left a huge impression.

“I’ve only been there once, but I like the people and the art is amazing,” Knight says. “We went to Europe last summer, we had great trip to eastern France and also to Venice. And Paris is of course great – I really like big cities.”

On her desk sits a copy of “The Bottom Billion, why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it,” by Paul Collier. “That’s my next reading project,” she says.

As for her next life project, Knight mentions philanthropy.

“I am not there yet,” she says, smiling. “But I like to think of things far in advance, and it’s definitely something I’d like to do.”

A longtime member and president-elect of the National Association of Women Business Owners, Knight gives that organization a lot of credit.

She’s also very active in the Davenport District, which is developing more of a distinct profile since it adopted a strategic plan in 2002.

Asked what she’d be doing if she wasn’t a gallery owner, she gives a long pause. “I don’t know. Well, I mean, I could have continued the business of interior design, I guess,” she says, looking slightly puzzled.

Clearly, she’s found her niche.