Art studio has an eye for aesthetics

Artwork Northwest offers artwork, framing and classes

Susan Schell

of the Gateway

Published: 12:36PM February 4th, 2009

Visitors who enter the Artwork Northwest building in the Hunt Wollochet Business Park might be surprised by the amount of artwork on display.

The building is designed to be a showroom, art gallery and a framing shop — and it offers a little bit of everything. The front room is decorated like someone’s living room, with soft gold and rust tones complemented by paintings from local artists.

It’s fitting, since the business’ motto is: “We create beautiful walls.”

“We help people find the right piece for the right place,” said Diana Reinhardt, who co-owns Artwork Northwest with Toni Huntley. “We provide residential art design.”

In past years, they sold mainly business-to-business, decorating offices and other public spaces, but they eventually discovered a niche for private homeowners. They opened their new Gig Harbor showroom in December.

“Now that we’ve opened to the public, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, ‘I have this space and I just don’t know what to do with it,’ ” Reinhardt said. “Some people really just don’t know how to put it together.”

“Sometimes people buy a piece and they just draw a blank,” Huntley said. “They may have a huge wall and just not know what to do with it. I’ve got a design background and can help people create an attractive space in their home.”

Huntley is an artist and a member of the Bujacich family, longtime members of the harbor fishing fleet. Her work hangs among the eight artists represented in the store.

Clients can purchase artwork right off the wall or bring in prints to frame.

“We wanted to create a warm environment where we offer affordable framing,” Reinhardt said. “In a typical frame shop, they have to have it sent out to get cut. We do all that here, so the pricing is really great.”

Huntley knows the roadblocks artists come across when they try to get their work framed.

“I used to show in galleries and I spent so much money on frames,” she said. “I thought, ‘I can do that.’ So I took some classes and learned how to do it, and this just sort of evolved.”

Reinhardt added that they create their own custom frames.

“We can fashion frames for original art without glass and matting to reduce reflection,” she said. “We don’t want people to be afraid of framing. We want to be the Costco of framing.”

The gallery soon will host art classes in paper making, watercolors, acrylics and interior design.

Creating the gallery was something Huntley dreamed about.

“She had a real calling for this,” Reinhardt said. “She’s the artist here.”

“We have a great facility here,” Huntley added. “People walk in here and say, ‘Whoa, we really didn’t expect this.’

“My vision is to have more of an art center with everything under one roof. We’d like to have events that feature local artists and expand our classes to include more crafts.

“This would be a great thing for the harbor to have an art studio,” she added. “Everyone’s saying that life is so stressful. More people should get into art.”

Artwork Northwest

Address: 6515 43rd Ave. Court NW, Ste. 204 in Gig Harbor.

Phone: 253-851-9255.

UPCOMING CLASSES

Acrylic from the beginning — five-week class starts Feb. 17

Interior design — Feb. 19

Beginning watercolors — two-week class starts March 7

Beginning drawing/watercolor pencils — March 7.

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