McLeod Residence Blog: Press Release!

Hi,

We issued our first press release today. Please continue reading to find out more and feel free to contact us if you have questions. I think the release tells our story really well.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Maggie Santolla McLeod, Press Relations
maggie.santolla@gmail.com

Lele McLeod, Gallery
leleblixa@gmail.com

206-441-3314

Inspiring an Extraordinary Life
Belltown’s newest gallery promises more than art

SEATTLE -- December 15, 2006 -- McLeod Residence, a new concept of art and gathering space, opens January 5, 2007, in the heart of Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. Located at 2209 2nd Avenue, the space is owned by Lele McLeod (née Leanne Ng) and Buster McLeod (née Erik Benson), longtime members of Seattle’s art and technology communities. McLeod Residence opens its doors with three exhibits—a group exhibit featuring photographs and digital art mounted on lightboxes, an installation by artist and musician Paul Rucker, and an exhibit of antique paintings curated by art dealer Jay Franklin. The opening will be from 5–9 p.m.

McLeod Residence is part lounge and part gallery with an emphasis on membership and participation by its patrons. The idea was conceived by longtime friends Lele McLeod and Buster McLeod, who both had dreams of opening their own businesses.

After nine years of experience in galleries in Seattle, Brooklyn and Laguna Beach, Lele’s goal was to build her own open, friendly space that would allow her to support the artists she admires most. Buster McLeod, a partner in Seattle’s Robot Co-op, which runs the popular social networking site 43things.com, had a vision of recreating those kinds of online connections in real life: a lounge that is less of a place to get drunk and pick up dates, and more of an old-fashioned club where new and old friends can exchange ideas and conversation, in a place that feels like a second home.

The two friends decided to combine their ideas to form a lounge/gallery/club hybrid, but it wasn’t until they discovered the space on Belltown’s Second Avenue that McLeod Residence really started to take shape.

“We always knew that the space we found would have a huge impact on the business we built,” said Buster. “As soon as we found our site, everything else started coming together. It was the perfect place for our vision.” The site for McLeod was formerly an apartment building, and retains many of its more residential characteristics, with five separate rooms and two tiny closets. The individual rooms will allow the partners to execute many ideas simultaneously and let McLeod Residence’s split personality shine through.

McLeod Residence will open with a juried exhibition of digital 2-D art mounted on lightboxes. The artists, selected from almost 100 respondents to a call for art, include Jeff Bender, Craig Cowling, Matt Daniels, Chuck Lopez, Salah Mason and Maceo McNeff, and Galen Ward. The pieces will be available for purchase in editions of five lightboxes and five prints on paper.

Another room will contain an interactive multimedia installation entitled Eleven Conversations by artist and musician Paul Rucker. Rucker, who won the Seattle Music Awards’ 2005 Jazz Artist of the Year and the Golden Ear 2005 Emerging Artist of the Year, created this project from his book of over sixty ideas for interactive audio-visual pieces. Eleven Conversations involves a theremin-like sensor that allows participants to interact with eleven cello compositions.

The third exhibit is an installation of paintings and furniture from the late nineteenth-early twentieth century, entitled Parlor. Curated by renowned art dealer Jay Franklin, the room emulates an old-time parlor room and will contain rare early works from painters of the Pacific Northwest, such as Pieter Van Veen (1875-1961), Robert Wood (1889-1979), and Eustace P. Ziegler (1881-1969), as well as paintings by European masters.

In addition to the art gallery that will open in January, McLeod Residence will be home to a lounge that will open in early spring of 2007. Buster is collaborating with friends in the technology community to help create new twists on club staples such as music players and point of sale systems. Currently under development is a computer photobooth that will automatically send pictures to a community on photo-sharing Web site Flickr.com, where users may download their images when they get home. The photobooth will be complete in time for the January opening.

To encourage participation and a sense of ownership in its patrons, McLeod Residence will offer membership packages at several different suggested levels. Members will enjoy perks that include bottle service, a tab that may be paid monthly, free event space for one party a year, the opportunity to invent and name a drink for the menu, package and mail holding services, and use of the McLeod name. Members will also have exclusive access to the McLeod Room, which features a rare Abstract Expressionist painting by the Northwest Master William Ivey (1919-1992).

McLeod Residence will also collaborate with local antique dealers and furniture makers to provide showroom space for their work in the lounge areas. Designer Gary Andolina of Studio Andolina has created several of his signature bamboo plywood tables and benches for McLeod Residence. Almost every piece of furniture in the space will be for available for purchase.

NOTE TO EDITOR: High-res digital images of art are available upon request.

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McLeod Residence, located at 2209 Second Avenue in Seattle, Washington, is a home for extraordinary living through art, technology, and collaboration. Proprietors Buster McLeod and Lele McLeod founded McLeod Residence in 2006. McLeod Residence is open Tuesday–Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information, contact McLeod Residence at 206-441-3314 or visit www.mcleodresidence.com.