Email
Print
del.icio.us
digg
yahoo!
Comments
FeedPeter Blake Gallery Celebrates 15 Years
Find out how this former waiter helped turn the Laguna Beach art community into what it is today.
By Susan Segal
 |
P
art of the history of the Laguna Beach art scene started in, of all places, a restaurant. And it started with a waiter with a dream. Having just been promoted to manager at Laguna’s Romeo Cucina Restaurant in 1993, Peter Blake’s dream was to own his own art gallery. The reason? He liked art.With no art degree and no experience in the gallery business, Blake was sure he could convince others that what he liked was worth hanging on their walls. The night of his promotion to restaurant manager, he and his then-wife, Fetneh, were out celebrating in Laguna when they came across a property for rent. Two days later, the Blakes signed the lease.
The Peter Blake Gallery, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this month, was literally started on Blake’s unswerving faith that he could exert a real influence on the local art scene. With nothing more than the lease and the space, Blake began looking for “the best artists in Laguna Beach” and soliciting their work for his gallery.
His long-term goals were no less lofty: to change the reputation of the Laguna Beach art community. Aside from a couple of high-end plein air galleries, Laguna Beach was “known for extremely commercial art work,” when his gallery arrived on the scene, says Blake. At first, some serious abstract artists that he solicited laughed at the idea that he could successfully showcase fine contemporary art, especially abstract art. But Blake proved them wrong. The Peter Blake Gallery has developed a reputation for cutting edge art that spreads far beyond the boundaries of Orange County.
Blake thinks of the gallery’s history in five-year increments. “The first five were a huge failure,” he laughs. “I worked six nights a week at Romeo and seven days a week at the gallery and [my wife] worked full time just for us to stay open.” By 1998, the gallery was successful enough for the couple to quit their day jobs. In the gallery’s second five years, Blake partnered with artist and fellow gallery owner William deBilzan to create the Laguna Beach Art Walk, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and which now attracts 2,000-3,000 visitors each month.
The last third of the 15 years, says Blake, was spent focusing back on Laguna Beach artists and cementing their national and international reputations. “In the last five years we’ve been showing [Laguna-based] artists like Jimmy Gleason and Jeff Peters – they are doing incredible work here,” Blake says, adding that they are gaining national reputations.
And what of the next five years? “I see us going national and international,” Blake says about the gallery, but he seems even more interested in the future of the Orange County art world. He is proud of what he has helped bring to the Laguna Beach art scene but recognizes that it doesn’t – and shouldn’t – begin and end with him. “This is not a short-lived situation,” he says, of Laguna’s growing presence in the art world. “There are people like Jack Flynn (of the J. Flynn Gallery in Costa Mesa) who are lined up to move the county forward. People like Flynn, says Blake, “are the future of art in Orange County.”
The Peter Blake Gallery exhibit, 15 years 15 artists, runs through March. Call (949) 376-9994 or visit www.peterblakegallery.com.
Do you like what you read? Subscribe to Coast Magazine »
Reader Comments:
Great article. Short, sweet, to the point. Peter serves as an example to many of us as a friend, businessman and all around Mensch.
As they say in many cultures while raising a toastto birthdays and the like: "A hundred Years!"
I wish him a thousand.
Once again, in case my last one did not go through:
Kudos to Susan for writing a short but concise profile on a man who has been a friend to many. There was standing room only at his 15th anniversary party and for good reason. As some say: What's there not to like." Peter is a self-made man in the best sense. I wish him 100 more years. Daniella Walsh
Peter Blake should be applauded for his good work and his ability to survive fifteen years in the O.C. as a contemporary art gallerist.
As much as I respect his accomplishment, I must point out that Peter stands on the shoulders of others. I would appreciate if Coast Magazine recognized the efforts of Mark Chamberlain at BC Space, Orange County's longest surviving contemporary art venue.
Also, Diane Nelson, and later, Stuart Katz, whose galleries and support of local artists goes back decades. Mike McGee and Michael McManus, successive curators at Laguna Art Museum, also championed contemporary artists, especially local talent.
All of these "predecessors" brought an awareness and a commitment to the rich heritage and potential future of contemporary art in Laguna Beach and to Orange County as a whole.
Let us not forget the artists as well. You have to have art before you can have a gallery, the commercial context in which Peter Blake now revels.
Tom Dowling
Artist,
Professor of Art,
Orange Coast College