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From creator of Roq La Rue, Creatura House comes home to E Pike

Back from trips abroad and creating a nonprofit, Kirsten Anderson is again starting up an art gallery, but this time it’s intertwined with retail and, in a twist for the traveler, home.

Anderson founded art gallery Roq La Rue in 1998 and ran the space until it shuttered last year. It had a successful run, eventually, profits began to fall and Anderson felt burnt out on the arts scene.

“I thought this was a good time to step out and explore other things I want to do,” she said. Anderson spent her time exploring other countries as she raised money for her nonprofit. “I really missed having a space here in Seattle, being a part of the community. I had really gotten into home decor, and pulled in fine arts.”

Creatura House will be a home decor shop mingled with select art. The products will not be mass produced. To reside at 705 E Pike next to Babeland and Honeyhole, the shop opens December 8th with artist Peter Ferguson’s series of new paintings for his exhibition “I’ll Line My Nest With Your Bones.”

UPDATE: The grand opening is planned for December 15th:

Creatura House grand opening

Skate style shop Alive and Well will be making way for the new venture.

The arts business, for a while, wasn’t something Anderson thought she’d get back into.

“Artwork has changed so much and mid level galleries have been blown out,” she said. Anderson fiddles with one of the many rings on her tattooed fingers. They’re delicate tattoos, like dots and arrows. Larger tattoos decorated her arms and her earrings sparkled green and maroon beneath her black hair. Her subdued and darker style matched that of her artistic interests.

“I’m really into anything that’s dark and beautiful, not necessarily macabre, but I appreciate dark things as well,” Anderson said. “I’m completely driven by aesthetics, my whole life. I have made a living selling beautiful things to people. I like to make environments that are beautiful for people.”

She said she likes to straddle the line between absolutely beautiful and somewhat grotesque. Anderson pictures Creatura House warm, beautiful, and with a decayed opulence.

“A decayed New Orleans mansion look,” she said. “I really love old buildings and old castles, the grandeur that’s falling apart but still has echoes of its former glory.”

Since her decision to return to the art world, she keeps hearing the word sanctuary. It comes in part from her nonprofit work raising awareness and funds for animals.

“I want to create a place that people want to go to, like a destination, that people think is neat and inspiring,” Anderson said. “I want people to come in and want to stay in there, say ‘I want to live in this world.’”

Anderson said she missed the art world she suddenly left behind. But Anderson also felt the monetary strain in art culture and she noticed during her travels home decor was on the rise.

“Here’s me in a house with a giraffe that kinda fits Creatura’s vibe” (Image courtesy Kirsten Anderson)

“There’s a huge interest in home décor right now and it kind of relates to what’s going on in the world,” Anderson said. “People want to build little nests for themselves. Our world is so uncertain right now and really scary, actually.”

Her home decor and art sanctuary will thus subtly incorporate the natural world. Anderson listed off adjectives: “animal, mineral, botanical, cosmos.”

She used to consider home decor and art extremely separate. Decor arose in her mind as mass produced stuff. Art, on the other hand, is someone’s “song on a canvas.”

Creatura House, Anderson hopes, will create work and opportunity for artists while raising some money for charities and her nonprofit. But the store will be “high end.”

“It’s kind of what’s happening on Capitol Hill: There’s a little more high end business coming in here, and I’m one of them,” she said. “The influx of all the new money and changing the rents, it’s tough, but I think Capitol Hill needs that mix. This is the cycle of things. I’ve been part of Seattle’s counterculture for a long time. My shop is still paying local artists to do things, so I don’t really feel guilty about the prices that I charge because artists deserve to make money.”

Living in Capitol Hill since the ’90s, Anderson was a part of the grunge heyday. She loves the small businesses on the Hill and feels losing them is horrible, but seeing chains come in would be worse.

“Like No Parking, the vintage shop, I’d be devastated if that thing closed,” Anderson said. “It’s what makes [the Hill] meaningful, and I would hope to contribute to that, not just like ‘fuck it, this is the new art.’ I want it to be a continuation of something that’s cool.”

Creatura House’s opening comes as another Hill boutique that mixes gallery status with retail sensibilities is sorting out what to do next after losing its lease. In October, CHS reported on Ghost Gallery’s announcement that it is leaving its Summit at Denny home early next year.

While Anderson can handle her rent, the numbers are still daunting. She called it “frightening.” Regardless, she’s here to stay. Anderson knows a lot of people miss her unique art and she herself deeply missed collaborating with the Hill’s artists.

“It’s just what I grew up knowing,” she said. “It’s just like breathing to me.”

Creatura House opens in December at 705 E Pike. You can learn more at creatura.haus.

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