Lorinda Knight Gallery
Spokane business owner Lorinda Knight suprised the Spokane community and announced that she would be closing the Lorinda Knight Gallery and retiring at the end of the month.
Arts & Culture - November 13, 2009
The Next Step
By Erika Prins
Every month, downtown art gallery owner Lorinda Knight hand-labels 2,000 announcement cards for her new exhibits. This month, the cards included an extra announcement: the Lorinda Knight Gallery will close on Nov. 28 when Knight retires.
“I think she might just have surprised the entire community. I didn’t hear a whisper about it,” says Ben Mitchell, curator of art at the MAC. “It was complete shock. And, you know, disappointment. Almost a kind of mourning.”
Labeling the mountain of cards each month, says Knight with her characteristic gentle chuckle, is a task she’s glad to leave behind.
Closing now coincides with Knight’s husband’s retirement and the end of her downtown gallery space’s five-year lease. “The times made sense,” she says. In 13 years of gallery ownership, she has had 140 exhibits and represented around 40 local and regional artists.