BAM will offer 60 art classes each 10-week term. "The classrooms are designed to be dirty, practical, art-making spaces," Wallace explains. "One of them is dedicated solely to ceramics. And we'll have some classes that will be geared specifically to families who want to work together."
One factor in BAM's successful expansion is that its mission doesn't overlap or compete with those of other area art institutions. "We're positioning ourselves as the museum that is closest to the bleeding edge, the one that shows art by people who don't even have gallery representation yet," Wallace says. He hopes that the area's high-tech workforce -- whose careers thrive or flounder based on proximity to the bleeding edge -- will gravitate to BAM as a result.
Already, galleries are opening up in Bellevue to be close to the new museum, which will help invigorate the city's core. And Wallace is reaching out to successful local techies as potential donors and members. On an evening last October, Wallace co-led a tour of Microsoft's art collection with Michael Klein, the company's in-house curator (and a member of BAM's board). The tour attracted a group of about 40 Microsoft employees and museum supporters from outside Microsoft, and the group spent a half-hour after the tour schmoozing over drinks with Wallace, Klein, and Douglas.
"This is a de Medici moment," says Douglas, 44. "Who knows how long it will last? We have a group of successful people growing up with this institution and other cultural institutions around Puget Sound. It's wonderful."
Scott Kirsner (kirsner@att.net), a Fast Company contributing editor, is based in Boston's historic North End.
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