Nestled in the sleepy streets between Seattle’s Ballard and Fremont neighborhoods lies a time capsule of sorts. Not to a particular moment, memorialized for future recipients to open at a predetermined time, but to a collection of moments that have been gathered, bundled and taken out again, each being given a new purpose in the process. A collage of a life– of a building’s history– snipped, tossed and sorted until the resulting image is something entirely new, yet still recognizable.
I stepped into this kaleidoscopic world one evening, drawn in by the curiosity that exists around a place you’ve been acutely aware of for years but never actually visited. It was one of those summer nights where the brine from the Puget Sound rises up into the air, mixing with the lingering warmth of the day, creating an atmosphere that’s both heady and invigorating. Jeremy Eaton’s gallery, EnERGETIC, stood dark against the twilight, save for a golden glow coming from a small studio nestled against the side of the building. As I walked towards the glow, a swath of dizzying geometry and bold colors came into focus, framed by the evening darkness. An abundance of paintings, illustrations, and brightly colored figurines were tucked into the impossibly tiny space, filling every visible inch from floor to ceiling. If there was a surface left untouched, I certainly didn’t see it. Sitting in the midst of this menagerie was Eaton, lifting his brush to begin adding color to a blank canvas. A pause, a greeting, and a few moments later he brought me through the threshold into a world where the past and the present brush shoulders comfortably, where imagination runs gleefully rampant, and where Art truly Is Life.
Eaton moved into his home-turned-gallery in the late nineties. “It was almost like destiny,” he explains, as he recounts the tale of how he found himself living in the early 20th century building that houses himself and his upstairs neighbors, Kevin and Michelle. A prolific cartoonist and illustrator, he had moved to Seattle at the suggestion of one of his famed publishers, Fantagraphics. Eaton spent the first part of the decade living in a legendary communal art house in North Ballard before deciding it was time for a change. Seeking a change of pace, Eaton searched for a place he could experiment with painting as a medium. He eventually settled on what could best be described as a concrete cell, located in the basement of a car shop off Denny way. Although the future looked literally less than bright and was filled with the fumes of car exhaust, Eaton had made his decision. To celebrate, he went out for a burger at the now-demolished-for-apodments-restaurant, Zesto’s. It was there, while paging through pre-Craigslist-era classified paper, The Little Nickel, that fate intervened in the form of an advertisement for a quaint ground floor studio with a small lofted bedroom. Twenty seven years later the space still feels like a dream.
The building itself– a two story rectangular mass with storefront windows, an angled entry vestibule, and teal clapboard siding– was built in 1907.
For forty years it was a general store and mercantile until it was adapted into a grocery store with an upstairs apartment in the post-war years. After that its uses changed every decade or so, shifting from a print shop in the 70s, to a beauty store (“Desires”) in the 80s, to a storage space in the 90s. Shortly after, an industrious carpenter built a sleeping loft on the ground floor, creating the studio Eaton inhabits. A brightly painted pattern on the wood floor serves as a doormat, greeting you as you step through the original storefront door and into the gallery. Inside is a welcoming space brimming with dynamic artwork, found-and-repurposed objects, and a cheerful furnace painted to appear more like a sculpture than a functional heating source. A small kitchen lies to the left, separated from the rest of the space by a counter where Eaton will occasionally serve homemade pizza to lucky visitors. There’s hardly a right angle in the place, as evidenced by the gently sloping floors whose finish has been lovingly worn away in areas of high use. Beneath the sleeping loft, a small niche can be found where the flooring has been cut back, revealing literal layers of time. Beneath the current tongue and groove flooring lies a sheet of brown and gold formica, common in mid-century design and likely a fixture of the aforementioned print shop and beauty store. A layer below that is the original fir flooring, painted and splattered over one hundred years prior.
Eaton’s approach to historic reverence is less about preservation and more about coexistence. This approach is European in nature, which makes sense, given his upbringing in Great Britain. Inhabitants of “The Old World” have learned to make history a living entity by dwelling amongst it rather than cautiously stepping around it. Eaton has taken this ideal to heart, breathing new life into the building and turning it once more into a public space. Signs of its history and age are celebrated, but not made precious, as evidenced by a simple coat of gold paint accenting old exposed pipes and original hardware, painted geometric patterns which can be found everywhere from beadboard walls to cabinets to window trim, and a sign in the sleeping loft which proudly proclaims “Estd. 1907.”
A worn jean vest upon which Eaton has lovingly painted a homage to his parents is a notable example of the old and the new living in harmony alongside each other; the old playfully reimagined and given new purpose. This vest now depicts the miraculously photographed moment of his parents’ very first meeting during a cross-country bike trip in England. Eaton’s father, a draftsman, engineer, and cartographer for the Royal Air Force, also happened to be an exceedingly talented competitive cyclist. He came across Eaton’s mother’s party during their separate travels and someone had the foresight to snap a photo in which Eaton’s father is glancing ever-so-coyly at the beguiling young woman to his right (also an artist and an attendee of the Royal Academy of Arts). Eaton’s choice to memorialize this moment on such an atypical canvas resulted in the transformation of an object that once held little meaning and now holds an entire family history within the fibers of its form. His work and his way of life seem to follow a similar pattern; to create meaning out of memories, to transform and reimagine with abandon, and to bring life into a space or an object that otherwise had none.
Some people put the pieces of their life in a well-organized scrapbook, while others toss them into a box, deeming chronology unimportant. The tossed pieces then mix over the years until what is left in the box is a collage of the whole life rather than a linear progression of memories. Eaton’s home feels much like this, often making it difficult to identify exactly where– or rather, when– something came from. Antiquated objects of various provenance sit alongside modern artwork, colorful children’s figurines from the 60s make remarkably appropriate companions for brightly illustrated comics from the 90s, and an unassuming bench in the gallery opens up to reveal a veritable treasure trove of advertisements, catalogs, and illustrated pamphlets from Eaton’s youth.
Eaton and I stood at the kitchen table finishing the dregs of our chamomile tea as the evening drew to a close. Our conversation had ricocheted between every subject from literary heroes to meditation techniques to niche Seattle history in the heyday of the 90s, but we gradually orbited back to the epicenter of it all– the space that made living a life such as Eaton’s possible. As I prepared to go, Eaton dashed up the steps of his loft to retrieve a parting gift, presenting it by simply stating “You know, I think my whole identity was formed when I first read this book.” Entitled “The House That Beebo Built” (originally, “Serafin und seine Wundermaschine”) by French author Phillipe Fix, the gorgeously illustrated pages told the timeless tale of a man who discovers the utter joy of creation by crafting a fantastically whimsical reality for himself and his friend within the confines of a dilapidated old home. Through their ingenuity, they cobble together broken cars, flea market finds and junkyard scraps until their home is nothing short of a marvel. At one point, Beebo’s friend gazes in wonder around the space, quite unsure if he is dreaming or simply witnessing magic.
Eaton’s home had a similarly remarkable effect on me, leaving me with the sensation that I had stepped into a space where the stability of time became a little less solid. Minutes became hours, the past made itself a welcome guest, and the boundaries of a vibrant reality blurred until the fantastical felt reasonably feasible. Magic may only be real in Beebo’s world, but dreams can still become a reality in this one, as evidenced by the man who constructs shape, color, and memory much in the way that Beebo cobbled together his home.
