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Three Women Bring Russian Art to Seattle With Love…
A Russian artist finds Seattle gallery. How did that happen? The story begins over 20 years ago when Sue Peterson took a marketing course for women starting businesses. One of the instuctors was marketing expert Carol Vipperman. Shortly thereafter, Carol founded a non profit organization called FRAEC (the Foundation for Russian-American Economic Cooperation). The Soviet Union soon after collapsed and Carol was able to teach a similar course for women entrepeneurs in Russia through the US State Department. One of her students was Valentina Likhoyda. Valentina stayed in contact with Carol and their friendship grew. Valentina mentioned that her husband was an artist. When Carol visited Valentina on her return trip to Vladivostok she was in for a treat. Upon meeting Valentina’s husband Vasily Reshchuk, she was presented with a viewing of two decades of his paintings. She fell in love with his art, began to collect his paintings and brought some back to her Seattle home and FRAEC office. Bob Ness is an international business consultant whose work in Russia brought him into contact with Carol and FRAEC. While meeting with Carol, Bob’s eyes were drawn to Vasily’s art on the wall of her office. One thing lead to another and Bob took on the cause to find a venue to exhibit Vasily’s art in Seattle. In the 1990’s, Sue and her husband Ron opened an art gallery in Queen Anne where Carol happens to also live. Carol mentioned the existance of Fountainhead Gallery to Bob and as he began to promote Vasily’s work, Fountainhead Gallery was mentioned by others as a potential match. Bob followed up and indeed a match was made. Sue and Carol were able to reconnect for the first time in over 20 years. Carol’s two students, Sue and Valentina have gone on to work together to assure the success of Vasily’s 2004, 2006 and 2007 exhibits. Sue still has the handouts from that seminar some 20 plus years ago that in some way led to the existance of Fountainhead Gallery, Carol’s non- profit has grown and prospered and Valentina is happily managing her husbands blossoming painting career. |