Short Trips: Whatever the weather, turn up the brights by visiting these sites

Here's a short trip long on potential: Three Seattle art galleries, doable on a single afternoon when it's rainy and cold, the TV is lousy and so are the footballing Huskies and the Hawks.


		GILBERT W. ARIAS / P-I
	Before entering the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, take a moment to enjoy the art-deco facade of the building, formerly the home of SAM.

You can do it, one after another, and give each its due -- the Frye; the Seattle Art Museum's Asian collection in SAM's classic, old headquarters in Volunteer Park, and the Henry, on the western edge of the UW campus.

Linger at each stop but don't dawdle.

And keep in mind, that if you can't spare a weekend afternoon but have an open Thursday, admission to each of the three is as free as the Frye is every day, and all three extend those free Thursday hours well into the early evening.

Here's the route:

Start at the Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum on First Hill. Then work your way north to Capitol Hill and the old art-deco building in Volunteer Park. From there, point yourself north again, dropping off the hill into the University District for a stop at the Horace C. Henry Art Gallery.

The Frye

You will find the Frye's big bronze doors open just one block south of O'Dea High School and its constant companion, St. James Cathedral.

You also will find it just across the street from an area paved in concrete and marked "Frye Parking" and something about "violators" being impounded. It's free, too, which is in line with the founders' goal: Make art accessible.

What you'll find inside -- through March -- is a massive display of realistic art from the founders' original collection. Charles Frye (1858-1940) was a Seattle meatpacking tycoon from Iowa whose loves, in addition to Emma, included making money in real estate, gold mines and oil wells, and buying art. (You can read all about the Fryes on the HistoryLink.org Web site goto.seattlepi.com/r406.)


		GILBERT W. ARIAS / P-I
	A self-portrait of artist Vik Muniz is part of his "Reflex" exhibition called "Picture of Magazine" at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Here is how P-I art critic Regina Hackett explained them and their collection, which are paintings that depict things and scenes mostly the way they are.

"When Charles and Emma Frye thought of art," Hackett wrote, "they thought of European art, especially the overheated, romantic strain of academic realism coming out of Germany in the 19th century."

Examples on hand include molting ducks as ducks molting; mountains with glistening glaciers as mountains with glistening glaciers, and people who look like people, with and without clothes, including 1913 renderings of Charles and Emma, both with clothes.

Indeed, said Hackett, it is a style you can expect to see during every visit to the Frye, because Charles' will "stipulates that his European material must always be on view."

And so it is.

However, the museum's long-standing reputation as a conservative institution hasn't survived its flashy entrance into the 21st century. Thanks to new management, the Frye went from the safest to the most daring art museum in the region, still concentrating on realism but opening the word to a wide range of new meanings.

Just walk in.

Seattle Asian Art Museum

In Volunteer Park, SAM's Seattle Asian Art Museum is found at a city viewpoint near where the uplands of Capitol Hill begin their collapse toward the neighborhoods of Portage Bay and Lake Union.


		GILBERT W. ARIAS / P-I
	At the Henry Art Gallery, Inglemoor High School seniors, from left, Shu Xian Lee, Inne Leung and Hilary Carmichael view videos from the "Take the Cake" exhibition.

Find a parking slot and take a moment to enjoy view. It reaches across the Volunteer Park reservoir to the city, the Space Needle and Elliott Bay, and like the weather, changes by the minute.

As well, take note that Volunteer Park is a Victorian Age park, about as old-fashioned as they come in Seattle, and is considered by many to be an objet d'art in its own right. It is one of the creations left by John Charles Olmsted, the landscape architect whose daddy designed New York's Central Park, and whose citywide influence can be seen south from Ballard's Sunset Hill Park to the shorelines of Lake Washington and Seward Park.

Inside the museum you are likely to find more than Asian art these days because SAM's expanding downtown parent museum -- it of "Hammering Man" -- is under construction and closed until spring.

Currently on display is an exhibit of Buddhist art plucked from the collection of museum founder Richard Fuller. (Again, go to the HistoryLink.org Web site to find more about Fuller and his influence on the Seattle art scene: goto.seattlepi.com/r407.)

To learn about the blue-eyed Siddhartha Gautama -- the Buddha; the awakened one -- and that "radiant" mole in the middle of his forehead (yes, they claim it was just a mole), go through the exhibit slowly and read each tablet.

The Henry

Now for that bewilderment of structures known altogether as the Henry.


		GILBERT W. ARIAS / P-I
	A major exhibit of Stephen Shore photographs is one reason these days to visit the Henry Art Gallery on the University of Washington campus.

Through the end of December you'll find a major exhibit of Stephen Shore photographs.

Moving from wall to wall and from image to image, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. Why this guy? Why these photos?

You will have company.

"The Biographical Landscape: The Photography of Stephen Shore 1968-1993" appears to be little more than a collection of snapshots, albeit big ones, from your Uncle Fred the Motorist and the slide show he hauls out every so often to remember his trips.

There is the Westbank Motel in Idaho Falls, Room 125. There is the rainstorm in Yellowstone and the rainbow over the Horseshoe Bend Motel in Lovell, Wyo.

And there, from Fort Lauderdale, is a photo of the back of third baseman Graig Nettles in the No. 9 pinstripe he wore as a member of the New York Yankees. He is standing in a batting cage. He is waiting for a pitch.

Then there is this:

In among the images of empty streets and bare-faced buildings is a series of four small snapshots. They are displayed as if culled from a roll of 120 film retrieved from Bartell Drugs back in the '50s. They are black and white, and depict four views of the male member.


		GILBERT W. ARIAS / P-I
	Visitors to the Henry Art Gallery check out Stephen Shore�s photographs in the exhibit of his work, "The Biographical Landscape."

Yes, that male member.

If you wish to encounter them, they are lying horizontally in a display case arranged in the middle of the room.

On the chance that you don't, that you fear the possible onset of a prurient urge, stick like oatmeal to the room's periphery.

In any case, here is your homework:

For a wider representation of Shore's work and a short biography from The Getty Museum, give a click to the following Web sites.

For the photos: goto.seattlepi.com/r408

For the bio: goto.seattlepi.com/r409

Frye Art Museum

704 Terry Ave.; 206-622-9250. On the Web: goto.seattlepi.com/r395 Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday (except 10-8 Thursdays); noon-5 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday. Cafe and gallery shop. Admission: always free. Parking: Free in the museum's lot across the street.

Seattle Asian Art Museum

1400 E. Prospect St. in Volunteer Park (the park's entrance is at 14th Avenue East and East Prospect Street); 206-654.3100. On the Web: goto.seattlepi.com/r394.Coffee cart, prepared sandwiches and gallery shop. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday (except 10-9 Thursday), closed Monday. Admission: Free to all on first Thursday and first Saturday of each month. Otherwise, suggested admission: $5, $3 all students with ID, seniors age 62 and older and youths 13-17. Free to SAM members and children under 13. Parking: It's free in the park.

Henry Art Gallery

On the University of Washington campus, 15th Avenue Northeast at Northeast 41st Str.; 206-221-4980. On the Web: goto.seattlepi.com/r396.Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday (except 11-8 Thursday), closed Monday. Cafe and gallery shop. Admission: Thursdays free; otherwise $10, $6 seniors age 62 and older. Always free for Henry members; UW students, faculty and staff with ID; all high-school and college students with ID, and children 13 and younger. Parking: metered on the street or paid in the UW's underground Central Parking Garage (enter on 15th Avenue Northeast at Northeast 41st Street). On Sundays parking usually is free, but during the week it's a madhouse, as is the University District when school is in session.

If you go by bus

Metro, 206-553-3000; Sound Transit, 206-398-5000; Community Transit, 206-353-7433

P-I reporter Gordy Holt can be reached at 206-448-8356 or gordyholt@seattlepi.com.