Published March 2002

Family biz switches
from cows to Kinkade

By John Wolcott
Herald Business Journal Editor

Thomas Kinkade, recognized as one of the world’s most popular “painters of light,” has created a highly marketable world of paintings, prints, books, magnets, mugs, stationery, nightlights, CDs, videos, computer screen savers and jigsaw puzzles.

And, Arlington’s Mark Klein and his family have found a new world of their own in Thom Kinkade’s work.

Once a struggling dairy farmer, Klein was inspired by Kinkade’s artwork to become a struggling art merchant instead. Starting with $6,000, a solid work ethic, a lot of risk taking and a lot of prayers, he has churned his initial venture into a successful mix of three galleries that have produced more than $1 million a year in revenues in each of the past three years.

“We have Snohomish County as our territory, with a half-million dollars worth of inventory,” Klein said, still in awe of how much his life has been changed in just a few years. “We were in the right place at the right time and made the right decision to grow with Thom’s company and his Signature Gallery program.”

Klein has been able to market a wide range of Kinkade’s colorful painting prints and related products, first in Arlington, then in Edmonds and next in his Everett Mall store. While Thomas Kinkade’s life as a prolific painter and profitable purveyor of products is well known, Klein’s history isn’t, yet he has had his own share of life-changing events.

When his great-grandparents came to America from Holland, they settled in Snohomish County and raised 15 children, all of them devoted to dairying, a business many of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren also carried on, Klein said.

Gradually, as the dairy industry waned with plummeting milk prices, the Klein family’s herds and farms were sold, year after year, until it became Mark Klein’s turn to move on.

“Back in the spring of '94, we decided it was time to do something different. Times were changing and so was dairying,” Klein said. “Milk prices dropped so fast that we were losing thousands of dollars a month and losing our equity in our cows. The handwriting was on the wall.”

Klein, at 40, started over, opening a small gift shop in downtown Arlington with $6,000 worth of merchandise. Times were lean. He balanced the family budget, most of the time, with a second job milking cows for his cousins for two years.

“It was a low point in my life,” Klein said, “But when a friend mentioned Thomas Kinkade — I’d never heard of him — I found I could set up a dealer’s account with Kinkade’s company. My first order for four paintings brought in $1,500, which was just overwhelming for us.”

Then, as Kinkade’s popularity grew, Klein added more prints, including some of the painter’s “hometown memories” series of old towns and old cars.

“It was the most beautiful painting I’d ever seen,” he said. “I told myself if I ever could, I’d sure buy one of them.”

After quickly selling 11 of the $1,000 paintings he was on his way to having his own. With three galleries, Klein now has 15 of Kinkade’s pictures in his own home, while son Matthew also has his own growing collection.

Like the dairy business, Klein’s art galleries are also a family business. His wife, Debbie, has been an integral partner since it was started in 1994, and their three sons are also involved. Matthew manages the Arlington gallery, and his brothers, Aaron and Nicholas, work part time and summers when they’re not in college.

Klein’s gallery business has surpassed all of his dreams of starting a new career, with all three stores still growing in popularity, along with Kinkade’s own career. Starting with one partner in 1989, Kinkade is now the largest art producer in the world, Klein said.

“Marketing had a lot to do with putting Thom’s art in front of people. But the key to his success is the way people respond to his paintings. People tell me they’d like to be in the scenes he paints, and they love the way he uses light to make his paintings glow. He’ll be popular for generations,” Klein said.

And that popularity — heightened in the Northwest by Kinkade’s visits from his California home for scenic painting journeys into Washington’s mountainous wilderness areas — translates into artwork prints that have become investment properties, too, though few buy solely for investment, Klein said.

“About a month ago, I sold a collector a $1,100 limited-edition painting that is already worth $4,000. But most of our customers are a cross-section of the community, from successful business people to homeowners struggling with mortgages who want their own copies of Thom’s artwork,” Klein said.

More information about Klein’s Light of the World Galleries is available at 360-435-1661. Information about Thomas Kinkade is available on the Internet at www.thomaskinkade.com.

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