Our new cultural space liaison will serve as a project manager and liaison with various city departments like the Department of Planning and Development for work on city codes and policies in place for the development and maintenance of cultural spaces within the city, and will also launch a new space finder tool that will connect artists and arts organizations to available spaces for development, rehearsal, or presentation of their work. The position will also promote the economic activity generated by arts and cultural activities; and educate citizens, property owners and developers on the importance of the arts regarding property values and neighborhood character.

It’s a big job. And we’ve hired a great person to do it: arts entrepreneur, Matthew Richter has founded and directed successful nonprofit arts organizations, including the Rm 608 Gallery for Visual and Performing Arts and the Consolidated Works contemporary arts center. He served on the boards of Allied Arts and the National Arts and Technology Network, and has lectured at the University of Washington and Seattle University. Matthew comes to us most recently as the program manager of Shunpike’s Storefronts, a community and neighborhood support program that places artists and arts projects into vacant storefronts spaces in Seattle and cities around the Pacific Northwest.

Matthew has extensive cultural space experience: he has launched, directed, and completed three major capital campaigns to build arts facilities, the most recent of which, a $500,000 campaign for Consolidated Works, created a 32,000 square foot contemporary arts facility in a 1944 warehouse in South Lake Union, containing a 150-seat theater, a 50-seat cinema, a 4,000 square foot gallery, a 300-person music and lecture hall, three artist-in-residence studios, six offices for fellow nonprofits, a full bar and lounge, an arts resource room, and rehearsal and meeting spaces. Additionally, he has commissioned and produced over 20 world-premiere mainstage theater performances, and three short films and was the co-producer of 14/48, the world’s quickest theater festival, for almost a decade.

 We’re thrilled to welcome Matthew aboard and continue our work in the area of cultural space.

Here’s a couple of images to celebrate. Let us know what your favorite work of public art is.

Personally, I’m really excited about this project because I believe that our office is doing great, fantastic work in our community – we’re working to make Seattle a better place to be an artist, work at a cultural organization and enjoy the abundance of art offerings our city produces. But when I started here, I didn’t feel like we were telling that story well enough. Our logo had (admittedly) been designed without much process and our name was clunky and so hard to say that most people shorted it to the acronym “OACA” (pronounced something like “o-walk-a”), which if you hear without reference sounds a bit like somebody sneezing.  

How we got to this point was confusing as well: originally we started out as the Seattle Arts Commission in 1971. In the 2000s we moved to Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and then several years later Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.  And here we are changing it again – but this time I believe we’re acting on a more strategic decision. We’re getting rid of “affairs” (no need to sound pretentious) and presenting a logo that takes it down to the basics – A & C for Arts and Culture.  We also have a new tagline, “Making Art Work,” that encompasses both what we do as well as our attitude.

While I’m incredibly proud of this new brand system for our office, at the end of the day a logo is just a stand-in for the product and service that it represents. So we’re going to get back to work supporting the artists and organizations that make Seattle a special place. I hope you keep an eye out for the new mark and if you do, let us know where you saw it and how it looks.

And if you’re talking about us in the community, I beg of you: please call us the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, or if you have to shorten it, Seattle’s Arts Office. If I never again hear “OACA,” this project will be a success.  

- Calandra Childers, Communications Manager

P.S. If  you are a partner organization looking to update your materials, you can find every possible size/color combo/file type of the new logo here.

18 artists, $137,500: The 2013 Artist Trust awards
The Seattle Times, Melissa Davis

Artist Trust, which supports Washington artists through grants, professional development and other resources, announces the recipients of the 2013 Irving and Yvonne Twining Humber Award, as well as fellowships in a variety of disciplines.

Photo: Norie Sato/Photo by Ellen M. Banner, The Seattle Times

The Stranger’s Guide to SIFF 2013
The Stranger, David Schmader

They don’t call SIFF America’s biggest film festival just for kicks. Besides corralling 273 films (plus multiple shorts packages) from all over the globe, the 2013 Seattle International Film Festival is three and a half weeks long, which means you have almost an entire month to dive into SIFF, get sick of it and ignore it for a while, then dive back in all over again.

The Full Monte
The Stranger, Melody Datz

Raffaele Morra does not shave his chest, even though his professional wardrobe includes pointe shoes, a golden tiara, and yards of fluffy white tulle. For someone used to the traditional staging of classical ballets, it may be jolting to see a hairy, um, décolletage nestled into a frilly white Swan Lake costume, or to watch the uniquely defined musculature of male quadriceps peeking out from under a tutu while whipping through 32 fouettés. But the all-male company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo makes it work.

Photo: Sascha Vaughn

Seattle Art Museum Offers Free General Admission on Saturday May 18, 2013
Seattle PI

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) offers free general admission to SAM Downtown and the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) on Saturday, May 18 as part of the Association of Art Museum Directors’ (AAMD) Art Museum Day, coinciding with International Museum Day, on May 18. This year, SAM—along with more than 120 other AAMD member museums across North America will participate in Art Museum Day.  General admission includes all of the galleries except for admission to the special exhibition, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London.

The application deadline is 11 p.m., Wednesday, July 17, 2013 (Pacific Daylight Time). Go here for the online application.

CityArtists is an annual funding program that provides support to individual Seattle artists to research, develop and present new, in-progress or remounted work that is taken to the next level. Projects must include a public presentation within the city limits of Seattle. The program encourages a broad range of artistic and cultural expression that reflects Seattle’s diversity. Funding is offered to artists in clusters of disciplines in the visual, media and literary arts and performing arts in alternate years.

For more information, contact Irene Gómez at irene.gomez@seattle.gov or (206) 684-7310.

All applicants, particularly new ones, are encouraged to attend a workshop overview session plus a draft review. Reservations are not required for the workshop; the draft review session is by appointment only.

Workshop: Program Overview
Monday, June 3
5 to 7 p.m.
Seattle Public Library-Douglass Truth Branch, 2300 East Yesler Way
Past award recipients present tips at 6 p.m.

Draft Review (by reservation only)

Monday, June 24
5 to 7 p.m.
Pratt Fine Arts Center, 1902 South Main Street

Call 206 684-7310 for appointment.

In 2013, the last funding cycle for the performing arts, 31 artists working in dance, music and theater received $160,000 to support the development and presentation of original works. Thirty percent of the artists funded were first-time recipients.

While CityArtist Projects gives priority to projects by independent artists, lead artists of nonprofit organizations may submit project proposals. However, artists affiliated with an organization must distinguish their proposals from the seasonal work of their organizations.

Evans Pool is one of the most heavily used public swimming pools in the city. Built in the 1930s, Seattle Parks and Recreation restored the community center in the ’80s and commissioned Troutner and Marioni to create the artwork. Seven Figures is a five‑by‑26‑foot glass window wall that depicts seven life‑size human figures swimming through water, with details such as fish, seashells, coins and buried treasure. Soft light filters through the translucent underwater scene, made of approximately 300 unique sand‑cast glass tiles. The “sky” in the window scene is made from special, tempered gray plate glass.

The public response to the window was so favorable that a second glass artwork was commissioned by the community to surround the front doorway of the community center building. Marioni and Troutner’s Portal artwork frames the main entrance and is made of rippled cast glass with an underlay of dichroic glass, which appears brilliant blue from a distance, then turns gold as the viewer approaches.

You can watch Seattle Channel’s video about artist Paul Marioni here.

Seven Figures was funded by Seattle Parks and Recreation 1% for Art funds.

-Tamara Gill, Community Development & Outreach

IMAGES: Paul Marioni and Ann Troutner; 1989; Seven Figures, Portal; cast‑glass blocks in aluminum frame; dichroic and cast glass in brass frame; 5′ x 26′ (Seven Figures); 8′ x 8 1/2′ (Portal). Located at Green Lake Community Center.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.

A companion piece to his multi-part artwork Incrementally at a nearby stormwater detention facility, Kuby designed Hydro-Bio-Geo to be compatible with the character of Washington Park. The artwork animates the exposed facade of the 14-foot-tall stormwater holding tank. Three pairs of downspouts and weep holes send water down the wall to a rain garden below. These wet zones will soon become lush and green as they become colonized with moss and ferns. In between, faux-bark facades lead to 29 cavity nesting birdhouses embedded in the wall. As the landscape matures, the bird houses will become more attractive nest sites.

Kuby has created permanently sited artworks in the Northwest and Canada and has exhibited his artworks throughout the country. His artworks are collaborations with the built and natural world that aim to foster a sense of connectedness in our environment.  Each project provides an opportunity to explore how human activity and natural systems can better coexist and how art can promote a deeper sense of place.

The artwork is funded with SPU 1% for Art funds and addresses SPU’s stewardship of water collection and drainage.

Getting there: Washington Park is accessible by Metro buses 11, 43, 48 and 84. ADA access to Washington Park is available at the north side of the Washington Park playfield, from the parking lot off of Lake Washington Boulevard East.

For more information: Contact Grace Manzano, Project Manager, (206) 233-1534.

IMAGES: Adam Kuby; Hydro-Bio-Geo; 2012; basalt, cast acrylic, recycled plastic; 14’ x 110’ x 8”. PhotoS by the artist.

Investment dollars will ensure that every student in the Central Pathway of Seattle Public Schools receives a minimum of two hours per week of arts education programming, as well as support the purchase of instruments and other art supplies for classrooms. The Central Pathway, which consists of schools in and around Seattle’s Central District, was chosen due to strong existing partnerships with community-based arts education organizations. The eventual goal of the program is to expand each year until all SPS students receive two hours per week of arts education programming by 2020.

This investment was made possible by higher-than-expected admission tax revenue, primarily due to the new cultural facilities Chihuly Garden & Glass at Seattle Center and the Great Wheel on the waterfront.

“This investment will allow us to deepen our existing partnership with Seattle Public Schools to improve access to arts education for all students in our community,” said Mayor McGinn. “Arts education has been consistently shown to improve educational outcomes, increase attendance rates and decrease discipline rates.”

Studies have found that Seattle students do not have consistent access to arts education, and access can be predicted based on ethnicity, English-language-learner status or free-and-reduced-lunch status.

This investment builds on the ongoing partnership between the city of Seattle and SPS, now called The Creative Advantage. In 2011 the city and SPS received a Wallace Foundation planning grant of $1M, which provided for the creation of a comprehensive K-12 arts plan that ensures that every student will receive 120 minutes of arts instruction per week. The city’s investment kick-starts the implementation phase of The Creative Advantage.

“Our community has spent the last two years developing and writing this plan, and the time is now to make it a reality,” said Superintendent Jose Banda. “Our first investment area is the Central Pathway.”

“Furthering our work in arts education is the most important thing I can do in this job,” said newly appointed Director Randy Engstrom, Office of Arts & Culture. “This initiative will change the way nearly 50,000 of our city’s young citizens engage with their community and think about the world. This investment is a major turning point.”

The 2013 Genius Awards Finalists Get Their Cakes!
The Stranger, Kelly O

And the nominees for the 2013 Genius Awards are…

Jinkx and Jerick: From ‘Rent’ to RuPaul
The Seattle Times, Melissa Davis

Fans of Seattle performer Jinkx Monsoon (aka Jerick Hoffer) cheered Monday night as the drag diva was crowned winner of Season 5 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

No Two Performances Will Be the Same
The Stranger, Melody Datz

A cyclist almost hits a parked car straining his neck to watch Ezra Dickinson tour jeté down Stewart Street. Dickinson is not tall, but his long arms and high balletic leaps and jumps cut through the apathetic throng of people hanging around outside of the Greyhound bus station. The loiterers perk up and watch—interested or confused or amused or all of the above. Whether they want to or not, they’ve become part of Dickinson’s stage.

New name, same theater at Seattle Center
The Seattle Times, Lynn Jacobson

The Seattle Center theater formerly known as Intiman Playhouse is now under the management of Cornish College of the Arts, and it has a new moniker: The Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center.

Composer Eric Banks Takes Audiences On Intellectual Adventures
KUOW, Amy Radil
If your concept of choral music is somewhere between the TV show “Glee” and the Kings College Choir, the music Eric Banks loves may come as a revelation.

In the ’80s, when the City Light Canal Substation was added to the list of city substation renovations, the Seattle Arts Commission selected Noah to work on the project’s design team with landscape architect Peggy Gaynor and the architectural firm of Streeter/Dermanis. Noah participated in all aspects of the renovation, including the color selection for the substation transformers, the overall landscaping of the site, and the design of an artwork for the building.

For Forms of Power, Noah painted images of allegories of power on windows made of sandblasted, multi-colored translucent Plexiglas. The hand signs of the game rock-paper-scissors, representing physical power, are painted on three orange windows. A pink window shows a couple about to kiss, symbolizing the power of love. A scientist conducting experiments represents the power of the mind. And in a green window, a blindfolded figure with outstretched arms, evoking traditional representations of justice, stands for the power of the law. This visual play subtly alludes to the factors that impact the daily lives in the homes and businesses that depend on the Canal Street site for power.

Noah is a Seattle mixed-media artist with experience in painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, public art, installations and digital imaging. She has exhibited in various art venues, both nationally and internationally, and is represented in a wide variety of public and private collections. The city of Seattle’s collection includes over 15 portable and permanently sited works by Noah.

The artwork was funded by Seattle City Light 1% for Art funds.

IMAGES: Forms of Power, 1985, Plexiglas and paint, various dimensions. Located at Seattle City Light’s Canal Substation, Northwest 45^th Street and Sixth Avenue Northwest.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.