Seattle artists Elizabeth Gahan, Joseph Park and Claude Zervas will create temporary artworks for downtown’s Westlake Park this summer. The projects will take place mid-July to September. Gahan creates work that represents the intersection of constructed and natural beauty.  By investigating architecture, advertising, technology and consumerism she visually responds to the built [More]

We're thrilled to announce our 2013-14 Youth Arts awards, which offer arts training outside of school hours for Seattle’s middle- and high-schoolers. For the Sept. 2013 - Sept. 2014 period, the Office of Arts & Culture will invest $176,715 in 32 programs. [caption id="attachment_6372" align="alignnone" width="300"] 2012-13 Youth Arts awardee Hengda Dance [More]

We’d like to welcome two new members of our team. Willem de Koch will join the Communications & Outreach team as events & marketing intern to assist with summer events, including the Seattle Presents summer concert series and Mayor’s Arts Awards. Willem will also write for content for the blog and social [More]

Mark your calendars, folks! Seattle Presents free concerts will return for the summer, beginning July 11 and running through Aug. 29. The outdoor performances will take place noon to 1:30 p.m. every Thursday on City Hall's outdoor plaza, 600 Fourth Ave. Check out the concert lineup here. The shows are presented by [More]

Join us to explore how your organization, and the cultural sector as a whole, can make a better case for the public value of arts and culture at Dynamic Adaptability 2.0: How Do We Talk about the Public Value of the Arts?, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., June 24 at Town Hall. [More]

In Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, there’s a sidewalk that teaches you how to dance. If you see folks waltzing on Broadway, they’re probably dancing to artist Jack Mackie’s Dancers' Series: Steps (1982) -- eight sets of inlaid-bronze shoeprints in the pattern of a couple's dancing feet. The shoeprints are "step‑by‑step" movements from [More]

New York City artist Jean Shin will create a permanent artwork for Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) new North Transfer Station at 1350 N. 34th St. Shin will work with SPU and the design team to integrate art into the new facility that will replace the existing station. Shin creates elaborate sculptures and [More]

The Office of Arts & Culture has been working on the issue of cultural space for many years (recent documents have come to light showing that it was actually one of the first initiatives of the Seattle Arts Commission (SAC) when they were formed in the early 1970s). More recently, the SAC [More]

Guess what - it's our birthday! 40 years ago today the city signed the ordinance that specifies that 1% of eligible city capital improvement project funds be set aside for the commission, purchase and installation of artworks. Seattle was one of the first cities in the United States to adopt a percent-for-art [More]

It's my great pleasure to announce that Seattle's arts office has a new brand, complete with new logo and tagline and perhaps best of all, a (slightly) revised name: Office of Arts & Culture Seattle. Personally, I'm really excited about this project because I believe that our office is doing great, fantastic [More]