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Office of Arts & Culture news and events

Celebrate International Sculpture Day with our newest artwork “Aurora Bright Dawn”

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Saturday, April 27, noon
Oak Tree Village Pedestrian Bridge
N 102nd Street and Aurora Avenue N

Guest post by artist Vicki Scuri

Tomorrow, Saturday April 27th, is International Sculpture (IS) Day, a worldwide event celebrating the many ways sculpture and public art impact and improve people’s lives. Artist Vicki Scuri, the Office of Arts & Culture, and the Department of Transportation are participating in IS Day by dedicating “Aurora Bright Dawn.” This Public Artwork combines space, color and form on an aging pedestrian bridge, promoting community connectivity and safe crossing.

Two challenges we face in the 21st century are humanizing aging infrastructure and connecting communities. This project, funded through an SDOT community grant, written by the Aurora Licton Urban Village Community, is a good example of a transformational project on Aurora Avenue in Seattle.

Inspired by the sunrise, this project adds color and pattern to an aging pedestrian bridge, transforming it into a community landmark gateway. Hundreds of translucent colorful fins transition through the hues of the sunrise across the span of the bridge. The fins elevate the bridge into a unique art experience for both the cars traveling under and the pedestrians above. The colors on the translucent fins will shift and blend as the viewer moves through the site, creating a dynamic experience. The bridge’s columns and stairs hold colorful painted graphics, connecting the artwork directly to the site.

Public Art transforms neighborhoods by promoting community values, fostering pride of ownership, social interaction, and a sense of belonging. All communities deserve safe and supportive environments. International Sculpture Day is about reflecting on all that Art and Sculpture bring into our lives, enriching our experiences and our optimism for the future.

Launching the Creative Careers Cohort

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Convening Creative Youth Development programs to share their secret sauce

Written by Erin Naomi Burrows, Seattle University MFA in Arts Leadership practicum student

Bottles with labels spelling out Secret Sauce

Around the U-shaped conference table in the brand new ARTS at King Street Station are some of Seattle’s finest: the culture workers and teaching artists behind the scenes coaching, mentoring and supporting the next generation of Seattle’s artists. The Creative Careers Cohort, a time-bound, peer-learning experience, brings together six youth-focused arts organizations in Seattle to share lessons learned, best practices honed and innovative strategies to reach, teach and learn from creative youth. These out-of-school time arts programs prepare Seattle youth aged 14-19 for creative careers and reinforce 21st Century skills.

Pak stands at the front of the room in front of a slide showing a youth playing guitar
Daniel Pak from Totem Star

Organizations on The Creative Advantage Community Arts Partner Roster, a vetted list of local artists and organizations who offer creative programming in schools as part of The Creative Advantage, were invited to apply for the Creative Careers Cohort. The call prioritized organizations offering teen programs with explicit and existing career development objectives.

The inaugural Creative Careers Cohort members are:

Posing for a group picture
The inaugural Creative Careers Cohort

Arts Corps Spokes Youth Leadership Board

Spokes youth leaders gain tangible artistic and professional skills by leading open mics, writing circles, poetry slams and producing a multi-arts album. They meet weekly for training in event planning, public speaking, facilitation and social justice analysis through artistry and cultural work.

Massive Monkees, Extraordinary Futures Massive Skills

Sessions led by Massive Monkees instructors include creative career exploration in breaking, hip-hop and the arts. Participants learn class/group management, business and financial planning as well as “Adulting”. Offerings include positive youth events, free performances, free dance classes led by the youth, middle and high school breakdance league championships, and the Massive Break Challenge.

KUOW RadioActive

RadioActive youth participants discover public radio journalism and gain access to the skills, community, and institutional resources that spur their growth as media makers. Through their stories, listeners of all ages gain a deeper understanding of diverse young people whose voices are rarely heard by the greater public.

MoPOP The Residency

MoPOP offers a summer intensive hip-hop artist residency focusing on creative songwriting, performance techniques, and beat production. All participants, youth ages 16-19, record an EP of their original music at a professional studio and put on a final performance in MoPOP’s Sky Church.

Reel Grrls Learning Immersive Technology (LIT) Program

Youth co-create the future of mixed media content and curate with adult counterparts. Teenage participants mentor middle schoolers during a spring break camp with over 60 hours of paid opportunities to evangelize mixed reality through supporting a VR demos and showcases.

Totem Star: The Studio, The Stage, The Story

Totem Star‘s programs fosters skills and confidence in teens that may not find arts-rich opportunities anywhere else. Students create original compositions with a focus on collaboration and cultural diversity. All Access Fridays are led by women, femmes, non-binary, trans & LGBTQ teaching-artists.

The purpose of the Cohort is to foster learning amongst peers in the field and to inventory Creative Youth Development best practices for career connected learning and 21st Century skills acquisition. During the Cohort meetings, participating organizations provide a 20-minute presentation on their respective programs using these guiding questions:

  • How do you (or your org) define career connected learning?
  • What does leadership development mean to you in the context of your program?
  • What skills do you think are most vital for the young people in your program to practice and acquire? (21st Century, artistic, technical, etc.)
  • What are your programmatic best practices? (What’s your secret sauce?)

The first meeting, held March 4, 2019, brought a dozen staff from Cohort organizations together with City employees to explore definitions of career connected learning, vital skills for young people to practice and acquire, and programmatic best practices (i.e. the secret sauce).

The Creative Careers Cohort sit around the conference table.

Fostering community within each arts organization was identified as key to transformative experiences for youth. Arts Corps’ Youth Speaks program, for example, implements call and response culture broadly. If anyone says “Youth Speaks” in any space – from a rehearsal to public rallies to public speaking at City Hall – anyone in the know will shout back “Youth Speaks!” This ownership by participants shapes pathways of continued engagement of former participants and alumni. While some of cohort organizations identified participants aging out of programs and alumni engagement as a growth area, Arts Corps staff framed it as a primary goal of the work to hire former youth as young adult teaching-artists and colleagues.

Staff from Arts Corps stands in front of a slide with a header: How do you (or your org) define career connected learning?

Each organization emphasized building a culture of responsibility for young people to produce their own events as a team, taking on roles of design and production. For RadioActive youth at KUOW, this means collaborating with mentors and full-time editors of radio content. For Arts Corps Spokes Youth Board, it looks like intensive social justice trainings and embedding anti-oppression practices in the production of events. Totem Star’s Daniel Pak shared that for their The Stage program, youth interns book the space, think through load-in and closing, if they can bring their own food, noise ordinances, event promotion, as well as host and DJ the event. Pak notes that in their studio offerings, Totem Star is proud to serve as a creative sanctuary for young people open six days a week. He explains, “Once you enter that studio threshold, I’m sorry, you’re part of the Totem Star family. We’re gonna hold you accountable and treat you like professionals.”

Stay tuned for more on the progress of the Creative Careers Cohort and in the meantime, check out these highlights of youth art:

ARTS at King Street Station is open

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Open hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.;
 First Thursdays 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
ARTS at King Street Station
303 S. Jackson Street, Top Floor
Seattle, WA 98104

On Saturday, March 23 ARTS at King Street Station officially opened its doors to the public. Mayor Durkan cut the Ribbon, Ken Workman the great, great, great, great-grandson of Chief Seattle welcomed everyone, and the Lummi Black Hawk Dancers opened the gallery. More than 2,700 visitors came to the opening and enjoyed the new space and more importantly had a chance to see yәhaw̓, a year-long Indigenous community-based project.

yәhaw̓ features the work of 200+ Indigenous creatives at over 20 sites across Seattle and beyond. The exhibition is accompanied by a mentorship training cohort, satellite shows, residencies, vendor opportunities and partner programs. Curated by Tracy Rector (Choctaw/Seminole), Asia Tail (Cherokee), and Satpreet Kahlon, yәhaw̓ celebrates the depth and diversity of Indigenous art made in the Pacific Northwest.

If you didn’t get a chance to join us at the opening, please stop in anytime during our open hours.

For more information about the exhibition visit yehawshow.com,

For information about how to propose your event or exhibition to happen at ARTS at King Street Station, the application portal is open!APPLY buttonFor more information about King Street Station visit here.

Music inspired by the [center of the universe] Fremont Bridge

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In two public events Paurl Walsh, the 2018 Fremont Bridge artist-in-residence, will share his artistic vision, inspiration, experience and a taste of the music he created while in the Northwest tower of the Fremont Bridge.

Sunday, May 12, 2019, 2 p.m.
Seattle Public Library, Central Branch, Microsoft Auditorium
1000 Fourth Ave, Seattle, WA 98104 

Over the Moon, Under the Bridge: Building a Stronger Music Community
Join us for an afternoon of music and guided conversation about the struggles many musicians face such as mental illness, addiction, and poverty, and how our community can be strengthened to better support its members and these issues.

The program includes a public jam session and a panel of musicians and industry experts. This event is created by Paurl Walsh as part of the 2018 Fremont Bridge Composer in Residence in collaboration with Path With Art, Seattle Public Library, Seattle Department of Transportation and the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture. Light refreshments will be served.

Thursday, May 23, 2019, 7:30 p.m.
Town Hall Seattle – Great Hall
1119 8th Ave, Seattle WA 98101

Bascule
The public concert, Bascule, is a culmination of the 2018 Fremont Bridge Artist Residency completed by composer Paurl Walsh.

Paurl Walsh graduated from Cornish College with a degree in Classical Composition and Electro-acoustic music. He is an active composer of electronic music, modern classical chamber music, music for dance and theatre, and experimental rock. Writing and performing throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, he has been a core member of the experimental performance art/music groups Degenerate Art Ensemble, Implied Violence, and St Genet. He founded experimental hardcore band X-Ray Press, electronic pop group Rainbows, electroacoustic duo Medina/Walsh, and solo electronic act Trying. He has scored many stage works for choreographers and theater artists such as Kyle Loven, Ezra Dickinson, Peggy Piacenza, Paige Barnes, Paris Hurley, and PE|Mo. He also runs ExEx Audio, a creative recording studio centered around working collaboratively with artists to help them better express themselves through sound.

The Fremont Bridge residency is administered by the Office of Arts & Culture with SDOT 1% for Art Funds.

Thoughts on “Living Legacy” by Civic Poet Anastacia-Renee

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photo by Brad Curran

As Seattle Civic Poet (and writer, mother, artist and educator), I’ve been thinking a great deal about what it means to be a “Living Legacy.” In the last three Speak to Me Series’, I have posed this question to intergenerational audiences and featured writers and there have been so many answers and interpretations, but one particular amalgamation of the answer seems to be:

Someone who is active and instrumental (publicly or privately) in their community or across communities who in terms of their own style of living, raises the bar and lives an exemplary life that changes and affects and impacts multiple people in positive ways. 

This month I’d like to hear from YOU Seattle on your thoughts about what it means to be a “Living Legacy!” Send me your poems, prose or a hybrid piece to be included in a public display of poetic affection honoring some of Seattle’s Living Legacies and a night of celebration.

Your work will be published on the Seattle Civic Poet Blog and will be chosen as part of the installation of poetry. Stay tuned for the announcement of the amazing nominees chosen by the Seattle community of Living Legacies!

Please send your work between NOW and May 6th to: writenow2day@hotmail.com with “Living Legacy” as the subject heading.

In Peace and Poetry,

Anastacia-Renee

What’s next for ARTS at King Street Station? Propose your event or exhibition now

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New King Street Station Advisors group will review applications for and advise City on creating and maintaining a radically inclusive space for arts and culture

Now open, the King Street Station Portal provides a place for community to propose their ideas, events, performances, and exhibitions or art installations for the new arts and cultural hub. ARTS at King Street Station invests in exhibitions or events that promote arts and cultural participation, celebrate diversity, build community connections, and enhance the visibility of artists of color. The portal offers artists and communities the freedom to imagine, create and realize their programs hosted at ARTS at King Street Station. Guidelines and the ARTS at King Street Station information packet are available.

The new ARTS at King Street Station space responds directly to feedback from community focus groups with an emphasis on people of color. It is a dedicated cultural space that provides more than 7,500 square feet of cultural space and access to presentation and creative spaces, ARTS staff and resources, space for city convening’s, and professional development, meeting space and other services.

Individuals, artists, curators, organizations and groups are encouraged to propose projects that foster community, encourage participation, and reach diverse audiences. All projects must take place at ARTS at King Street Station (303 S. Jackson St.), have a significant arts and culture component, and be free and open to the public. ARTS may provide funding for events/performances and exhibitions for direct project expenses, including artist fees. Interested parties should submit applications at least two months before prospective events and six months before exhibition projects envisioned for the ARTS at King Street Station space. Projects will be selected by a panel of King Street Station Advisors; proposals may be paired with other projects. 

King Street Station Advisors:

King Street Station Advisors is a newly formed group of community leaders and arts/culture enthusiasts who will work with ARTS staff to ensure that the programming at ARTS at King Street Station centers racial equity, represents and welcomes diverse communities, and showcases many creative disciplines. Advisors are provided with a small stipend and serve a two-year term.

Inaugural King Street Station Advisors: Tom Bardwell, Cecilia DeLeon, Akilah Franklin, Bryan Garcia, Emnet Graham, Duncan Gibbs, Laurence Hicks, KERRI, Jasmine Jackson, Frances S. Lee, Lhorna Murray, Catherine Nueva España, Shin Yu Pai, Keanna Rose Pickett, Chukundi Salisbury Sr., Ixtli (Ixtlixochitl) White Hawk, Laurie Wilson, and Sunny Ysa.

ARTS at King Street Station is located at 303 S. Jackson St., top floor, Seattle, WA 98104. Open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm; First Thursdays, 10 am – 8 pm. Admission is free.

What Does Access and Equity Look Like in Seattle’s Creative Economy?

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Close up of two children's hands drawing with pastels

Photo by Fedora el Morro

According to the report written by the Office of Economic Development, there were 67,350 creative jobs in greater Seattle by the end of 2017. Between 2012 and 2017, we added 4,373 more creative jobs than would be expected if Seattle had followed national trends.

Unfortunately, we also know from the data that women and people of color are underrepresented in certain creative occupations and that within these occupations, wage disparities exist along job title, race, and gender.

In 2019, the Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) and Office of Economic Development are collaborating on an intentional, qualitative and quantitative creative workforce study with a race and social justice lens. ARTS is interested in identifying barriers at the entry, middle, and established tiers of creative economy work, and designing recommendations for how to increase access for those who historically have been left out.

Button: Take the Survey

Please spend 10-15 minutes filling out this online survey and share with your communities.

While the survey is completely anonymous, you will have a chance upon completing the survey to enter your email address to be considered for a raffle drawing for prizes. Five individuals will be selected to receive either a $25 pre-loaded VISA gift card or a professional development lunch with ARTS Director Randy Engstrom.

About the researchers

You can reach the UW Evans research team comprised of Aline Moch Islas, Casey Moser, Shomya Tripathy, and Louie Tan Vital at creativeeconomyseattle@gmail.com. This effort is being coordinated by Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar, PhD, Impact and Assessment Manager and Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow at ARTS with on-going research partnerships between ARTS and the University of Washington Evans School of Policy and Governance. UW Faculty member Joaquin Herranz, Jr., PhD, is advising this team.

Seattle Squeeze, Chapter Two: Buses No Longer in the Tunnel

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Photo of text embedded in the sidewalk in brass: "THIRD AVENIUE". A bus passes by just above, blurred out from the speed.The next chapter of the Seattle Squeeze begins on March 23, 2019, when all buses that use the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel will permanently relocate to surface streets. This change is being made to accommodate the Washington State Convention Center construction and future Link light rail expansion to the Eastside in 2023.

Your bus route might be changing.

15 bus routes will change what bus stops they serve. Find out if your bus route is affected. To keep buses and riders moving, the City of Seattle is building a new bus lane on 5th and 6th Avenues and Metro will launch all-door boarding on 3rd Avenue, which means you can tap your ORCA card and board any bus door.

Here’s what you can do:

Plan your trip!

Bike, walk, carpool, or vanpool. Shift your travel time. Visit seattle.gov/traffic for ideas and updates. Additionally, the Seattle Accessibility Map has been updated with current elevator pathways to help navigate Seattle’s steep hills. About 800 more buses will travel daily on downtown streets, and about 37,600 daily riders will be affected, including the 11,000 people who catch their bus downtown during the evening rush hour. Things are going to feel differently downtown, and we want to make sure you are prepared.

Spread the Word!

Thank you for sharing these resources and information with your organization and networks. This factsheet (pdf) and postcard (pdf) provide more information on this new chapter of the Seattle Squeeze. Please distribute via email, social media, websites, newsletters, or in person to your employees, constituents, community members, or other key stakeholders. We are also able to provide physical copies of these documents – please email Danielle Friedman at danielle.friedman@seattle.gov to request physical copies.

Have an upcoming meeting with your staff or stakeholders?

Presentation/Briefing Availability: City of Seattle staff may be able to come speak with you to provide the latest information on the Seattle Squeeze, answer questions, and provide resources. Please email Danielle Friedman at danielle.friedman@seattle.gov to schedule a briefing.

Thank you for doing your part to spread the word to keep people and goods moving safely to and through downtown Seattle. We’re all in this together!

And in case you were wondering, Merriam-Webster has you covered.

The Creative Advantage Strives for Educational Justice

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First grade students sit in a circle, holding their hands up

Photo by KUOW/Marcie Sillman

Equitable access to arts learning is essential for all students. The Creative Advantage, a citywide initiative to establish equitable access to arts education for every student Seattle Public Schools, works to systemically address inequities in access to art education and provide a comprehensive, high-quality arts education for all students, across the city, especially those who have been historically underserved.

Comprehensive arts education cultivates:

  • 21st Century skills for students
  • Communication
  • Creative and critical thinking
  • Collaboration
  • Growth mindset

Through arts learning, young people experience the transformative power of creativity and gain a deepened belief in their own capacity to learn, take risks, persist, and achieve. The Creative Advantage is more than just a strategy for arts equity. Rather, it is step towards true educational justice.

Through a collective partnership between Seattle Public Schools, Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, The Seattle Foundation, Seattle Art Museum, Arts Corps, ArtsEd Washington, and up to 100 community-based arts organizations, The Creative Advantage has enhanced arts access through increased certified arts staff, culturally responsive teaching practices, arts partnerships, professional development opportunities for the community, and connected students with career opportunities in creative industries.

Since 2013, the number of elementary schools with regular visual art and music classes has more than doubled and thousands of students are receiving arts instruction from Seattle’s diverse corps of professional teaching artists and cultural organizations on The Creative Advantage Partner Roster.

Check out this recent media highlight from KUOW, featuring The Creative Advantage in action at Concord International Elementary School: How the arts can be Seattle schools’ stealth weapons in the fight for racial equity.

Hello, Goodbye, Best Viaduct Party Evah!

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We came, we saw, we walked, ran, rolled, strolled and in general enjoyed our last time to enjoy the views from the Viaduct and checked out the new tunnel. In honor of one of the best bashes for a highway in history, we’ve created our own album of photos.

Enjoy!

Photos courtesy of Bruce Clayton Tom.