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Civic Poet, Jourdan Imani Keith, Launches Women & Whales First, Poetry in a Climate of Change Podcast

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Seattle’s Civic Poet, Jourdan Imani Keith, has partnered with Jack Straw Cultural Center for the new podcast, Women & Whales First, Poetry in a Climate of Change. Launching on June 19, this podcast will host conversations between Jourdan and local poets about how poetry can be a tool to illuminate environmental and social issues. Episodes will launch on Soundcloud every Saturday through July 30.

See the full list of upcoming episodes below: 

Saturday, June 19
Episode 1: Whales and Dragons 

Jourdan Imani Keith interviews poet, artist, and activist Jae Eun Kim who speaks about the mythological connections between dragons and whales.  
 
About the Guest: An alum of the University of Washington, Jae has worked at non-profits Powerful Voices and Young Women Empowered and facilitated many arts-based and social justice education programs for young people. Kim creates within various mediums, speculative fiction, poetry, urban mythology, performance, visual, and fiber arts. In 2015, they were invited to stay at Hedgebrook for a short-term writers residency. 

Saturday, June 26
Episode 2: The Risks of Gender

Jourdan Imani Keith interviews Aleyda Marisol Cervantes, who speaks about the risks associated with gender, colonialism, and environmental activism. 
 
About the Guest: Aleyda Marisol Cervantes is a self-identified third-world woman, who grew up in a small town in Guadalajara, Mexico. She co-wrote and published a chapter in the anthology Gendering Globalization, Globalizing Gender: Postcolonial Perspectives Edited by Gül Çalışkan. She currently works at a community college building bridges between underrepresented students and the world of higher education and serves as a board member in Mujer al Volante, an organization cultivating leadership and autonomy for immigrant women. She also makes the time to write and dream a little more in occupied Coast Salish territory. 

Saturday, July 3
Episode 3: Diving for Our Ancestors

Jourdan Imani Keith interviews Ebony Wellborn about ancestry and scuba-diving. 
 
About the Guest: Ebony Wellborn is originally from the South, but has been an active community member in King County for the last three years. As her life has progressed, Ebony has learned just how interconnected we are with our non-human friends. 

Saturday, July 10
Episode 4: Whale Song and Lullabies

Jourdan Imani Keith interviews Kamna Shastri about the lullabies of her youth and the songs of the whales.  
 
About the Guest: Kamna Shastri is a community journalist with a background in sociology and environmental studies. Shastri is especially interested in the messiness of cultural identity and breaking down the false distinction between humanity and nature. Poetry has been her lifelong method of self-expression.

Saturday, July 17
Episode 5: Mysteries of the Marine World

Jourdan Imani Keith interviews Savannah Smith about being drawn into the mystery of the marine world.  
 
About the Guest: Savannah grew up in an animal-loving home. Her early exposure to a variety of different creatures taught her that every animal — no matter the size or species — has its own unique characteristics and soul. Savannah is passionate about fostering positive outdoor experiences for BIPOC, especially in marine environments. 

Saturday, July 24
Episode 6: Stories of Migration

Jourdan Imani Keith has a conversation with Rasheena Fountain, who speaks on migration and displacement for humans and whales. 
 
About the Guest: Originally from Chicago, Rasheena Fountain is a multi-genre writer and interdisciplinary educator living in Seattle. A past Walker Communications Fellow with National Audubon, she is currently an MFA Prose Candidate at the University of Washington, where she is working on an environmental essay collection. 

Saturday, July 30
Episode 7: We Are Cousins 

Jourdan Imani Keith closes out this seven-part podcast series with a discussion on the impacts of environmental toxins on her family and whales. Jourdan Imani Keith is a storyteller, essayist, playwright, naturalist, and activist. A student of Sonia Sanchez, her TEDx Talk, “Your Body of Water,” the theme for King County’s 2016-2018 Poetry on Buses program won an Americans for the Arts award. Her poetry is largely anthologized. She has been awarded fellowships from Hedgebrook, Wildbranch, Santa Fe Science Writing workshop, VONA, and Jack Straw. Her memoir in essays, Tugging at the Web, is forthcoming from University of Washington Press.  

The Women & Whales First, Poetry in a Climate of Change Podcast was created in partnership with the Civic Poet, the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, Urban Wilderness Project, and Jack Straw Cultural Center. Visit the Civic Poet page for more information about Jourdan and her work. 

Civic Poet, Jourdan Imani Keith, Featured in Juneteenth 2021 Artist Collective

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Seattle’s Civic Poet, Jourdan Imani Keith, has joined the Artist Collective virtual showcase, which features local Black creatives as part of Northwest African American Museum’s larger Juneteenth celebrations. 

Friday, June 18, 2021; 7 p.m. 
Juneteenth 2021 Artist Collective  
Streaming Online (Visit the website below for the broadcast link) 
Website 
RSVP on Facebook 

In honor of Juneteenth, the Artist Collective broadcast will showcase Black-identifying musicians, dancers, artists, and creatives who focus on the theme Sankofa (translates to “go back and get” in Akan Twi and Fante). Jourdan Imani Keith joined a panel of experts who selected the participants of this showcase. Stay tuned for the full virtual showcase, hosted by Northwest African American Museum’s L. Patrice Bell.  

This program is presented by the Space Needle and Chihuly Garden and Glass’ collective Diversity, Equality, and Inclusivity Committee in collaboration with Northwest African American Museum, One Vibe Africa, and Wa Na Wari.  

Race and Social Justice in the workplace

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A former staff member at the Office of Arts & Culture has recently shared his experiences during his time as an employee of the Office. The experiences and trauma he describes are difficult to read and he describes a culture of white supremacy that does not reflect our values. While I’m glad that Mr. Rucker is in a secure place where he feels safe to name these events, we need a workplace that can deal with issues as they arise, so that all staff feels supported. And even though these events occurred 10 years ago, it’s still concerning to us that any employee who worked or continues to work at ARTS has this experience. We are committed to creating a safe and racially equitable workplace and this work is collective, iterative, and ongoing. We are committed to the city’s Race and Social Justice Initiative which builds on the work of the civil rights movement and the ongoing efforts of individuals and groups in Seattle to confront racism. The Initiative’s long-term goal is to change the underlying system that creates race-based disparities in our community and to achieve racial equity.   

As a first step the ARTS department will be reviewing our policies and processes in place for reporting concerns without fear of retaliation and ensuring that staff are informed about new mechanisms that have been added in the last several years, such as the Office of the Employee Ombuds. Created two years ago, the Ombuds Office along with Human Resources Investigation Unit have supported hundreds of employees who have reported concerns and have found relief in the intervention offered by these new entities. 

As a City and an Office, we must reflect and be accountable. 

–Calandra Childers, Acting Director, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture
 

The Seattle Arts Commission welcomes four new commissioners

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The Seattle Arts Commission (SAC) has welcomed four new commissioners Rick Araluce, Ebony Arunga, Vivian Hua and Vanessa Villalobos. They all bring a wealth of experience and diverse artistic backgrounds to SAC that will be invaluable as the commission navigates advocating for the arts and culture sector which has been devasted by the pandemic. 

Born in 1960, Rick Araluce has been a life long artist. At an early age Rick began creating drawings, paintings, hand-fashioned objects, miniature scenarios, plastic models—creations depicting whatever piqued his interest at the time. He put his efforts into being a painter originally, though began to create and evolve his artwork towards a more sculptural realm, and in the 1990s began making detailed miniatures a primary focus of his work. This he continues to this day. Along the way, Rick began to work in a larger form, ultimately creating complex immersive installations which incorporated multiple media, including lighting, sound, motion, and computer automation. These have been some of Rick’s most noteworthy endeavors. He has among other artistic pursuits created book and album illustration, art-directed and created work for a number of animated music videos, and has had his artwork featured in a handful of commercial films. For 20 years, Rick was a Lead Scenic Artist with Seattle Opera, until the Opera’s closure of its scene shop, though he continues this work as a Master Scenic Artist employed by Arts Tech Group, a scenery and event fabrication company where he oversees and runs multiple facets of the artistic side of production. He is essentially self-taught, having chosen to forgo university and art school. Nonetheless, Rick has secured some significant achievements, including a Pollock/Krasner in 2009, Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Award in 2010 and a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship. As an individual coming from a low-resource background, Rick has acquired a degree of understanding and empathy for the challenges of those coming from less privileged and non-traditional backgrounds who have chosen the artist’s path.  

Ebony Arunga is an arts manager, advocate and entrepreneur. She was born in Kisumu, Kenya and raised in the historically Black Central District of Seattle, Washington as part of a multi-faceted artistic family. In 2008 she graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, with a BFA in Theatre with an emphasis on Stage Management and has since managed artists, projects and events both nationally and internationally. Her work spans across arts genres including theatre, film, music, dance, and literature. Ebony’s presence in the Seattle arts scene grew prevalent through her work as an event producer at the legendary Faire Gallery Cafe. Carrying on the legacy of her mother, Marcia Tate Arunga, Ebony and her sister Nia re-launched Seaweed International in 2017, a Black owned business specializing in jewelry imported from Kenya with the mission to provoke a new consciousness in social justice and beauty. In 2020, she teamed up with Ijeoma Oluo, Gabriel Teodros and LANGSTON to manage the Seattle Artist Relief Fund (SARF), the largest COVID-19 relief effort geared towards directly supporting artists in Washington State. Ebony serves on the board of LANGSTON and was a 2020 Office of Arts and Culture BASE (Building Art’s Spaces Equitably) cohort member. She resides in Seattle.  

Vivian Hua 華婷婷 is a writer, filmmaker, and organizer. As the Executive Director of Northwest Film Forum in Seattle and Editor-in-Chief of the interdisciplinary arts publication, REDEFINE, much of their work unifies their metaphysical interests with their belief that art can positively transform the self and society. They regularly share human-centered stories through their storytelling newsletter, RAMBLIN’ WITH VEE! In 2021, they will [hopefully] begin production on a comedic Asian-American series entitled Reckless Spirits. They are passionate about cultural space preservation and creation, as well as seeking ways to covertly and overtly disrupt oppressive structures. Learn more about their work at vivianhua.com.  

Vanessa Villalobos is a performing artist, choreographer, producer and non-profit consultant from Lima, Peru with Indigenous, African and Spanish ancestry. She presented hundreds of original works and danced with companies in New York, Seattle, and more. She has degrees in Theatre and Dance from the University of Washington and earned her MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University.  She co-founded creative company VANICH Multimedia (NY) and is the founder of BALORICO.dance (WA). She is a seasoned Teaching Artist having worked in many public and private schools in Seattle and New York. Trained in contemporary, ballet, jazz and Ballroom Theatre Arts, she is a certified American Ballroom Rhythm & Smooth instructor. Film credits include MadHot Ballroom and Walt Disney’s Enchanted where she was a principal dancer. Her dedication to racial equity is expressed through her community work with 501Commons, the Covid-19 Response Alliance, La Sala, the Dance Educators Association of Washington and Seattle University’s Center for the Study of Justice in Society. Vanessa’s cross-industry expertise has brought forth opportunities to help influence funding decisions on behalf of the Washington State Arts Commission, 4 Culture and the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. 

We need to invest in individual artists, cultural communities, and cultural space

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A case for our sector by Seattle Arts Commission Co-Chair Dr. Quinton Morris on behalf of the Seattle Arts Commission

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” – John F. Kennedy

Dear Mayor Durkan,

For more than a year now, Seattle has been enveloped in chaotic, stressful, and at times, inhumane moments that have tarnished our beloved city’s reputation. The haunting ripple effect of the global pandemic; the rise of racial injustices affecting people of color; economic devastation in artistic and cultural communities; and the downward spiral of the emotional, mental and physical health of our city. People are suffering and our community is in crisis. At this point of devastation, what do we do? How can we evolve and change so that people from all walks of life, regardless of where they live in the world, perceive our city as a place that is comforting to call home and a safe place to visit?

On July 29, 2020, I wrote on behalf of the Seattle Arts Commission to both you and Seattle City Council to request that as little harm as possible come to the arts and cultural community, which includes many marginalized people from the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and all people of color that includes Latino/x, Asian Pacific Americans and the spectrum of Immigrant/Refugee communities) community. Yet, there are so many people who are continuing to suffer and struggle, amid the many crises our city has experienced. As a Black artist, Seattle native, and co-chair of our Seattle Arts Commission, I am deeply concerned about the people in our community that we love so much. It is going to take a village to bring Seattle out of this crisis. More than 62% of artistic and creative workers have become fully unemployed, 95% of them have experienced significant income loss and 71% of arts organizations indicate that the financial impact has been “severe” due to the pandemic.

For the past year, the Office of Arts & Culture has served as an important partner in the COVID response initiative. The Office’s success can be attributed to strong partnerships it has maintained with our arts and cultural communities. The arts and cultural sector is uniquely positioned to unite and help bring feelings of safety and solace back to our city’s residents during this crucial COVID recovery period.

I recognize that this letter is probably unconventional and unlike others that you have received from my predecessors. I acknowledge the gracious support for Seattle’s arts and cultural communities which you have provided in the past. You have invested in those communities and because of such, we have thrived and been able to carry a tradition of artistic and cultural excellence. I applaud the exponential velocity with which the City moved to provide relief for arts and cultural organizations and artists, which we recognize as both the first cultural relief package in our country; and was also among the very first actions you took to address the pandemic. In the last year, artists created connections over screens, on pieces of plywood protecting buildings, and through their professional practices. These actions made people who were scared feel connected, gave communities whose voices had been silenced a microphone, and created moments of joy and relief in an unprecedented time. Your actions with the Office of Arts & Culture alone employed close to 100 artists who were employed through various Hope Corps projects that provided key support for the community in the areas of arts education, documentation, and connecting our community last year. More than 5,000 people have viewed The Creative Advantage teaching artist videos that were created in response to the pause of in-person education. For these actions, I am forever grateful.

However, a lot has changed in a year. The severe statistics and percentages, along with the countless stories that I’ve heard at numerous Arts Commission meetings have been heartbreaking. As we begin to rethink how to “re-open” and “revitalize” the vibrant, fantastic city we were “pre-pandemic”, I invite you to collaborate with the arts and cultural community so we can get people back to work. This will only be achieved through the following recommendations for American Rescue Plan fund distribution:

  1. Invest in individual artists: The CityArtist grant program has received 10x the number of applications it has funds to grant. There simply isn’t enough funding to address the significant need in our community. We need another plan of action to address this need. I respectfully request that you invest in individual working creatives in two areas:
    • Allocate $15 million to serve as a stimulus towards individual working creatives in Seattle. These creative workers have been deeply impacted, with nearly ⅔ out of work. Working artists can create welcoming and unique physical distancing markers for local businesses, bring people together safely with public art performances like music or dance or other performances in parks and public spaces, support storytelling and sharing with interviews, videos, and written narratives, and document recovery events and infrastructure. There are so many ways that creative workers can support the City as it works to re-open safely, while the City supports creative workers to remain as vital, respected members of our community.
    • Invest seed funding of $1 million annually for a period of three years towards Hope Corps, a strategy which centers the restoration of wealth to those who have been disproportionately impacted, both physically and financially, by COVID-19, people of color, while meeting civic needs. This allocation of funding would demonstrate your desire to assist the BIPOC community who are exhausted from the aftershocks of state-sanctioned murders, COVID-19, and persistent race-based injustices. This investment also carries out the sound findings from the Creative Economy report, which recognizes the need to address inequities in the sector while also pointing to its central economic role within our City. With this commitment, your leadership will fuel our work to sustain and build wealth in these communities.
  2. Invest in Cultural Communities: I am requesting that you make an investment of $20 million towards cultural organizations, which will assist in the economic recovery of the city. Cultural organizations will play a significant role in encouraging Seattleites to re-engage with their neighborhoods while attending events safely and return to supporting their local businesses. As the city reopens, cultural facilities and activities will rebrand our city as a safe place for tourists to visit and attract local and regional visitors, who will visit downtown and the various cultural communities that make the Emerald City so vibrant. A $20 million investment would match what King County and the State have announced and will demonstrate that the City of Seattle takes our role as a leader in the cultural sector seriously and is ready to invest in ensuring our cultural anchors, which will be the last businesses to reopen, and who were already on razor-thin margins, have the support of the City to weather this storm. This is an investment in the heart and soul of our City, as well as the economic recovery that comes with our community spending money on leisure and healing activities.
  3. Cultural Space: In my letter to you, addressed on July 29, 2020, I requested support from both you and the Seattle City Council regarding the protection of our cultural spaces. Because of the COVID-19 and social issues that have permeated our city, many cultural spaces have suffered significantly, losing revenue and resources. These organizations need time to recover and rebuild as the city begins to open up. While Governor Jay Inslee’s eviction moratorium will continue through June 30th, I am fearful that once it is lifted, we will see an enormous uptick in evictions in arts and cultural spaces. These evictions will exacerbate the mass migration of Seattle’s cultural anchors, and with them, our identity as a creative capital, outside of the city limits. Because of this, I am requesting that you forgive all rents for 2021-2022 for arts and cultural organizations and artists who call the City a landlord.

    I appreciate your support of the Cultural Space Agency and am so pleased that this new entity exists to develop and steward permanently affordable space for arts and culture. Having your support to anchor Seattle’s vibrant cultural communities in place by providing additional capital to advance the development projects chosen by the community constituency of the Cultural Space Agency will provide further resources to secure the arts and cultural life that makes our City so special, support social cohesion, and further business activity, all rooted in our City’s BIPOC communities and neighborhoods. This is truly a BIPOC-centered wealth-building strategy that simply needs to be resourced to fulfill its potential.

    Regarding the 2022 budget, I’m requesting that financial cuts, resulting from diminished Admissions Tax collection, be paused and that the Office of Arts & Culture’s budget is supplemented to match their 2019 adopted budget total, before pandemic impacts. In this time of dire need for this sector, we cannot undertake austerity. Finally, I request that the city invests in digital equity for all, which will have a significant impact for artists and arts organizations and their audiences in our city. It is essential that our community has access to Wi-Fi. We humbly request that the city invest immediately in keeping our community digitally connected to the world and to each other, which so heavily relies on technology, and is absolutely essential in this moment of virtual presentations. I recognize that we are living and experiencing unprecedented times. While I applaud the availability of resources that you have provided for our work, I remain cognizant of the growing pressures people feel daily that result in racial injustice and the decrease in affordability and sustainability in our arts and cultural communities. I am writing as a very concerned Seattle native who wants what is best for our city. I believe you, as a Seattle native, do too. Therefore, I feel this is a time to engage in uncomfortable conversations and make unprecedented requests. I believe that these activities will empower us to work towards solutions that will create a more racially inclusive and equitable distribution of available support. I acknowledge and appreciate your support in the work that you have done towards the preservation of cultural space and support for BIPOC communities. Our goal at the Arts Commission is to work with you in implementing these strategies and support the work you are already doing at the policy level.

    Recently, I met with Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington and we were able to speak about some of the same issues that I’ve raised in my letter to you. It was lovely to meet her and it seems that she shares a lot of the same concerns. I informed her that I would request a meeting with you so we could discuss some of these requests. I have since followed up and am awaiting confirmation on our meeting.

    As co-chair of the Seattle Arts Commission, I speak on behalf of all of my colleagues when I express my appreciation for your support in preserving the incredible arts and cultural city that we are known to be. I appreciate the action you have taken towards helping to sustain our arts community and the confidence you have in our Arts Commission in serving as allies in accomplishing the goals and initiatives you have already put in place.

    As you complete your term as Mayor, I believe that your legacy will be secured through your support of empowering and re-inspiring the arts and cultural community in our city. Please allow the Seattle Arts Commission to play a role in helping you. We stand with you in solidarity towards supporting the great work of Seattle arts and culture and appreciate your continued ongoing support, in advance.

    I look forward to hearing from you.

    Best wishes,
    Dr. Quinton Morris, co-chair
    Seattle Arts Commission
    Endorsed by the Seattle Arts Commission Sarah Wilke, Co-Chair, Meany Center for the Performing Arts; Cassie Chinn, Wing Luke Museum; Dawn Chirwa, Philanthropy Northwest; Kayla DeMonte, Citizen University; Steve Galatro, Pratt Fine Arts Center; Vivian Hua, Northwest Film Forum; Holly Jacobson, Path with Art; Yeggy Michael, Artist, Yeggy Studio; James Miles, Mentor Washington; Chieko Phillips, 4Culture; Vanessa Villalobos, Artist, Balorico Dance; Racquel West, Bill Holm Center; Mikhael Mei Williams, Seattle Art Museum

Fight for hope, fight for justice, fight for the Asian American and Pacific Islander community

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Black and white photo of a Chinese grandmother sitting on a bench and smiling at something off to the side. She's holding a young Chinese boy who reaches towards it. And a young Chinese girl holds on to Grandma's arm.
Grandma (#13) by Dean Wong, part of the Seattle Civic Art Collection, purchased with Seattle City Light 1% for Art funds

We are a society built on the premise of freedom and the reality of racism; ingenuity realized at the cost of freedom and through the labor of Blacks, Asians, immigrants, Native Americans, Latinx and countless others. 

As we recognize the horrific events that took place in Atlanta, GA last month, and the terror and trauma that has been inflicted on the AAPI community with an egregious uptick in anti-Asian violence, we must also recognize the death of another unarmed Black man, Daunte Wright, this past weekend. Instead of letting this latest violence distract us from uplifting our AAPI community, we must remember that the center of both of these things is white supremacy, and our intentionality in stamping out that scourge.  

Our BIPOC community has contributed so much to our country and in this time of anti-Asian hate we must stand up, make change and say no more. We recognize Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history is our history, that AAPI dreams are our dreams and that AAPI struggles are our struggles. 

Asian American and Pacific Islanders are our neighbors, co-workers, friends, family, aunties, and elders. ARTS stands in solidarity with our AAPI staff to create a better city, celebrate our diversity, honor our ancestors and support our AAPI community. 

We are taking this time to amplifying the words of our AAPI staff below:  

We demand our colleagues commit to interrupting and dismantling the structures and culture of institutional silence, neglect and dismissal, and implore you to denounce anti-Asian violence and sentiment in the strongest possible terms.  

History has shown us repeatedly that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are targeted scapegoats particularly in times of national crisis.  

Our elders are being viciously attacked on the streets during the pandemic while onlookers turn their backs and shut the door to their plea for help. Seven women, of whom six are of Asian heritage, were gunned down in Atlanta.  

This is not the first or the last we have seen of Asians being scapegoated for economic downturns and job losses, disease, our loyalty questioned, being perceived as forever foreigners, our presence deemed as yellow peril invasion, our women being exoticized by orientalist fantasies, and our monolithic portrayal as model minorities. We know that such portrayals are used to pit us against our fellow Black and Brown communities and are an ongoing manifestation of white supremacy culture. 

Invest in and support cultural organizations that have a proven history of ANTI-Racism, including but not limited to:  

Bolster the work of the following organizations and many others as it relates to healing, public safety, and community social cohesion through the arts:  

Support emergent, mid-career, and established art-ivists who are already doing the work of protecting their communities from displacement, gentrification, and now violence at the doorsteps of their communities. 

Silence and inaction continue the legacy of racism. If you are interested in ways you can make a difference, consider taking the following actions: 

The Office of Arts & Culture is working towards addressing these essential needs. We invite you to join us in making our city inclusive and welcoming to all, and dismantling the systems that seek to divide us, and distract from the root cause of white supremacy.  

2020 -2021 The Creative Advantage Professional Learning

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by Regan Pro, Kayla Skinner Deputy Director for Education & Public Engagement at the Seattle Art Musuem

Dalisha, a Black woman, with a crown of flowers, holds two posing dolls used for drawing in her hand.
Dalisha Phillips

For the past eight years The Creative Advantage in partnership with the Seattle Art Museum has provided free professional learning opportunities for teachers, teaching artists and community organizations. With a primary focus always on equity, the goals of these trainings are to:

  • Create space for community building and self-directed learning
  • Invite new speakers and perspectives to deepen Seattle-based conversations
  • Provide specific skills related to timely needs for Teaching Artists and educators
  • Continue to include and highlight youth voice

The 2020 – 2021 school year presented new challenges for delivering content but also greater need to bring our stakeholders together to build community, support each other and develop new skills to adapt to online teaching. In response to community feedback and the guidance of our Creative Advantage advisors, we tripled our typical number of offerings providing 17 workshops to 1,038 participants. Workshops roughly fell into three categories (with lots of cross over): providing skills training, fostering community support and centering youth voice. Below are examples from one of each group:

  • Helping educators pivot to their new virtual classrooms, Teaching Artist & Educator Gabriel-Bello Diaz led four workshops on Teaching with Microsoft Teams. Diaz brought his experience leading virtual workshops for teens at Pratt to share tips and tricks with teachers eager to find ways to adapt their best practices from classroom engagement to creative workshops in a digital space.
  • Responding to calls for mental health resources, Art Therapist Dalisha Phillips led a four-part series Keeping it Cool through Change, Challenge, and Conflict Utilizing Art-making and Creativity. Phillips worked with a small cohort in weeklies sessions focused on mindfulness and creativity.
  • A highlight of our trainings is always the workshops that center youth voice. This fall we learned from the brilliant youth participants and program facilitators listed below on what has been working, not working and what we can reimagine when it comes to digital learning.

KEXP: Sharlese Metcalf, Kennady Quille
Seattle Art Museum: Rayna Mathis, John McShea
5th Avenue Theatre: Orlando Morales, Gavin Bradler
TeenTix: Mariko Nagashima, Chelsea Nguyen

The learning has continued this spring as we offered our first online course Pause for Presence Course Series: The Art of Allowing Education to Heal with Dr. Bre Haizlip. Beginning in January, a cohort of over 100 educators met monthly to learn from Dr. Bre and each other. This work will continue into the last course session in May and then culminate with a keynote presentation from Dr. Bre at our Creative Advantage Summer Institute this August. While we are not yet sure when or what shape the Institute will take, we know it will adapt to fit the needs of our creative learning communities. Keep an eye out for more details and we hope to see you there!

A group of people standing, arms around each other.
Regan Pro (left), and The Creative Advantage Summer Institute panelists,
photo by Jenny Crooks

Special note from The Creative Advantage: Regan Pro is stepping out of her position as the Kayla Skinner Deputy Director for Education & Public Engagement at the Seattle Art Museum at the beginning of April. While our professional development partnership with Seattle Art Museum will continue, we want to pause to shower Regan with our love and gratitude for more than eight powerful, and joyful years of creative collaboration. The Creative Advantage has learned so much and benefited from Regan’s community-centered leadership and heart-centered engagement. We are beyond grateful to have worked alongside Regan to build a national model of what an arts and justice based professional learning community can be, and we wish her all the best for whatever comes next.

Please share gratitude and well wishes for Regan in the comments.

Seattle Civic Poet curates BIPOC community poetry project to perform for World Poetry Day

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Womxn & Whales, Poetry in a Climate of Change, is a virtual reading March 21, 2021,   

hosted by the Seattle Library Foundation in partnership with Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. 

Virtual Reading and Q&A Sunday, March 21st, 2021, 4 p.m. pst. 

EVENT REGISTRATION CAN BE FOUND HERE 

Admission is free  

Celebrate World Poetry Day on March 21, 2021 with seven Black, Indigenous, Womxn of Color reading original poetry that explores the intersectionality of womxn’s health, healing, and the endangered Orca whales of the Salish Sea.  

Seattle Civic Poet Jourdan Imani Keith, along with six other local poets, will perform original pantoums developed through workshops facilitated by Keith over the last few months as part of her larger project, Womxn & Whales First, Poetry in a Climate of Change. The pantoum is a poetry verse form that originated in Malaysia in the 15th century and will be the form that guides the general public call for poetry curated by Keith through March. For more information on the general call for poetry click here.  

Womxn & Whales First, Poetry in a Climate of Change is a multi-event project of 2019-21 Civic Poet Jourdan Imani Keith with the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. The project seeks to center the experiences of Black Indigenous Women of Color and explore, through art, the impact of our choices on the environment we all share.  

“As Black Indigenous Womxn of Color in Seattle, we share the urban wilderness of the Salish Sea with the endangered Killer Whales,” says Keith. “Our bodies face the same cumulative risks of environmental toxins and the harms of objectification, yet we both survive and are revived by the cumulative benefits of matrilineal wisdom, tradition and community. Our brilliance and wellness is entwined with the need for healthy and protected social and natural ecosystems.” 

After the virtual reading, Keith and the other poets will hold a conversation with the audience. The event will start at 4 pm (PST) and run approx. 70 minutes including multiple readings, as well as audience Q&A. Registration for the event can be found here. 

The Seattle Public Library reading is the first event under the Womxn & Whales First, Poetry in a Climate of Change project. Future events include a general public call for poetry, a public celebration and reading on April 22, 2021 in honor of Earth Day, and a publication of selected poems. For more information, or to submit for the general public call for poetry, apply here. 

For further information on Womxn & Whales First, Poetry in a Climate of Change, please visit Urban Wilderness Project’s website here or contact Jaeeun Kim at kimjaeeun74@gmail.com. 

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The event is presented in partnership with The Seattle Public Library Foundation, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and Seattle City of Literature. This event is supported by the Gary and Connie Kunis Foundation. Thanks to media sponsor The Seattle Times.  

ABOUT JOURDAN IMANI KEITH: 

The City of Seattle’s 2019 -2021 Civic Poet, Jourdan Imani Keith is a storyteller, essayist, playwright, naturalist and activist. A student of Sonia Sanchez, her TEDx Talk, “Your Body of Water,” the theme for King County’s 2016-2018 Poetry on Buses program won an Americans for the Arts award. Her poetry is largely anthologized and was long listed by Danez Smith for Cosmonauts Avenue poetry prize. Keith’s Orion Magazine essays, “Desegregating Wilderness” and ” At Risk” were selected for the 2015 Best American Science and Nature Writing Anthology (Houghton Mifflin). She has been awarded fellowships from Hedgebrook, Wildbranch, Santa Fe Science Writing workshop, VONA, and Jack Straw. Her memoir in essays, Tugging at the Web, is forthcoming from University of Washington Press. 

Art Kits for Seattle Public School Students

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While in a remote learning setting, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) and partners across the city have been persistent in getting art supplies to schools and students. SPS and The Creative Advantage led a massive effort to ensure students have the art materials they need.  

SPS has worked with many partners to make this possible, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Seattle Department of Education & Early Learning, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and the Seattle Seahawks through the donation they made to The Creative Advantage last spring. 

“It’s critical that students are validated and affirmed through art materials that allow them to express, explore, connect, and deepen their learning,” Gail Sehlhorst, Visual and Performing Arts Manager for SPS said. “This pandemic is rough on all of us and this project has brought so many institutions and people together — it’s been a bright spot — and we are so very grateful.” 

In some schools, our amazing visual arts educators also collected and distributed supplies from their own classrooms to make sure their students had what they needed to continue learning in a remote setting. As a result, the district will be able to purchase art materials for every school with students enrolled in visual arts courses. 

“Access to high quality arts materials is a matter of equity,” said Ashraf Hasham, Youth Arts Manager for the Office of Arts & Culture. “I’m so proud of this City and all of its players for coming together to meet this need, and that these ‘arts kits’ can be incorporated with the Teen Hubs, our Online Arts videos we created this past Spring, and our synchronous after-school arts education opportunities we’re cooking up for this coming Winter.” 

This effort will serve approximately 25,000 students across the district with art kits. Providing important invest in the of arts and creativity so that students can to continue learning with quality art materials while at home. 

“One of DEEL’s top priorities during this period of remote learning is to support students’ social-emotional needs and ensure that they are able to connect and engage in meaningful ways while learning remotely, especially for our students of color and those furthest from educational justice.” said DEEL Director Dwane Chappelle. “We are thrilled to be partnering with the Office of Arts and Culture in this effort to enhance student engagement and participation through the arts. Supporting the Creative Advantage at our SBI schools and providing arts materials to students participating in Teen Hubs are great ways to encourage student creativity and care for their social and emotional wellbeing.” 

The art kits may include a variety of materials, depending on the school or course, such as markers, erasers, pipe cleaners, colored pencils, sharpies, sketchbooks, scissors, paints and paintbrushes, glue sticks, crayons, and different papers like colorful construction paper, card stock, non-lined paper, and more. At one school, local restaurant Pagliacci Pizza even donated pizza boxes to hold all the supplies for students. 

Thank you to all of our partners that worked together to make this possible and for our visual arts educators for assembling and distributing the kits to their students. It truly was a team effort to serve all SPS students, especially those furthest from educational justice. During this time of uncertainty, it’s important to give students ways to express themselves through the arts, even while learning from home. 

Learn more about visual and performing arts at Seattle Public Schools. 

THE AMP: AIDS MEMORIAL PATHWAY SEEKS AUGMENTED REALITY APP DEVELOPER FOR CAPITOL HILL ART INSTALLATION

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The AMP: AIDS Memorial Pathway, a Seattle-based public arts installation is seeking a provider to create an Augmented Reality (AR) mobile application that will work in conjunction with the artworks. The application will be an installed app that should work on iOS and Android platforms. The RFP can be downloaded and viewed here. Submissions are due January 22, 2021 by 5pm PST.

Set in the heart of Capitol Hill, on the plaza above the Capitol Hill Light Rail station and into the north edge of Cal Anderson Park, The AMP will be one of the most significant public art installations in the region. The AMP will have four physical artworks as well as a website and the app, which will collectively create a pathway inspired by the history of the AIDS crisis and remind us to take action for a world free of AIDS and discrimination.

Interested applicants are also encouraged to attend an online information session held on Tuesday, January 12, 2021 at 2:00 p.m. PST. This is an opportunity to learn more about the project and review the RFP. Questions can be submitted in advance.

To attend the information session, please send an email RSVP with subject line “Add me to the webinar” to: Info@theAMP.org

Submissions:
Please use this form to apply: Submission Form
Deadline for submission is Friday, January 22, 2021, 5pm (Pacific Time)