Mayor Greg Nickels today presented to the City Council his proposed 2010 budget, which maintains funding for arts grants and sends 75 percent of city-admission-tax revenues to Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. For complete details on Mayor Nickels’ 2010 Proposed Budget, visit his homepage.
This is very good news in the wake of a major national recession and underscores the importance of arts and culture in a healthy city.
Seattle artist Kristen Ramirez will wrap up her summer artist residency at the Fremont Bridge with a temporary audio installation, Bridge Talks Back. A short version will be broadcast from the bridge’s speakers during daytime bridge openings through April. To hear the full sound composition, including clips of people’s bridge stories, call 1-800-761-9941.
Ramirez talked to KPLU about her time in one of the bridge towers and the sound composition that emerged from her residency there.
The installation opens Saturday, Sept. 26 with a celebratory performance at the bridge from 1 to 4 p.m.
Image: Kristen Ramirez, Bridge Talks Back postcard, 2009. Illustration by Jacques Moitoret.
Artist Troy R. Miles will create designs for reflective decals the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will place on traffic signal control boxes in the Central District neighborhood. Come meet Troy and share with him your ideas of the kinds of images you’d like to represent the Central District. The event is 6 to 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 23 at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, West Room, 104 17th Ave. S.
Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, in partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation, seeks one artist or artist team to develop a three-dimensional, site-specific or site-integrated artwork for the new Rainier Beach Community Center and Pool. Applicants will ideally have skills in designing, fabricating and installing artwork in one or more of the following media: metal, glass, stone, concrete, ceramic, wood, light, new media, surface treatment, sustainable design and environmental design.
Click here to learn more.
Image: Nikki McClure, The Eddy, 2006, Northgate Community Center, Seattle Parks and Recreation Community Centers Levy 1% for Art.
Commuters crossing the platform at the Seattle Streetcar’s Westlake Hub station are likely to do a double take. SuttonBeresCuller just put the finishing touches on a new public artwork that’s embedded in the sidewalk at the stop at Westlake and Olive Way.
The neon sculpture – titled Sequence/Consequence – is twisted into the form of a double helix and sits just below the sidewalk’s surface. If you look down through the etched glass hatch cover, the animated light sculpture appears to spiral downward into the ground.
The double helix is a befitting symbol for the cluster of biotech and medical research centers in the nearby South Lake Union neighborhood. The artist team of John Sutton, Ben Beres, and Zac Culler—collectively known as SuttonBeresCuller—designed the artwork so that mirrors would “skew the perceptions of depth and size, creating a seemingly endless field of light.” Watch a time-lapse video of the installation in progress.
The artwork was commissioned with Seattle Department of Transportation 1% for Art funds.
Update: We listed the wrong neighborhood for the artwork. It’s located on the South Lake Union Streetcar line in the downtown retail core.
Seattle artist Kristen Ramirez is wrapping up her summer residency at the Fremont Bridge with a temporary art project celebrating the daily rhythms and sounds of the bridge. Bridge Talks Back, a sound artwork, opens Saturday, Sept. 26 with a celebratory performance at the bridge from 1 to 4 p.m.
Ramirez is recruiting volunteers to be part of the fanfare at the opening event. If you want to lend a helping hand, literally (sign waving is involved), contact Kristen Ramirez, or visit her blog to learn more.
Pedestrians, bicyclists, boaters and motorists will hear Ramirez’s three-minute audio composition while stopped during daytime bridge openings. The sound collage includes clips of boat horns, bird songs, bridge bells and more. A version of the soundscape – including residents’ recorded musings about the bridge – will also be available via cell phone to people waiting for the bridge to close. And it’s a busy bridge indeed, opening an average of 35 times a day!
The temporary project, which was funded with Seattle Department of Transportation 1% for Art funds, will run through April 2010. Read more about Ramirez and her bridge residency in this month’s issue of Seattle Magazine, which christened Ramirez a Spotlight Award winner. The annual award is bestowed on a handful of up-and-coming artists to watch.
Don’t miss THE arts celebration of the summer. Join Mayor Greg Nickels tomorrow to honor the 2009 Mayor’s Arts Award recipients and preview the Bumbershoot Visual Arts Exhibits.
Nancy Guppy, host of Seattle Channel’s Art Zone In Studio, will emcee the outdoor ceremony, noon, Friday, Sept. 4 at Seattle Center’s Northwest Court. The weather forecast is calling for a slight chance of showers, so you might want to bring your bumbershoot.
The 2009 recipients are: Artist Trust, visual artist Jesse Higman, Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins, Northwest Tap Connection and Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Bumbershoot’s visual arts exhibits will open one day early with a free public preview from noon to 7 p.m. in the Northwest Rooms.
The Mayor’s Arts Awards are presented in partnership with Bumbershoot®: Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival. Media sponsor is City Arts Seattle.
Mayor Greg Nickels today announced the city of Seattle will award $250,000 in federal stimulus funds to help preserve dozens of jobs at 22 Seattle arts and cultural organizations.
“The arts play an important role in our economy, boosting spending in other sectors and contributing to our quality of life,” Nickels said. “We are focused on protecting jobs in all areas of our local economy, and these dollars will help nonprofit arts organizations preserve jobs during difficult economic times.”
The federal funds will help organizations retain or restore salaried and contract jobs, ranging from performers to production staff to business managers and artistic directors. The dollars will support jobs at a range of organizations, including Maureen Whiting Dance, Seattle Chamber Players, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Center for Wooden Boats, Velocity Dance Center, Wing Luke Asian Museum and the Young Shakespeare Workshop. Click here for a complete list of funded city organizations.
The Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs received the $250,000 award in July from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to re-grant to Seattle organizations to preserve arts jobs threatened by the economic downturn. The NEA had $50 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to distribute nationwide.
The Office awarded the stimulus dollars through a competitive application process. A peer panel reviewed more than 80 eligible Seattle arts and cultural organizations for one-time awards of either $5,000 or $15,000 to support staff salaries or contract fees incurred between fall 2009 and summer 2010.
Read the mayor’s full press release.
The Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, in partnership with Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), seeks to purchase available artworks from midcareer artists for SPU’s Portable works collection. Midcareer artists are considered artists who have been working professionally for at least 10 years and have a significant exhibition history. Artworks in all media will be considered. Application deadline is September 30. Go here for information on how to apply.
Image: Anna Fidler, Loveful Heights (detail), 2004, mixed media, 6″ x 38″. Seattle Public Utilities Portable Works Collection. Photo by the artist.
