Mayor Harrell Announces Proposed Efforts to Beautify City: Address Surge in Graffiti

October 28, 2022 by Erika Lindsay 2 Comments

Includes Many Hands Art Initiative which will create a more beautiful Seattle

Mayor Harrell detailed elements of his One Seattle Graffiti Plan to beautify Seattle and address a surge in graffiti through new strategies and proposed budget investments. Mayor Harrell’s plan includes six major pillars one of which is the Many Hands Art Initiative, through the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) Spatial Justice through Street Art RFP.

Volunteer award recipient Denise Chase (partially cut off far left), WSDOT Northwest Region Maintenance Communications Lead James Poling, SPU GM & CEO Andrew Lee, Parks Superintendent AP Diaz, Mayor Harrell, ARTS Acting Director royal alley-barnes (speaker), MO Director Graffiti Programs & Initiatives Paul Jackson, MO Executive General Manager Adiam Emery, MO Performance Liaison Liz VanBemmel

Under the direction of the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), the Many Hands Art Initiative will engage with artists, businesses, volunteers, and others to activate spaces with art, mitigating and preventing graffiti. ARTS is currently seeking partners to install new public art, providing opportunities for creative workers. Spatial Justice through Street Art is a part of the Hope Corps program, a one-time request for proposals (RFP) that seeks to encourage youth voices in communities to explore and create street art. This opportunity supports organizations or programs that reinvigorate and expand the definition of “arts and culture,” foster community among street artists, and create equitable, collaborative spaces to nurture emerging voices in One Seattle.

The Hope Corps Many Hands Art Initiative RFP, creates transformative, equitable, sustainable, collaborative community spaces to elevate street art and nurture new voices. Approaching this increased graffiti activity through a spatial justice lens means creating opportunities for these new voices – as street artists –to work with community and create new visuals – murals throughout the city upon agreed on sites.
royal alley-barnes, Acting Director Office of Arts & Culture

More information about Mayor Harrell’s proposal and six pillars is available here.

Curated Art Tour Now at Seattle Center

October 28, 2022 by Erika Lindsay Leave a Comment

Alaska Airlines and Seattle Center partner in support of international artists

Seattle Center, in partnership with Alaska Airlines, has made a commitment to bring together works of art from around the globe with the self-guided Seattle Center Art Tour Presented by Alaska Airlines. Visitors will experience 50+ public art pieces across the Seattle Center campus, providing an opportunity to learn more about our well-known pieces, while discovering other hidden treasures.

“This tour is a pillar of our larger commitment to art through our on-campus programing. I am proud of this partnership that strengthens our ability to provide opportunities to artists to showcase their work on our campus.”
Robert Nellams, Seattle Center Director

International Fountain Tokyo-based architects Kazuyuki Matsushita and Hideki Shimizu during 1961–1962 for the Century 21 Exposition,
Photo courtesy Seattle Center

In collaboration with Climate Pledge Arena and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, the Seattle Center Art Tour Presented by Alaska Airlines, brings together a collection of new public art pieces in the plazas surrounding Climate Pledge Arena, along with a variety of donated pieces, some dating back to the 1962 World’s Fair. This collection highlights an assortment of pieces from international artists and cultural inspiration from, Germany, Japan, China, and Switzerland, along with pieces from local tribal communities.

Guests can pick up a free map at customer service in the Armory or view the map on two Art at the Center kiosks on campus, located by the Space Needle turnaround and at the North Fountain Lawn. Visitors can use the map to discover over 50+ works of art. Each includes a marker with a QR code that can be scanned with a phone to gain access to additional information. This self-guided tour allows visitors the flexibility of viewing art at leisure or all at once.

Climate Pledge Arena on December 16, 2021. (Photo by David Conger / davidconger.com)

Seattle Center and Alaska Airlines share a commitment to community and the arts while continuing to grow their longstanding relationship with a multi-year partnership, extending a long history between the two organizations dating back to 2014. The 10-year agreement through 2033, will create additional experiences on campus, designed around Seattle Center’s mission to delight and inspire the human spirit.

For more information, head to seattlecenter.com and follow them at @seattlecenter on Instagram for fun contest opportunities coming soon.

IMMINENT MODE: US Creates Immersive Environments for Wearable Art at ARTS at King Street Station

October 21, 2022 by Erika Lindsay Leave a Comment

Poster with Adé wearing a shiny golden, sleeveless gown, arms and hands poised gracefully at her sides. Behind her is geometric window that looks like rays bursting from her head. Imminent Mode, US, An exploration of who we are and where we came from through wearable art and installation. November 2022 - January 2023, opening gala + fashion show, November 3, 2022.

November 3, 2022 – January 5, 2023

This fall, the Office of Arts & Culture and its ARTS at King Street Station gallery hosts IMMINENT MODE: US, an immersive exhibition that pairs-built environments with one-of-a-kind fashion. The exhibition will feature installations by eight teams that explores the broad theme, US, asking artists for a deeper examination of where we’ve come from, why our ancestors immigrated to this land, and how our cultural differences can find harmony. Each creative team will explore and celebrate their unique cultural heritages and express those through their work. The opening Thursday, November 3 will feature a “runway” fashion show.

This year’s theme US is really about how we can illustrate the diversity, sense of community and creation/collaboration when we work together towards a common goal. We are so excited about the art created and artists teams in the exhibition, they are incredibly talented and showcase the phenomenal artists in the Pacific Northwest.
Jordan Christianson, curator

Curated by Jordan Christianson, Adé A Cônnére, and Anouk Rawkson, IMMINENT MODE: US is comprised of eight creative teams featuring a garment designer and fine artist who collaborate to create a unique piece of wearable art displayed in a large-scale installation. Each team will also create two additional garments that will be showcased in the opening runway fashion show.

Historically, fashion has been and is wearable art. It compels our imagination and is self-expression as accessibility. IMMINENT MODE: US elevates the beauty of who we are under our normative guise, through art and fashion. ARTS at King Street Station embraces and engages diversity of artists, disciplines, and expressions. This exhibition continues that journey.
royal alley-barnes, Acting Director Office of Arts & Culture

The diverse, regional/international groups of artists include:

· Jordan Christianson + Anouk Rawkson

· Mary Anne Carter + Michael Welke

· Casey Curran + Devon Yan

· ANDROS grant + Bren Bryan

· Christopher Vazquez + Aaron Lafferty

· Jacob Sutton + Amanda Manitach

· Mariel Andrade + Pete Rush

· Jordan Christianson + Lilia Deering

· Photography by Kelly O’Neal

· Additional installation and photography by Debora Spencer

About the Curators

Jordan Christianson is a Pacific Northwest native, multidisciplinary Creative, and Couturier to a diverse entertainment and design community. For nearly two decades, Jordan’s work has been featured internationally in museums and galleries, on stages, pages, and screens.

Adé A Cônnére is a Colorado-born singer, actor, performance artist, activist, model, and musician. They have been living in Seattle for nearly two decades, and as one of the curators of IMMINENT MODE, Adé is thrilled to watch it grow.

Anouk Rawkson is a Seattle-based artist whose influences range from his culture, subcultures, visions and surroundings. Using mixed media, Anouk’s goal is to express his dark sense of humor and irony with an initially perceived innocent image.

Imminent Mode is a platform for multidisciplinary artists to play with the juxtaposition of creative expression, mediums, cultures, and voices. Imminent Mode: US is the sixth exhibition from the collective. Previous exhibitions displayed at Vermillion Gallery include SIRENS (2016) womxn in music who have inspired us; REVOLUTION/RESIST (2017) team interpretations of how our communities’ committed acts of resistance or revolution; LORE (2018) folklore from and inspired by our respective cultures; and FAST FORWARD (2019) hypothesized how politics, society, and religion could change the face of fashion and culture.

IMMINENT MODE: US Teams

Jordan Christianson + Anouk Rawkson

Jordan Christianson is a Pacific Northwest native, multidisciplinary creative, and couturier to a diverse entertainment and design community. For nearly two decades, Jordan’s work has been featured internationally in museums and galleries, on stages, pages, and screens. Instagram: @jonquilandblack, @midnight_children_official, @pinkhalloween_official

Mary Anne Carter + Michael Welke

Mary Anne Carter is a queer Seattle-based artist, curator, and creative consultant. Born with a prominent portwine stain birthmark on her left cheek, she has a lifelong attraction to the odd, unusual, and other. She works with a wide range of materials to create environments and objects that transport the viewer to a brightly colored, boldly patterned utopia governed only by humor, self-expression, and irregularity. Her work has appeared in galleries including J. Rinehart, The Bellevue Art Museum, Museum of Museums, The Factory, The Columbia Tower, NY Art Book Fair, Junior High LA, Get Nice, Mount Analogue, Vermillion, and more. Since 2016, she has worked to elevate emerging and marginalized artists through her gallery and creative studio Party Hat. Instagram: @jesusmaryannejoseph

Michael Welke is a queer Seattle-based musician and designer. He grew up in the middle of America, and always knew, from an early age, that he would move to the big city and find his calling. Upon arriving in Seattle in 1996, he immediately found a home in the vibrant music scene. And has been there ever since. Through music, more specifically, drumming, he found a voice. A voice that allowed him to express his frustrations and confines of existing in the closet. Eventually, he found the courage to live his truth. This truth has afforded him the space to explore and guide his creative energy into garment construction. He has learned how to appreciate the more delicate, colorful, and vulnerable parts of himself. He works with a wide array of materials, fabrics, textures and colors. This is his first public show as a garment designer, and he couldn’t be more proud. Instagram: @poietic

Casey Curran + Devon Yan

Casey Curran received his BFA in painting and sculpture from Cornish College of the Arts in 2006. He’s completed several large-scale public and private works in partnership with Skanska Architects, Mad Art Seattle, Facebook, Oculus Rift, and Security Properties. In 2008 Curran become a key collaborator in the internationally recognized performance art group Saint Genet developing large-scale interactive sets which have been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in NY, The Kunsthalle Museum in Krems, Austria, the Luminato Festival in Toronto, Canada, and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, WA. In 2010 and 2013 Curran was awarded the NY Sculpture Space residency and in 2010 and 2014 the Artist Trust GAP grant. In 2018 Curran was awarded an artist in residence grant at Amazon HQ where he focused on a body of work to be exhibited at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in 2019, and MadArt studios in 2021. Curran has exhibited work at the Bellevue Art Museum, The Whatcom Art Museum, The Children’s Art Museum in NY, and Paris Fashion Week collaborating with the world renowned designer Iris Van Herpen. Continuing in the vein of his most recent exhibition “Parable of Gravity” Curran’s work continues to map our psychological relationship with nature and deep time. Instagram: @caseycurran

Devon Yan is a fashion designer who uses his personal experiences to create beautiful wearable works of art that express his story and unique vision. This means creating bold, colorful, and elegant pieces that express a joy and enthusiasm for life. Instagram: @devonation_art

ANDROS grant + Bren Bryan

ANDROS grant is an interdisciplinary artist who creates sacred queer spectacle. Drenched in high faggotry, ANDROS’ immersive installations, papercut collages and ritualistic performances luxuriate and antagonize at the intersection of queerness, culture and identity. Her work has been exhibited at Vermillion, Ghost Gallery, V2, Pony, True Love Art Gallery, Fred Wildlife Refuge, ‘Mo-Wave, King St Station, Vibrations, Gay City and the Seattle Erotic Art Festival. She is a trans womxn, Buddhist and pornographer occupying stolen Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya and Molalla tribal land. Twitter and Instagram: @grantANDROS

Bren Bryan loves working three dimensionally. She is inspired by nature, lore, and the avant-garde. Bren often uses obscure historical references in her work and researches every piece while creating a story. She creates using mixed media including sewing, weaving, painting and constructing with texture, layers and dimension. Instagram: @brenbryancreates

Christopher Vazquez + Aaron Lafferty

Christopher Vazquez is a Cuban queer artist born in Miami, FL works in Chicago, IL and Seattle, WA. Vazquez is a graduate of the New World School of the Arts in Miami where his experimentation with photography, video and sound developed into a concentration in electronic inter-media studies. Vazquez is known for his multimedia work incorporating photography, video, light and sound that draws inspiration from cultural memory, politics, and the human condition. These pieces have been presented by various institutions including The Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; The Bass, Miami; and The Pérez Art Museum, Miami. His practice has been recognized through awards including The Bass Museum Art History Award (2001), Scholastic Arts National Portfolio Gold Key Award (2002). Instagram: @zerocool.exe

Aaron Lafferty is a Seattle-based artist, designer and Italian trained chef. Taking inspiration from a myriad of influences, Aaron’s career has varied greatly from custom ski wear to custom bridal. He studied culinary arts abroad with some of Italy’s greatest chefs. Now his focus is on jazz and R&B music, having performed with his trio at Vermillion Gallery and bar multiple times before the pandemic. He is planning new shows for the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023. This is Aaron’s 3rd appearance in Imminent Mode. This year, in collaboration with artist Christopher Vasquez, he has created a line of men’s wear inspired by the great French and Italian ateliers of old. Instagram: @aaronlaffertydesign

Jacob Sutton + Amanda Manitach

Jacob Sutton is a Seattle-based apparel designer who has spent the last three years designing womenswear and gender inclusive fit garments for the mass market at Nordstrom. With a background as a pastry chef, he eventually shifted his love of all things beautifully made to the fashion industry. Sutton’s obsession with detail, construction, and craft is apparent in every inch and aspect of his garments. The details should always support and bring into focus the inherent beauty of the wearer. Storytelling is also always at the heart of Sutton’s work: whether garments are designed for performance on stage or everyday wear, he aims to create work that alludes to underlying stories that are as heartfelt, rich, and reflective of the world of the wearer. Instagram: @jacobwesleysutton

Amanda Manitach is a Seattle-based artist with a practice rooted in drawing. Her drawings come to life through a labor-intensive, meditative process of obsessive mark-making, where text melds with pattern, incorporating aspects of the visceral, dirty, and humorous with the delicate, poetic, and sublime. Manitach’s work has been exhibited at numerous museums in the region. From 2012-2015, she served as curator of Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University. She has co-founded multiple mixed-use arts spaces in Seattle, including TMRW Party and The Factory. She is represented by Winston Wachter Fine Art in Seattle and New York. Instagram: @amandamanitach

Mariel Andrade + Pete Rush

Mariel Andrade is a Brazilian American contemporary painter. Exploring themes of duality that convey elements of myth, humor, and nostalgia. Her paintings are often an illusion of one reality versus another. Often using a saturated and pastel palette, so that subject & color create a confusing paradox. Sparking their sense of psychology; her work plays with one’s perception to evoke the enigma within the viewer. This is her third year with Imminent Mode. Instagram: @marielandrade

Pete Rush designs costume and scenery for theatre, creates custom fashion, and plays in the realm of installation and fiber art. Rush also produces free public events with Seattle Center, including Artists at the Center and Movies at the Mural. He teaches costume design and Fashion Lab classes at Seattle University, and cultivates an at-home indoor urban garden. This is proudly his third time contributing to Imminent Mode. Union Member USA Local 829. Facebook: @PeteRush, Instagram: @clothespin

Lilia Deering + Jordan Christianson

Lilia Deering is a Seattle-born multimedia artist specializing in designing vibrant spatial environments. Her artwork explores how objects and physical spaces are vessels of emotional history and communication. Colors and textures of all sensual varieties tap into our emotional centers and become important avenues of expression, symbols of identity, and sources of collective understanding. Her exploration of material and textural indulgence has led to designing physical environments for film and television, events, drag performances, pop-up shops, galleries, and more. Her design style, which encourages active physical engagement with art, is informed by her studies in dance and physical theater at California Institute of the Arts. Lilia’s focus on immersive and interactive projects furthers her mission of breaking down the barrier between the spectator and the art and prioritizes inclusion by stimulating senses, sparking curiosity, and igniting imaginations. Instagram: @lilbrowndeer

Debora Spencer

An acclaimed fashion photographer and artist, Debora Spencer is co-founder of Zandwagon — a cutting-edge NYC modeling agency with write-ups in Forbes and Teen Vogue, among others.

Her photography has been published in top magazines, such as Elle, Glamour, Teen Vogue, Town and Country, W Magazine, Bust, Art News, The Guardian, Juxtapoz, and more. Some of her subjects include President Obama, President Carter, Maya Angelou, Debbie Harry, Sting, Pearl Jam, Mary Lambert, Jinkx Monsoon, Violet Chachki, and BenDeLaCreme.

Thus, she’s become fondly known as “the photographer to two presidents, and a whole lotta queens.” Debora has also made cameo appearances in music videos for Mary Lambert’s Body Love, Banks & Vega Oro featuring Amanda LePore and in various comedy videos and Seattle’s infamous Match Game in Belltown. Instagram: @deboraspencer

Kelly O’Neal

Kelly O’Neal’s photographs have appeared online in The New York Times, Huffington Post, ABC News, XLR8R, and VICE. In print, she’s been published in SPIN, Interview, UNCUT, Mojo, BUST, Seattle’s City Arts Magazine and for 18 years, The Stranger Newsweekly. Previously showing work in Seattle art galleries Vermillion, Vignettes, Ghost Gallery, Hard L, and Greg Kucera Gallery—in 2017, three of her photographs (of musician Tendai Maraire) were featured at the Seattle Art Museum. Most recently, she was one of the visual artists at the 2019 Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival. Kelly has lived in Seattle, Washington since 1998, relocating from Detroit, Michigan—a city which still holds a little piece of her heart. Instagram: @ballsarethenewtits

Closing Celebration

First Thursday, January 5, 2023
6 – 8 p.m.
Music by Gretchen Yanover, Cellist
FREE

ARTS at King Street Station is FREE and open Wednesday – Saturday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m, and until 8 p.m. on First Thursdays.

These exhibitions are organized and presented by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture in partnership with program lead Jenny Ku and the ARTS at King Street Station Advisors. Support for the installation is provided by Benjamin Schreck and Blake Haygood.

Norie Sato’s new permanent artwork installed on the waterfront

October 20, 2022 by Erika Lindsay Leave a Comment

Unfurling a Gesture (The Nature of Persistence), artwork by Seattle artist Norie Sato has been installed at the Union Street Pedestrian Bridge. Two elements designed by Sato – a screen wall, and a monumental sculpture – grace the new pathway, elevator and stairs that provide access to Alaskan Way and the waterfront from Western Avenue at Union Street. The pedestrian bridge and artwork will open in November and are being installed as part of the Seattle Waterfront Program managed by the Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects at the City of Seattle and funded by the Office of Arts & Culture’s 1% for Art program.

*The screenwall has an image of a fern overlaid with the wing span of a seagull and is rendered in perforated aluminum and cut stainless steel*. Photo credit: Norie Sato

We are excited to include Norie Sato’s artwork at the Union Street Pedestrian Bridge. This commission is the newest addition to a program of permanent artworks that will be integrated into the Seattle waterfront. Collectively, these artworks reveal the environment and reinforce the culture of this unique place.
Angela Brady, Director of the Waterfront Program of Seattle’s Office of the Waterfront and Civic Project.

Norie Sato collaborated with the project design team, which included Schemata Architects, James Corner Field Operations and engineer V + M Structural, to create original artwork on the new Union Street Pedestrian Bridge between Western Avenue and Alaskan Way. Her artwork takes its inspiration from the natural environment that manages to make its presence felt on the working waterfront. While researching her project, the artist came across a fern plant growing out of a vertical crack in one of the buildings adjacent to the project site. The fern’s intrepid nature amid the built environment inspired the artwork. She combined this fern image with that of a seagull, which is ubiquitous on the waterfront and whose feathers and shape of the wings has a visual connection to that of the initial fern frond inspiration.

*The steel sculpture – originally inspired by a fern – is approximately 37-feet-tall*. Photo credit: City of Seattle

Norie Sato’s use of the fern for her permanent artwork is inspired. Ferns are ubiquitous to the Pacific Northwest and are associated with water and symbolize new life and new beginnings. The Seattle Waterfront is now emerging as an inclusive place of gathering for all of Seattle and its public art draws us to current and upcoming opportunities to do so through the waterfront program and its artists.
royal alley-barnes, Acting Director Seattle Office of Arts & Culture

The anodized aluminum and stainless steel screen that follows the length of the pedestrian bridge and turns the corners of the structure depicts both these elements of flora and fauna. Modulated perforations on the screen wall reveal images of fern fronds on the screen. Overlaid in the central section is an abstraction of the wingspan of a seagull, laser cut out of stainless steel. Subtle lighting and raking sunlight make the wall glow.

*View of both the screenwall and sculpture looking west from Western Avenue*. Photo credit: City of Seattle

An approximately 40-ft-tall stainless steel sculpture arches over the new Union Street stairway. Rising out of a garden bed planted with ferns, the sculpture’s abstract form, taken initially from the fern, also has other associations depending on the viewer. The elements emanating from a central spine could be the fern’s pinnules (leaves), but also refer to other natural elements along our waterfront. They have been articulated with cutouts and perforations – some abstract and some representational – that simultaneously provide a sense of visual activity and ethereality.

This project has a personal connection for the artist: in 1991, Sato created a temporary artwork on the waterfront that marked the location of her arrival to this country by ship.

One of my hopes for the Waterfront is that it creates moments of magic and wonder for people who live here, and may feel very familiar with Seattle, and yet when they come down to the Waterfront, there will be moments where they feel, ‘Wow, this is a fantastic place.”
Norie Sato, artist

There are nine other permanent art commissions included in the Seattle Waterfront art program that explores both the natural environment as well as the Indigenous roots of Seattle’s shoreline. There are seven artists from local tribes involved in art projects along the promenade and at the Overlook Walk. Also among the artworks that will be installed in the next few years is that of Seattle artist Buster Simpson near the habitat beach, south of Colman Dock.

This artwork was commissioned with Seattle Department of Transportation Central Waterfront 1% for Art funds and administered by the Office of Arts & Culture and the Office of the Waterfront and Civic projects.

Artists at the Center 2023 Offers FREE Arts Experiences on the Seattle Center Campus

October 6, 2022 by Erika Lindsay 1 Comment

Continuing for 2023, Artists at the Center offers a year-long slate of performances at Seattle Center featuring up-and-coming artists. The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and Seattle Center, along with funders Climate Pledge Arena and Seattle Kraken, have partnered to produce Artists at the Center 2023 — an opportunity for emerging artists and the community to enliven the campus and celebrate Climate Pledge Arena’s commitment to the arts. The Uptown Arts and Culture Coalition will continue to partner with Artists at the Center for community and year-end celebrations.

Artists at the Center 2023 will feature 26 free pop-up performances on the Seattle Center grounds, running from October 2022 through September 2023. The artist series will host music, dance, theatre, and multi-disciplinary performances, presented by individual artists and performance groups based in the Puget Sound region.

“The diverse roster of artists showcases the incredible talent that flourishes here in Seattle. From theatre to dance, Jazz and Hip Hop to music from around the world, Artists at the Center showcases the creative spirit and artistic brilliance that bring us all together. We are truly grateful to Climate Pledge Arena for investing in our local artistic community.”
ARTS Acting Director royal alley-barnes

A total of 26 artists and groups were selected to produce a performance at Seattle Center as part of the new season. The program is designed to offer campus visitors a surprising and delightful array of arts and cultural experiences, encountering performances as they make their way to a Climate Pledge Arena event, pop by for a Seattle Center Festál festival, head to a resident organization production, stroll through Seattle Center, or visit businesses in the surrounding Uptown neighborhood.

Performances will begin in October 2022. For performance schedules, and details, and to learn more about the artists, visit Artists at the Center.

The full roster of artists selected: David Rue, The Djeliyah Band featuring Kouyaté Arts, Drama Tops, Drea & the Marilyns, Eroc-n-Sondra, Evan Flory-Barnes, Gia Falzone, Global Heat & Fraggle Rock Crew, International Capoeira Angola Foundation of Seattle, Joyas Mestizas, Kathya Alexander, King Khazm and the MAD Krew, King Youngblood/Hold Your Crown, Little Brown Language, MALACARNE // Alice Gosti, Marco de Carvalho, Miz Floes, O / TYPONEXUS, Robbi Moore, The Seattle Project, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras, SIFF, South End Stories, Trío Guadalevín, and Washington Capoeira Center.

To learn more about activities at Seattle Center this month and beyond, visit www.seattlecenter.com or call 206 684-7200.

About Seattle Office of Arts & Culture

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) manages the city’s public art program, cultural partnerships grant programs, the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, ARTS at King Street Station and The Creative Advantage initiative in the effort to foster a city driven by creativity that provides the opportunity for everyone to engage in diverse arts and cultural experiences. In alignment with the City’s Race and Social Justice Initiative, we work to eliminate institutional racism in our programs, policies and practices. The Office is supported by the 16-member Seattle Arts Commission, citizen volunteers appointed by the mayor and City Council.

About Seattle Center

Connect to the extraordinary at Seattle Center, an active civic, arts and family gathering place in the core of our region. More than 30 cultural, educational, sports and entertainment organizations that reside on the grounds, together with a broad range of public and community programs, create thousands of events on the 74-acre campus and attract over 12 million visitors each year. At Seattle Center, part of Uptown Arts & Cultural District and home to Climate Pledge Arena, our purpose is to create exceptional events, experiences and environments that delight and inspire the human spirit to build stronger communities. Activities at the Center generate $1.864 billion in business activity and $631 million in labor income.

Art Interruptions 2022 explores history, connection, and portraiture along Delridge-Highland Park Neighborhood Greenway

October 4, 2022 by Erika Lindsay Leave a Comment

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) in partnership with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), commissioned four emergent public artists to create temporary art installations along the Delridge-Highland Park Neighborhood Greenway for Art Interruptions 2022. The artworks will be installed on City-owned infrastructure offering passers-by a brief ‘highlight – interruption’ in their day through moments of surprise, beauty, contemplation, or humor.

“Art Interruptions gives opportunities to emerging artists in our local community that are looking to break into the field of public art. Temporary art is contemporary art that connects us all to time, place and people.”
royal alley-barnes, Acting Director, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture

Art Interruptions Delridge-Highland Park explores themes of nature, conservancy, history, connections, and the individuals who make up the neighborhood through temporary public artworks that are ephemeral, experiential, and experimental allowing artists to explore current issues.

Artwork Descriptions

School’s Out by Malayka Gormally

Location: Sanislo Playfield Fence along 21^st Ave SW

Malayka Gormally’s project is a portrait series capturing the afternoon ease of Sanislo Elementary School students after school lets out – children enjoying each other’s company, connecting with friends, parents, and guardians, and walking home. Her designs focus on the legs and feet of the students, communicating their energy and liveliness and their varied self-expression through clothes and shoes. These vibrant, mixed media images highlight the beautiful diversity of our communities alongside the things we may have in common. They will be printed across eight banners affixed to the Sanislo Elementary playground fence along 21st Ave SW.

Lukia e Tenifa by Va’eomatoka “Toka” Valu

Location: Digital design, printed on vinyl and adhered to the retaining wall at the NE corner of 18th Ave SW & SW Myrtle St

Toka Valu’s Lukia e Tenifa features the artist’s take on the traditional Tongan Amoamo Kofe design motif, sharks, and octopuses.

“Our paths to each other are known to the ancestors because we are linked to the same boundless wells of wisdom through roots and connections that provide guidance for generations to come. Shark and Octopus are depicted here in their titanic struggle that set precedence for rituals of respect and relationship nurturing with the sea that are still observed between the two to this very day. We honor the “path-well-traveled” through this legend’s depiction.”
Va’eomatoka “Toka” Valu

all the ways we’ve found through these downs and ups and downs by Clare Johnson

Location: Backs of signs throughout the greenway between SW Kenyon St. and SW Myrtle St.

Inspired by the concept of a scavenger hunt, Johnson’s vividly detailed artwork mirrors how neighborhood greenways can uncover surprising new joys in familiar places. Her handmade drawings intricately fuse past and present aspects of the neighborhood, celebrating our urban environment as full of ordinary daily treasures to be found. Details from the full images will be spread out on the backs of signs throughout the Neighborhood Greenway.

Animals of the Salish Sea by Tommy Segundo

Location(s): Various signposts along the Greenway

Animals of the Salish Sea grace various signs located along the Greenway. Each animal has a significant role within the Salish Sea and Duwamish River ecosystems.  Since time immemorial, these animals have held great meaning to the indigenous people of the city we now call Seattle. (Named after Duwamish/Suquamish leader Siahl aka Seattle).

Artists were selected by a panel of artists, community members, and city staff. Art Interruptions is an ongoing program funded by the SDOT 1% for Arts Fund.

Rock Stack, Seattle’s newest artwork, unveiled in Lake City Park

October 3, 2022 by Erika Lindsay Leave a Comment

Artist Elizabeth Gahan with *Rock Stack*; Photo by Maija McKnight

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) celebrates the newest permanent public artwork located in Lake City Park (12510 33rd Ave. NE), Rock Stack, by artist Elizabeth Gahan. Conceived by Gahan, the artwork strives to embody the community’s aspirations for the new park as a safe gathering space that acknowledges the diverse neighborhood. Rock Stack is inspired by Cairns, a historic form of wayfinding or commemoration, which has become a common occurrence on hiking trails and destinations all over the world. Please join us for the public dedication on Saturday, October 8, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Poster courtesy of Seattle Parks & Recreation

Through meeting and working with community members, the artist created this public artwork to reinforce the idea of the park as a gathering place and to serve as a focal point for shared community experiences.

“Rock Stack represents a universal instinct to build, communicate across cultures and languages, and create a unique mark to be shared with a broader community. Furthermore, what gives this experience a soulful beauty is that the forms come from nature and are an extension of the surrounding natural landscape. In this way, a rock stack signifies a connection to both nature and community which is also what the sculpture will represent in the context of the Lake City park.”
Elizabeth Gahan, Artist

This large-scale, painted steel sculpture is a welcoming beacon positioned along the sidewalk at the main entrance to the new park. Visible from the street and throughout the park, it adds a unique character, serves as a visual marker, and symbolically represents the transition into a creative community space. Approximately 16’ high and 8’ wide this colorful sculpture is a series of “rocks” that seemingly defy gravity. The colors transition from darker jewel tones nearest to the ground, to brighter warmer tones towards the top as it grows closer to the sun. The dominant color scheme yellow-green-blue refers to nature and is accented with contrasting red stripes to create a sense of upward movement. Most importantly, the color scheme evokes a welcoming and celebratory feel, which reflects the community’s hope for the positive impact this park and artwork will have on the neighborhood.

“This new work in this special new park highlights and celebrates community coming together. People have celebrated spaces with objects to signify their importance to elevate community in many cultures. Lake City Park, will be a cherished space in the Lake City neighborhood and Seattle Parks system. Rock Stack is a fitting artwork that underscores the deep ties community have for their neighborhood.”
Office of Arts & Culture Acting Director, royal alley-barnes

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Public Art program commissions artists to integrate artworks across Seattle that express our community values in the public realm. 1% of eligible city capital improvement project funds are dedicated to commissioning public art informed through a community process. Rock Stack is funded through Seattle Parks and Recreation % for Art.

Gahan is a Seattle-based artist and her artwork considers relationships between natural and built environments, as well as local community and global connectivity. Gahan has been awarded multiple fellowships, grants, and public commissions including Washington State Arts Commission, City of Tukwila Public Art Collection, Boston Children’s Hospital, and PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) Washington DC. Gahan was recognized in the Americans for the Arts 2014 Public Art Network Year in Review. 

Seattle Parks and Recreation is also launching the naming process for the park. Visit their website to learn more.

Mayor Bruce Harrell Releases Proposed 2023–24 ARTS Budget

September 27, 2022 by April Jingco Leave a Comment

On behalf of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture Acting Director royal alley-barnes

Good afternoon,

Today, Mayor Bruce Harrell is releasing the 2023-24 Proposed Budget. This budget reflects Mayor Harrell’s continued commitment to bold action on the priorities of our communities – investing to address urgent needs and emphasizing the essentials as we build One Seattle. Mayor Harrell’s proposal invests in creating safe, healthy, and thriving communities by supporting efforts to deliver effective public safety, build housing and address the homelessness crisis, and drive opportunity and equity for all. This budget responds to the City’s ongoing and long-term revenue gap, as expenditures continue to exceed General Fund revenues, balancing immediate priorities with the resources available to respond and by identifying improvements and efficiencies.

With the investments in this budget proposal, we can work together to advance our shared One Seattle vision and an agenda that will inspire the best in our city and keep us moving forward.

The Office of Arts & Culture builds and strengthens community resilience through support of and investment in arts and culture and the creative economy. We work together to activate and sustain Seattle through the arts, seeking solutions that use arts as a strategy to drive not only our office, but the city, toward racial equity and social justice.

The following is a summary of key changes to ARTS included in the 2023-24 Proposed Budget:

Funding to create Operations Manager Position: This change allows ARTS to support its growing infrastructure complexities while balancing a wider engagement with communities.
Funding to reclassify Racial Equity Coordinator position to further ARTS’s equity work: This action provides funding for ARTS to change its Race and Social Justice position to a Racial Equity Coordinator, elevating it to a Management Systems Analyst and better positioning it to be aligned with the external facing work in race and social equity that ARTS is committed to.
Adding a permanent 0.5 FTE front-desk support for King Street Station: This change creates a new 0.5 FTE position to provide permanent front-desk support for the King Street Station gallery and administrative support for the Office.
Continuing Hope Corps Program: This change allows ARTS to continue its Hope Corps program through 2023 providing job opportunities to artists and creative workers in Seattle following the pandemic.

Over the next two months, the City Council will review the Mayor’s proposed budget. Public hearings are on October 11 and November 7. Final adoption of the budget is expected on Tuesday, November 22. More information about details in the budget can be found at www.seattle.gov/budget, and you can also direct any questions to MOS_COMMS@seattle.gov.

royal alley-barnes, MAT (she/her)
Acting Director, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture

ARTS presents the Public Art Boot Camp Class of 2022-23 and the full list of upcoming workshops

September 26, 2022 by April Jingco Leave a Comment

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) investment in training the next generation of public artists is the Public Art Boot Camp. These selected artists will create culturally relevant artworks that resonate with Seattle’s diverse population. Public Art Boot Camp provides training to artists who are ready to translate their studio art experiences to the public art realm. Twelve artists were selected for the 2022-23 cohort. They will spend the next eleven months in trainings and workshops that will culminate in temporary art projects that will be installed in August 2023. All workshops are open to the public.

“Public Art Boot Camp helps artists cultivate their skills and explore innovative sharing and showcasing of their art practice. Public Art brings diverse voices into the public realm to ensure that they are heard. This program uplifts artists and provides them immersive training and mentoring opportunities. It will be exciting to see the art that will be created and installed in communities.”
royal alley-barnes, Acting Director for Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS)

In 2003, ARTS created our first public art training project — the Emerging Public Artists Roster program — introducing regional artists to the idea and practice of public art. In 2015, we evolved the program into Public Art Boot Camp, which advances racial equity by centering artists of color and providing the information and experience they needed to enter the world of public art.

Public Art Boot Camp is a cohort model program and training includes presentations by working artists, mentor sessions with public art administrators, handouts, and an opportunity for a temporary public art project as a Public Art Boot Camp selected artist.

ARTS is excited to announce the Public Art Boot Camp Class of 2022-23 and the full list of upcoming workshops!

Upcoming Public Art Boot Camp Online Workshops

Meet the 2022-23 Boot Camp Cohort

Upcoming Public Art Boot Camp Online Workshops

Starting this December 2022, a series of online workshops will be free and available to anyone interested in learning more about public art. Featuring staff, artists, and experts in the field, the information shared will highlight the steps needed to navigate through the completion of a public art project successfully.

These workshops will be held online and recordings of each will be posted on our YouTube Channel subsequent to each event. You can also watch sessions from prior years.

Where to Begin: Developing Concepts for Public Art

Thursday, December 8, 2022
7 – 8 p.m. PST

So you’ve received your first public art commission, now what? This session will explore how to develop concepts for public art using community feedback, project scopes, budgets, and site restrictions. Fellow public artists will share how they’ve navigated the challenges of taking their public artworks from call to concept.

Guest Speakers:

Damon Brown
Erin Shigaki
Horatio Law

Watch the recording of the 12/8 workshop below:

Hiring Subcontractors: Engineers, Fabricators and Artwork Installers

Thursday, March 9, 2023
7 – 8 p.m. PST

Local engineers, fabricators, and installation experts will share about how they’ve worked with artists on projects in the past and the types of information you will need to best find and initiate your own public art project.

Guest Speakers:

Marianne Wilson, Associate Principal at ZFA Structural Engineers
Jeff Hudak, Partner at StudioFifty50
Jessica Bender, Director of Operations at Art Work Fine Art Services, Seattle

Life After Project Completion: Post-Installation Rights & Responsibilities

Thursday, May 11, 2023
7 – 8 p.m. PST

Once your artwork has been completed, accepted, and installed, you’re all done, right? Well…not quite. In this session, we will give a brief overview of your rights and responsibilities to an artwork once your project’s been completed. We will discuss VARA, copyright, and artwork documentation to help demystify some of these long-term considerations.

Speakers Include:

Hon. Adam Eisenberg, Seattle Municipal Judge, author, and guest faculty with the University of Washington’s Museology program (specializing in art and cultural property law)
Sandy Esene, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Public Art Collection Registrar

Meet the 2022-23 Boot Camp Cohort

These selected twelve artists will participate in trainings and workshops that will culminate in temporary art projects to be installed in August 2023. Although the cohort has been selected, much of the workshop content is open to anyone who is interested in learning more about public art. Meet the artists below!

愛淳黃 (Ai-Chun Huang)

愛淳黃 is a digital artist and animation director roaming around the world between different media such as hand drawing, installation, digital animation, and sculpture. Their artwork focuses on life limitations and social expectations from an Asian immigrant woman’s perspective and uses metaphors from their Asian cultural icons.

You can learn more about Ai-Chun on their website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Amiko Matsuo

Amiko Matsuo is an educator, artist, and writer. Her writing and art have explored how we might learn from the ways people are connected to the plant and animal communities surrounding the places we live. Matsuo is committed to working collectively to learn and teach about the unfolding crises and realities of our places. She believes that art can be the catalyst to create spaces where we can be vulnerable together in conversations marked by transforming care and belonging.

You can learn more about Amiko on her website.

VULGAR DREAMER

VULGAR DREAMER uses old-world craft to connect you to ancient symbols and alternative ways of healing. VULGAR DREAMER is Black and female.

You can learn more about E.T. on their website and Instagram.

E.T. Russian

E.T. RUSSIAN is a multi-sensory artist, cartoonist, and healer, living in Seattle — the unceded ancestral homeland of the Duwamish People.

You can learn more about E.T. on their website and Instagram.

Hans Amor

Hans Amor’s artwork focuses on sharing the artists’ Filipino culture and history in the hopes that people will appreciate its resilience and beauty.

Io Palmer

Io Palmer is a multimedia artist who uses a variety of materials including clay, paper, wood, and video. She is most looking forward to seeing how her usual private work will translate to the public arena.

You can learn more about Io on her website and Instagram.

JoEllen Wang

JoEllen Wang is a Seattle-based painter and installation artist. She is a lover of mash-ups and a pursuer of nuance.

You can learn more about JoEllen on her website and Instagram.

Lee Davignon

Lee Davignon is a multi-disciplinary artist working in the Pacific Northwest. Through a combination of traditional textile techniques, sculptural experiments, and material play, their work explores themes of waste, value, and craft.

You can learn more about Lee on their website and Instagram.

Morgan Madison

Morgan Madison is a Seattle-based artist working in numerous media. His work is inspired by the forms, materials, colors, and other elements that comprise place. He believes the language of place is easily recognized and carries space within for all to become engaged creatively when it used selectively to attend to ideas rather than to steer with intention.

You can learn more about Morgan on his website and Instagram.

Nahom Ghirmay

Artist Nahom Ghirmay’s work explores identity and emotional experiences through a variety of mediums.

You can learn more about Nahom on their website and Instagram.

Renee Adams

Renee Adams creates mixed-media sculptures that examine the complex relationships humans have cultivated with the natural world. She is active in the regional arts scene as a Curator and Exhibition Coordinator at Gallery One and a founding member of PUNCH Projects, a rural arts collective dedicated to the promotion of visual dialogue between urban and rural art communities.

You can learn more about Renee on her website and Instagram.

Sara Dobbs

Sara Dobbs is visual artist and co-founder of Wilbie Farm. The practical work she does on Wilbie Farm to grow food for her local community provides a grounding for her artistic exploration of the impacts of food production, distribution, and consumption on the individual, society, and environment.

You can learn more about Sara on her website and Instagram.

View Additional Artist Works

The Creative Advantage Summer Institute Success

September 20, 2022 by Otts Bolisay Leave a Comment

by Tina LaPadula, Arts Education Project Manager, photos by Ground Zero

Attendees check in at the registration desk.

On August 18, more than 125 community arts educators and teachers flooded into the Seattle Art Museum to attend The Creative Advantage Summer Institute.

Seattle JazzEd youth performers blared big band standards to greet the attendees, and a full day of arts learning began.

Three youth with horn instruments sit in front of music stands, playing. — Seattle JazzED

Red Eagle Soaring reps with a drum on stage. — Seattle JazzED

Russell Brooks and Nicole Suyama from Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth Theatre opened the main program in the Plestcheef Auditorium, reminding all guests of our responsibility to the land we’re on, the native people of this area, and the 2015 passage of Senate Bill 5433 requiring the Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State or other tribally-developed curriculum be taught in all schools. 

Youth Poet Laureate Sah Pham recited a powerful piece created just for the occasion, encouraging all the educators to remember what’s at stake in our classrooms. An excerpt:

I am grateful for you
Teachers, educators, shipmakers
lifeguarding without limitation
drifting us onto better days
boats big enough to carry our dreams to shore
It is because of this port language,
That I arrive at this pier
Where the same hands before me held nothing
The boatful of stars I hold are burning
So that when I look up
I see that I have everything
Thank you, Cảm ơn
for this artful education.
without you
I could not have held up this sky
Long enough to paint it blue.

Acting Director of the Office of Arts & Culture royal alley-barnes and Seattle Public Schools Executive Director of Partnerships and Engagement James Bush, lauded the accomplishments and progress of The Creative Advantage in it’s 10 year history, and reaffirmed their institutional commitments to this important city-wide arts education partnership.

Other highlights of the day included: a panel and interactive workshops in theatre, dance visual art and music with representatives from representatives of Red Eagle Soaring, The Rhapsody Project, Spectrum Dance and Seattle Art Museum; a picnic lunch on the steps while student performers The Rhapsody Songsters crooned folk and blues tunes; an Everybody Dance salsa lesson with Spectrum’s Stephanie Guiland with live accompaniment from Big World Breaks’ Aaron Walker Loud. Documentation of the day and arts advocacy interviews with Ground Zero student journalists.

Speakers pose on stage. — Guest Speakers

Two of the planners pose, standing warmly together. — Guest Speakers

The Creative Advantage Implementation Team is beyond grateful to kick off the school year in the company of all the arts leaders who collaborated and attended, making the day a rousing success. Here’s what participants had to say:

“Every part of the Institute was centered on JOY and inclusion which also invigorated me to take that to my students this year.”

“It was overall just amazing to be in a room with other arts educators and art education champions. I feel so energized and excited after the institute!”

“The movement workshop reminded me how important it is to bring the physical into a day of learning. The music workshop gave me a wonderful framework for exploring my own identity as well some tools for helping my students explore theirs.”

“I came wondering about the state of arts learning in SPS and hoping to connect with local teaching artists. So, I was really glad to hear the info in the speaking program and for the networking opportunities. The workshops were delightful…I came out feeling refreshed and inspired.”

Art Beat Blog Office of Arts & Culture