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Seattle’s newest Tiny Cultural Space is an expansion of Estelita’s Library

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The Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) in partnership with Sawhorse Revolution selected Estelita’s Library to be the first ever recipient of a Tiny Cultural Space design and construction project. ARTS and Sawhorse Revolution invited local cultural and community organizations to submit proposals for a new (tiny) cultural structure. Estelita’s Library, a social justice community library and bookstore, brings books, art, culture and community together to heal, uplift and serve communities of color, Queer and LGBT folks, and other oppressed communities of Seattle. The project will be designed and built by Sawhorse Revolution’s all-womxn design/build program for youth.

Estelita’s Library is currently located at 2533 16th Ave South. They are a membership driven organization that has over 250 members. They have a catalog of over 1,500 books, ranging from out-of-print books written by Black authors in the 1800s, to books that provide depth and critical analysis on the topics of race, slavery, indigenous/native languages, sexual identity and gender, politics, history, and law. The new Tiny Cultural Space created by this City program will be an extension of their current library, serving as a dynamic, multi-use space that builds culture, community, and knowledge, focused on the most historically marginalized. A feature of the extension is space to publicly display their collection of Black Panther Party Newspapers, one of the largest collections in the country that speaks to the history of justice and resistance of the Black Panther Party.

“Estelita’s is a space where culture thrives and lives,” says Edwin Lindo, Curator of Estelita’s Library. “We believe that our community’s power resides in our ability to build community and knowledge in a collective way. We are thankful and thrilled for the opportunity to expand this vision and for the community to have a space they can call as their own. To be able to have a dedicated space to exhibit the Black Panther Party Newspapers will foster a connection to our community’s past of resilience and beauty. We welcome the community to our current and future space.”

The board of Estelita’s Library will work closely with Sawhorse Revolution’s all-womxn design/build team. Design mentors from Olson Kundig Architects and LMN Architects will facilitate the youth designing the structure. Then, youth will build the space under the tutelage of professional carpenters. The space will be located on an unused city-owned property suitable for this type of project. Estelita’s Library will have a free five-year lease on the property, after which ownership may be transferred to the organization. After a final design is approved construction will begin in Spring 2019, with a grand opening planned for Summer 2019 depending on construction.

The Tiny Cultural Space construction project was developed through a community process at the Square Feet Seattle 2017 event. This is the first year that this Tiny Cultural Space construction project is being piloted. 

Sawhorse Revolution is a Seattle-based non-profit serving high-school students primarily from Central and South Seattle. Their mission is to foster confident, community-oriented youth through the power of carpentry and craft. They teach teens carpentry and architecture through inspiring community projects.

Images courtesy of Edwin Lindo, Curator of Estelita’s Library.

ARTS @ King Street Station opens March 23, 2019

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Inaugural exhibition opening celebration Saturday, March 23, 2019, 12 – 7 p.m. 

Exhibition Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; First Thursdays, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.

Logo for yəhaw̓ along with the tagline: together we lift the skySEATTLE – In recognition of the Coast Salish peoples on whose land the City of Seattle is built, the Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) is honored to open ARTS @ King Street Station, a new arts and cultural hub with yəhaw̓, an indigenous-centered inaugural exhibition that will run March 23 – August 3, 2019.

yəhaw̓ is an expansive multi-city, yearlong project. It includes satellite installations across the Puget Sound region, performances, artist-in-residence, a publication, art markets, and culminates in a large-scale exhibition at King Street Station. The title yəhaw̓, is drawn from the Coast Salish story of Native people from all tribes uniting around a common cause and lifting up the sky together. yəhaw̓ will reflect a nuanced, inclusive narrative that firmly establishes Native creatives as belonging in the here and now. yəhaw̓ is an open call project; all Indigenous creatives living in the region were invited to participate and everyone who applied has work represented in the programming. The project was conceived and curated by Tracy Rector (Choctaw/Seminole), Asia Tail (Cherokee Nation), and Satpreet Kahlon.

The exhibition at King Street Station is the centerpiece of the yəhaw̓ project. In the spirit of the yəhaw̓ story, the exhibition will be a collective portrait of Native America featuring artwork by over 200 creators by a range of master artisans and elders, to gallery-represented and museum-collected artists, to youth and emerging creatives who will be exhibiting in a gallery for the first time.

The exhibition challenges divisions between craft and fine art, as well as traditional and contemporary practices, by equally valuing all artforms as integral to the cultural continuum. Artworks include sculpture, photography, design, printmaking, woodworking, film, metalwork, glass, and textiles, encompassing an astonishing breadth of creative practices. Site-specific artworks have been commissioned for the exhibition by Chai Adera, Natalie Ball, Demian DinéYazhi´, Malynn Foster, Sara Siestreem, Adam Sings in the Timber, Timothy White Eagle, Christine Babic, and more. In addition, 10 emerging artists including Priscilla Dobler, Randi Purser, and Asa Wright have been selected to participate in a mentorship program, receiving artistic guidance from established Native artists.

ARTS @ King Street Station will be a new kind of cultural space where communities of color have increased opportunities to present their work and be seen and heard. Grounded in community feedback, the programming and cultural space on the third floor of King Street Station will be an incubator for artists and communities, experimenting with the best ways to respond to the cultural needs of an ever-changing city. A new cohort of King Street Station Advisors will select and respond to community exhibition and programming ideas. ARTS’ goal for King Street Station is to be a resource for the city and the embodiment of the Office’s commitment to racial equity. The 17,130 square foot cultural hub, designed by Olson Kundig with Schacht Aslani Architects, will offer dedicated multi-disciplinary arts presentation spaces, an artist-in-residence studio, modular public areas, community gathering and performance spaces, meeting rooms, and offices for ARTS. 

yəhaw̓ is made possible through the financial support of the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, Na’ah Ilahee Fund, Muckleshoot Tribe, 4Culture, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, and ArtsFund, via fiscal sponshorship by Na’Ah Illahee Fund. It is grounded in partnerships throughout the region with Alma Mater Tacoma, Artist Trust, Bellevue College, Centrum, Chief Seattle Club, Cowlitz Tribal Health, Feast Arts Center, Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington, LANGSTON, Lettuce 253, Northwest Film Forum, Pratt Fine Arts, Race and Pedagogy Conference at UPS, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Public Library, Hedreen Gallery in the Lee Center for the Arts at Seattle University, Suquamish Museum, Teens in Tacoma, United Indians of All Tribes, The Vera Project, Vermillion Art Gallery and Bar, and more.

Mayor Durkan Announces Seattle Will Invest in 91 New Affordable Homes and art space on City-Owned Property in Uptown Adjacent to Seattle Center

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Investment Will Support 91 New Permanent Homes for Our Neighbors Experiencing Homelessness, A Community Art Space, and A Community Workforce Agreement Pilot 

Seattle (November 20, 2018) – Mayor Jenny A. Durkan was joined today by Uptown community members, housing advocates, labor leaders, and arts and cultural district representatives as she announced the City of Seattle will invest approximately $6.9 million to build 91 new affordable homes for people experiencing long-term homelessness at a City-owned site adjacent to Seattle Center.  

The building will be developed by Plymouth Housing following the permanent supportive housing model and providing 91 affordable apartments for men and women experiencing long-term homelessness. All residents will have a housing case manager to help provide tailored on-site services that may include nursing and medical care, connections to behavioral health treatment, hospice care, veterans counseling, and money management.   

In 2018, the City of Seattle has invested approximately $90 million in affordable housing. By 2021, the City expects to have more than 2,500 new affordable homes.  

“As we address our region’s homelessness crisis, we must build more affordable housing as quickly as we can and help our neighbors experiencing homelessness access the services they need and move into safer places. Seattle will continue to invest in affordable housing to ensure those experiencing homelessness have permanent, safe, stable places to live. We will also continue working with our partners in the region and state to ensure we have a truly regional response to this regional challenge,” said Mayor Durkan. “At this moment, the Seattle Center is transforming. The City is creating an arts and cultural space that compliments Uptown and the Seattle Center as an economic, arts, and cultural engine for decades to come.”  

The building will pilot a Community Workforce Agreement, which help provide true economic opportunity into underserved communities by working with labor unions, local governments can establish hiring standards to bring people from low-income areas, people of color, and women – populations that are historically underrepresented in the building trades – into the construction industry, providing access to apprenticeships, high-wage jobs, and benefits.   

The building will also include a ground floor arts and cultural space. Path with Art will manage the ground floor area of the building as an arts space available to residents and Path with Art students, as well as a community arts resource for other community-based arts organizations. Path with Art uses creative engagement to bring dignity, awareness, and healing to the complexities of the issues surrounding homelessness and recovery from trauma. The City’s Office of Housing and the Office of Arts and Culture worked with the Uptown Arts and Culture Coalition and the Uptown Community Alliance to engage community members and stakeholders on creating a building that would both maximize affordable housing outcomes and create opportunities for arts and cultural uses. This project is the first time the City has made a joint housing and arts investment as part of the same funding award.  

“Plymouth Housing’s mission is to provide the most vulnerable people in our community with permanent homes and the support they need to attain stability in their lives. We’re grateful to the Seattle Office of Housing for this opportunity to provide permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness,” said Paul Lambros, Executive Director of Plymouth Housing. “This site will provide two highly needed public benefits: housing and arts access. We look forward to working with our partners, Path With Art, as well as the Uptown Alliance and the Uptown Arts & Culture Coalition to construct a welcoming building that contributes to this vibrant neighborhood.”  

“When we build affordable housing with active ground floor space, we enhance the opportunity and wellbeing of both residents and neighborhoods,” according to Steve Walker, the Director of the Seattle Office of Housing. “The Office of Housing collaborated with our partners at the City Office of Arts and Culture and in the Uptown neighborhood to achieve arts and cultural goals prioritized by the community at a site where we are making a housing investment.”   

”The Uptown Arts and Culture Coalition was delighted to be a part of the evolution of this project aligned with and advancing the Uptown neighborhood arts and cultural priorities,” said Cyrus Despres, Director of Planning and Business Intelligence at KEXP and the President of the Uptown Arts and Cultural District. “We are growing an Uptown creative space for existing arts organizations and helping our neighbors in need at the same time.”  

The Office of Housing also worked in close partnership with the Labor Equity Team at the Department of Finance and Administrative Services and the Seattle Building Trades to pilot a Community Workforce Agreement at the site.  

“This pilot sustains Seattle’s track record of ensuring strong labor equity outcomes through labor agreements,” said Monty Anderson, Executive Secretary of the Seattle Building Trades. “The Community Workforce Agreement is the main tool to implement the City’s Priority Hire Ordinance, aimed at prioritizing local workers living in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and supporting women and people of color to take part in apprenticeships and become part of the trained construction workforce.” 

 

ARTS partner Creative Equity Fund’s Inaugural Grant infuse $200,000 into 14 organizations

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Building racial justice through arts and culture

 

Seattle Foundation and its partners are fueling the power of arts and culture to dismantle racism through the new Creative Equity Fund, which is announcing a total of $200,000 in grants to 14 King County organizations.

The grants will provide either project-based or general operating support to nonprofits with a wide array of approaches to addressing structural racism through their programming. This includes nonprofits working in the areas of housing and homelessness, criminal justice, arts education, reproductive health, public policy and food security. All are using arts and culture strategies to create empathy, transcend divisions, inspire innovations and engage the community in collective change.

“This grant program is designed to harness the power of arts and culture to not only influence systems and policy change but also to fund organizations using creative solutions to counter the impacts of structural racism in their communities. The 14 organizations these grants support are igniting civil discourse, inspiring action and helping create a more just world for people of color in King County,” said Jonathan Cunningham, Program Officer at Seattle Foundation.

A cross sector group of community members, all people of color from the Greater Seattle region with arts and culture experience, co-designed the Creative Equity Fund and all of its facets with the support of funders. 

The 2018 Creative Equity Fund grantees are:

21 Progress

Arts Corps

Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas

Chief Seattle Club

Creative Justice

Hip Hop is Green

Indigenous Showcase

International Capoeira Angola Foundation (ICAF Seattle)

Northwest African American Museum

Northwest Tap Connection

Surge Reproductive Justice

Studio Lazo

Totem Star

Wing Luke Memorial Foundation

A few organizations’ plans for the grants include:

  • Totem Star will help fund its music recording program, which empowers youth of color through music production and performance that in turn teaches life skills, leadership and civic engagement. The program provides critical arts access and entrepreneurship to youth from under-served communities.
  • Hip Hop is Green, which connects hip hop to the environment, will use its grant to increase connections for youth and families of color to healthy food, fitness, gardening and nature. The group produces cultural and educational events and programming that increases health and wellness in communities with less access to healthy food.
  • Surge Reproductive Justice will use the funds to support their open-mic nights, which lift up the experiences of black and brown women who are addressing the systemic barriers communities of color often face related to reproductive health care. Through this storytelling, Surge will strengthen its policy change initiatives aimed to improve reproductive health within communities of color.

The grantees were selected from 75 applicants, and were decided by an intergenerational panel of community members of color with professional experience in the arts and culture field. In an effort to lessen the power imbalances that often exist in philanthropy, funders did not have a vote.

The Creative Equity Fund is administered by Seattle Foundation and was developed initially through a collaboration with ArtsFund and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, with support from Macklemore. Additional leadership and financial support comes from The Boeing Company, Microsoft and the Nesholm Family Foundation.

Seattle Civic Poet Speak to Me! Series (II)

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Collage of the four poets in Speak to Me (II)November 20, 2018, 7 – 9 p.m.
Jack Straw Studios
4261 Roosevelt Way NE Seattle WA 98105

Speak to Me Series (II) Volume I

This years Speak to Me! Series (II) focuses on the theme of “Living Legacy.” Poets will share their work and a brief Q & A will follow. Features poets:

Gary Copeland Lilley is the author of eight books of poetry, the most recent being The Bushman’s Medicine Show, from Lost Horse Press (2017), and a chapbook, The Hog Killing, from Blue Horse Press (2018). He is originally from North Carolina and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. He has received the Washington DC Commission on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. He is published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Best American Poetry 2014, Willow Springs, Waxwing, the Taos International Journal of Poetry, and the African American Review. He is a Cave Canem Fellow.

Amber Flame is a writer, composer and performer, whose work has garnered artistic merit residencies with Hedgebrook, The Watering Hole, Vermont Studio Center, and Yefe Nof. Flame joins the Hugo House in Seattle as the 2017 poetry Writer-in-Residence, and is a queer Black single mama just one magic trick away from growing her unicorn horn.

Sierra Golden graduated with an MFA in poetry from North Carolina State University. Her manuscript The Slow Art won the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize and was published by Bear Star Press in September 2018. Golden’s poems appear in literary journals such as Prairie Schooner, Permafrost, and Ploughshares. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies by Hedgebrook, Hugo House, and The Elizabeth George Foundation. Although she calls Washington State home, Golden spent many summers in Alaska, working as a commercial fisherman. She now works in nonprofit communications in Seattle.

Azura Tyabji is a born-and-raised Seattle poet, facilitator, and organizer. Brought up through Youth Speaks Seattle, she encourages other young people to unapologetically speak their truth through the dynamic art of spoken word. What drives her activism is a deep passion and respect for art as an indispensable tool for social change. As this year’s Seattle Youth Poet Laureate, she hopes to continue challenging and expanding her craft for the communities that inspire her. Her debut poetry collection will be released in the upcoming spring.

 

 

 

New Report Highlights Creative Strategies for Connected Learning

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Cover for the report "Creative Strategies for Career Connected Learning: Youth Voice in the Media Classroom"The Creative Advantage was created to ensure that all students in all Seattle Public Schools (SPS) have opportunities to learn through the arts, helping them achieve success in school and in life. In SPS high schools, this takes the form of connecting students with career opportunities in creative industries.

As we work to develop and refine career-connected media arts courses for our high school students, we want to ensure that our work aligns with what students want and need. So, we asked them.

What we discovered was that many students see the arts as an area they want to foster, regardless of the career path they intend to pursue. We’re excited to share this new report highlighting what we heard from students, as well as research-backed best practices and profiles from interviews with media arts professionals.

Read Creative Strategies for Career Connected Learning: Youth Voice in the Media Classroom (pdf).

Announcing the 2018 Cultural Facilities Fund awards, investing $1.1M throughout the city

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Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Cultural Facilities Fund awards $1.1M to support capital projects throughout the city

 

A bricklayer uses a tool on a freshly laid brick.SEATTLE —The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s (ARTS) expanded Cultural Facilities Fund announced awards to 28 organizations throughout the City. The Fund was expanded from $250,000 to $1.1M in 2018 to better support the needs to preserve cultural space and affordability in our rapidly growing city.

Prior to the Fund opening in 2018, ARTS conducted a Racial Equity Toolkit on the expanded Cultural Facilities Fund lowering barriers for eligibility to ensure that the benefits it creates are shared equitably with communities of color, and helping vulnerable organizations fight growing displacement pressures.

The Cultural Facilities Fund supports capital projects at arts and cultural spaces in Seattle. All organizations funded in the 2018 cycle are establishing or seeking to expand to better serve their communities and preserve their cultural traditions. Awardees include Black & Tan Hall, a cooperatively-owned performing arts and restaurant venue which seeks to maintain Rainier Valley as a destination for cross-cultural arts and education events; Friends of Little Saigon creating a safe space to share and practice Vietnamese arts and culture; United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, which operates Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, a space for the exhibition and performance of Native arts and culture; Eritrean Community in Seattle, an operational agency for refugees and immigrants of Eritrea and East African descents in Seattle; and Coyote Central an organization working with young adolescents to build skills, creative thinking, self-awareness, and social awareness through hands-on projects with professionals in creative fields.

Awardees received between $10,000 and $80,000. The full list of awardees are:

  • Amplifier Foundation
  • Avole Coffee LLC
  • Black & Tan Hall
  • Byrd Barr Place
  • Chong Wa Benevolent Association
  • Community Arts Create
  • Coyote Central
  • Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association
  • Densho
  • Detective Cookie Chess Park
  • Earl’s Cuts and Styles Inc.
  • Ethiopian Community in Seattle
  • Eritrean Community in Seattle & Vicinity
  • Filipino Community of Seattle
  • Freehold Theatre Lab Studio
  • Friends of Little Saigon
  • Indie Genius Media
  • Jack Straw Foundation
  • La Sala
  • MLK Family Arts Mentoring & Enrichment Community Center
  • Multicultural Community Center
  • Na’ah Illahee
  • Reel Grrls
  • Royal Esquire Club
  • SEEDArts
  • United Indians of All Tribes Foundation
  • Vietnamese Cultural Center
  • Wing Luke Memorial Foundation

The Cultural Facilities Fund started in 2012 and is designed to support capital projects that improve Seattle’s arts spaces in significant and lasting ways. The fund’s goal is to help Seattle-based organizations build and improve their facilities in ways that will ultimately advance their missions and strengthen Seattle’s cultural scene by creating greater accessibility.

The Cultural Facilities Fund is part of ARTS’ cultural space strategy, which includes the Cultural Space program that preserves, creates and activates Seattle’s cultural square footage. To achieve this goal, ARTS works with artists and cultural organizations to strengthen their role in charting the future of their creative spaces; works with developers and builders to incorporate arts and culture into new projects; and works with property owners to incentivize the preservation and expansion of arts and culture uses.

Just released: ArtsFund Social Impact of the Arts in King County

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Today ArtsFund released a new research study on the Social Impacts of the Arts in King County. According to the study’s findings, arts are a viable and proven—yet often underutilized and unacknowledged—strategy to positively transform and benefit our communities.

The report combines a county-wide public poll; a landscape scan surveying nearly 200 King County arts, cultural, and heritage nonprofits; a substantive lit review of more than 150 national research resources; and in-depth case studies of ten regional arts organizations to identify and examine the unique role that arts play in confronting regional challenges and improving outcomes.

To learn more you can visit the Social Impact Website and read the full report.

Seattle’s transportation new normal is just around the corner

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Starting January 11, 2019, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) will move forward with the permanent closure of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. This construction project is one of countless private and public construction projects taking place in the right of way in and around downtown.

In fact, over the next five years, Seattle’s downtown will be in a state of transition to meet the needs of our growing city. Transportation engineers have dubbed this transitional phase: The Period of Maximum Constraint.

The Seattle Department of Transportation is hard at work partnering with the Washington State Department of Transportation and other City departments to mitigate these challenging times. For more information about everything during the period of maximum constraint visit SDOT’s blog here. We’ll continue to share the news and keep everyone updated as move forward to a better Seattle.

ARTS Publishes “Capacity Building for Racial Equity in Public Art”

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Public Art Boot Camp, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s award-winning program, is the subject of the publication Capacity Building for Racial Equity in Public Art (pdf).

ARTS’ Public Art Program specifies that 1% of eligible city capital improvement project funds be set aside for the commission, purchase, and installation of artworks, integrating artworks and the ideas of artists into a variety of public arenas. A goal of the public art program is to address historic and current institutional racism and one way we do that is capacity building for public artists through our Public Art Boot Camp program, that received an Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Award in 2017.

Capacity Building for Racial Equity in Public Art illustrates how public art administrators can shift the field to be more inclusive and affect change by creating a program that intentionally serves artists from under-represented and under-invested communities. While systemic changes take time, capacity building is something that can show almost immediate results.

From 2015-18, ARTS’ Public Art Boot Camp centered artists of color and provided them with the information and experience they needed to enter the niche world of public art. Public art reflects our history, society and defines the space and community it resides in. When diverse artists work in the public realm, people see themselves reflected in public space in a way that only commissioning artists of color can do. Cities benefit from a richer visual environment by including everyone’s narrative. Art becomes more culturally relevant and meaningful to everyone.

ARTS published Capacity Building for Racial Equity in Public Art (pdf) to share our experience and to encourage other cultural organizations and municipalities to change their programs to create opportunities for artists of color.

For more information contact us at (206) 684.7171 or email us at arts.culture@seattle.gov