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Office of Arts & Culture news and events

New artwork “Alone Together” delights downtown pedestrians

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Friday, August 2, 2019, 2-3 p.m.
Public celebration at Harbor Steps
1221 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
Artwork stickers will be available for the first 250 people.

A new artwork, Alone Together, by Juliana Kang Robinson will be interwoven into the infrastructure of the all-walk intersection of University and 1st Avenue near Harbor Steps and the Seattle Art Museum. The artwork includes pictorial street signs in the blocks that surround the main artwork, and a new crosswalk painting on the intersection of University and 1st Avenue. 

One of the panels on the back of a parking sign depicts a baby bear on an ice floe as a narwhal swims underneath.

As you walk toward the intersection – west on University, North on 1st or South on 1st, the series of six separate but thematically connected images will lead up to the all-walk in which the theme of the artwork Alone Together will come into play. Pedestrians begin alone on the four separate corners of the intersection will cross over the artwork coming together for a moment.

A photo from above as pedestrians cross the intersection with the artwork below them.
Pedestrians cross at the intersection where Alone Together is installed

Bears are the main character in this illustrated series of images, in reference to a Korean creation myth and a reminder that people, like animals, share the same needs and strengths. The artist’s intent is to showcase that we all find refuge and strength in togetherness and that all families belong together. The goal of the artwork is to celebrate youth, families and pedestrians in our Downtown core. 

An aerial view of the intersection with a rendering of the artwork in the middle.
A rendering of the artwork at the pedestrian crossig

Inspired by conversations with pedestrian advocates, transportation specialists, neighborhood groups, and youth (special note of thanks to the kindergarten classes at Giddens Elementary and students from Summit High School) some of the overarching desires stated by these community members included the desire for new artwork to use bright colors, reference nature and animals, contain a positive message and put a smile on your face, and be located in a highly accessible location. You can learn more about the artist’s work at julianakangrobinson.com. 

This is part of the Imagine Greater Downtown initiative, designed to improve the pedestrian experience in Downtown Seattle using existing SDOT street infrastructure to create art for pedestrians and cyclists to see in their everyday movements. Commissioned by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and Seattle Department of Transportation.

Fremont Bridge will be a temporary studio for sound artist Paurl Walsh this summer

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Beginning June 2018, the northwest tower of the Fremont Bridge will be a temporary studio for musician and composer Paurl Walsh. Walsh will be able to use the tower space as a source of inspiration to compose and create a sound-based piece in response to the summer residency. He will also engage in several community outreach events and a public performance will be presented at the close of the residency, in late summer or early fall 2018. The musician-in-residence will run June through August.

Walsh was selected by a panel, facilitated by the Office of Arts & Culture, that included musical artists and community members and advised by the Seattle Department of Transportation. His selection was based on his impressive career and his focus on collaboration with players throughout the region. His proposal included a desire to create a work that investigates the inherent collision between creativity and mental health, which resonated with the selection panel.

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

This residency project is funded by SDOT’s 1% for Art Funds and administered by the Office of Arts & Culture.

Wanted: Musician/Composer for Fremont Bridge Residency

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Photo of the Fremont Bridge by Joe Mabel.The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), in partnership with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), seeks a practicing composer and/or musician to be an Artist-in Residence in the northwest tower of the Fremont Bridge. The selected composer and/or musician will undertake an in-depth exploration of the historic bridge’s role and meaning for the city of Seattle and create music in response to this residency.

The project budget is $10,000 USD ($5,000 for residency, $5,000 for sound project, presentation, documentation), inclusive of all residency costs, project, presentation, documentation of the work, and applicable taxes. Payment will be made in installments based on benchmarks established by ARTS in consultation with the artist.

Eligibility

The call is open to established professional musicians/composers living in Seattle or within 100 miles of Seattle. The artist selection panel will consider artistic diversity as one factor in the selection process. Artists who are well represented or have received City Artist grants may not be prioritized as highly as those who have not. Students are not eligible to apply.

Deadline

11 p.m., Tuesday, March 20, 2018. (Pacific Standard Time)

Application

Apply on CaFÉ. For assistance with the CaFÉ online application process, contact CaFÉ tech support or call them at (888) 562-7232, Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

Info

Please email Kristen Ramirez or call 206.615.1095 with any questions about this project.

Photo by Joe Mabel.

Vicki Scuri artist commissioned for SDOT Aurora Ave N Corridor Improvements Project

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The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), in partnership with Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), has commissioned artist Vicki Scuri for a series of site-specific artworks for the Aurora-Licton Corridor Neighborhood Street Fund Project. Scuri will work with SDOT and SDOT consultants from design through construction developing art installations along Aurora Ave. N. between N. 85 St. and N. 105 St. The artwork is expected to be completed in 2018.

Scuri brings over 30 years of experience to this project. Educated in printmaking and design, Scuri’s primary focus is site responsive, collaborative design and public art, with emphasis on community identity through awareness of place, history and culture. Scuri sees infrastructure, best symbolized as the backbone of urban design, as the system upon which society builds its core values, creating meaning, mobility and connectivity. Scuri’s projects, best known for symbolic pattern work; play of sunlight and shadow over sculptural form; and her ability to engage the entire site as a canvas, integrate functionality, landscape and art to create community landmarks. Community identity, site, climate, and environment are important considerations in shaping each project’s unique expression.

This SDOT project began as a community application for improvements along Aurora Ave. N. It was funded by the Neighborhood Street Fund (NSF) Program, for design in 2017 and construction in 2018. The project creates improved crossings of Aurora Ave. N. at N. 92 St. and N. 100 St. for people walking and biking. There is also a significant art component to the project, requested by the Aurora-Licton Urban Village. The goal of this project is to create art that will develop a distinctive spirit for the neighborhood, revitalize and change people’s perception of Aurora Ave. N., create a progression of ideas that extend along the entire corridor, bring color, vibrancy, and day and night presence to all modes of transit: pedestrians, motorists, bus riders.

Scuri was selected by a panel of artists and design professionals, advised by Aurora-Licton Urban Village community members, and city staff. The project is commissioned with SDOT 1% for Art funds.

Photo: Vicki Scuri

Image: Arlington Boulevard, Highway 50, laser-cut steel and LEDs, completed 2015

Jill Anholt commissioned to create artwork for Fauntleroy Way SW

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The Office of Arts & Culture, in partnership with Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), has commissioned artist Jill Anholt to develop site-specific artworks for the Fauntleroy Way SW Boulevard Project. Anholt will work with SDOT and SDOT consultants from design through construction to develop permanent public artwork for the Fauntleroy Way SW Boulevard Project. Possible sites include green spaces, median strips, and/or sidewalks, to be determined through collaboration and coordination with the project team. Anholt is beginning her project by investigating the history, multiple uses, and busy right of way along this corridor to design and implement site-responsive artwork.

Anholt is a visual artist based in Vancouver, B.C. who has been creating site specific works in the public realm since 1998. Anholt’s practice ranges from complex integrated works in parks, pedestrian walkways and transit stations, to small scale installations in buildings and public plazas across North America. Her installations explore the relationship between nature and infrastructure, body and place; revealing layers of personal and cultural memory and experience. Environmental sustainability play a generative role in the conceptual development, form, and material expression of many of her works. Along with her art practice, Anholt is an instructor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver.

SDOT’s Fauntleroy Boulevard Project builds upon previous planning work done by the community. Discussions of improvements to Fauntleroy Way began in 1999, when the West Seattle Junction Hub Neighborhood Plan identified streetscape improvements in this area, and continued through the multi-year West Seattle Triangle planning process. The streetscape plan was formally adopted by SDOT and the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (now Office of Planning and Community Development) in 2012. Through several extensive community processes, the residents and business owners in the area have expressed the need for improvements to make this stretch of Fauntleroy Way SW safer for pedestrians and bikes, and highlight its role as a main entrance to West Seattle.

Anholt was selected by a panel of artists advised by community members and city staff. The project is commissioned with SDOT 1% for Art funds.

Photo: Carlos Amat

Image: Marking, carved wood, Fort Calgary, Calgary Canada, completed 2015

Essay White City by Elissa Washuta is now available

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Fremont Bridge writer-in-residence Elissa Washuta’s essay White City is now available for everyone to read. In addition, a podcast of Washuta reading an excerpt of the essay at the Seattle Public Library‘s Central branch is available here.

Elissa Washuta was commissioned by the Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), in partnership with Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), to be the writer-in-residence in the northwest tower of the Fremont Bridge from June through August 2016. While in the tower, she researched, and wrote, White City a literary work, based on the history of the Puget Sound, including the lives of this region’s first peoples, the “landscape surgery” that defined the creation of Seattle’s waterways for purposes of commerce and industry, and the city of rapid change that we experience today.

Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a writer of personal essays and memoir. She is the author of two books, Starvation Mode and My Body Is a Book of Rules, named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Chronicle of Higher Education, BuzzFeed, and elsewhere. Elissa holds an MFA from The University of Washington and currently serves as the undergraduate adviser for the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington and a nonfiction faculty member in the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Elissa has received fellowships and awards from Artist Trust, 4Culture, Potlatch Fund, and Hugo House. Born and raised in New Jersey, she called Seattle home for the last ten years, and will join the faculty at Ohio State University in the Fall of 2017.

Ben Zamora selected to create a permanent public artwork for Madison Bus Rapid Transit Corridor

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The Office of Arts & Culture, (ARTS) in partnership with Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), has selected Seattle artist Ben Zamora to create a permanent, site-specific artwork along the Madison Street Bus Rapid Transit route.

“I am excited about this opportunity to create a new artwork that will serve as a vibrant focal point resonating with energy of a city in constant change and movement,” Says Zamora. “I hope this new work will reflect the spirit and identity of this community, serve as a beacon from afar and an interactive experience up close.”

The Madison Street Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service will provide fast, frequent, reliable, and safe public transportation between First Avenue in downtown Seattle and Martin Luther King Jr Way. The new route will serve densely developed neighborhoods and feature a redesigned streetscape as well as new state-of-the-art electric trolley buses. Throughout 2017, The artist will participate in a variety of outreach and community conversations to develop a proposed design. Construction is scheduled to being in early 2018.

Zamora is best known for his light-based artwork and earned a MFA from University of Washington in 2005. He has created large-scale installations and sculptures for Art Basel/Design Miami, Kunsthalle Krems in Austria, Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, and the Frye Art Museum, as well as a number of other galleries, museums, private art collections, and public art projects including the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.

The artwork is being funded through SDOT and Move Seattle Levy 1% for Arts Funds.

Photo: BEN ZAMORA, IMAGE 10 & 11, NEVER FINISHED, 2014, Seattle, Washington. Photo credit: Mark Woods. Dimensions: 20’ x 50’ x 15’
Description: Created as a companion piece to THROUGH HOLLOW LANDS (Frye Art Museum, 2012). A Lilienthal/Zamora project. 300 suspended fluorescent tubes move from the gallery’s wood planked floor and ascent toward the open beam ceiling, expanding and imploding. Black and white tubes create the movement.

 

Join Fremont Bridge writer-in-residence, Elissa Washuta at Ophelia’s Books

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Come join us at Ophelia’s for their first hours event! They’ll be open later than usual, have refreshments, a reading, and a sale!

Friday, August 19, 2016, 7-9 p.m.
Ophelia’s Books
3504 Fremont Ave. N.,
Seattle, WA 98103
More info at https://www.facebook.com/events/1735873899984010/


Elissa Washuta headshotElissa Washuta will be reading this month. She was awarded the Fremont Bridge writing fellowship for the summer, partly in conjunction with the ship canal’s 100-year anniversary. A writer of nonfiction, her first volume, My Body Is a Book of Rules, was published by Red Hen in 2014, followed by her e-book, Starvation Mode, in 2015 on Instant Future. She’s been hard at work on a new book, both in the Fremont Bridge and at various retreats over the summer. An East Coast transplant with PNW roots in the Cowlitz tribe, of whom she’s an active member, she writes consistently on Northwest Native American perspectives, through an interdisciplinary blend of historical analysis and memoir.

Game on for the recently installed artwork The King and Queen of Rainier Beach

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Located at the corner of Rainier Ave. S. at 51st Ave. S. and Barton Place S. artist Peter Reiquam’s The King and Queen of Rainier Beach is an iconic sculpture inspired by Seattle Police Detective, Denise “Cookie” Bouldin and the chess clubs she has organized throughout the Rainier Beach community for over a decade. The figures stand 120” high and are 96” wide and 48” deep.

0001b King and QueenThe game of chess serves as a metaphor for life’s important decisions and Detective Cookie’s Chess Clubs create an opportunity for community members of all ages to interact through a spirit of friendly competition. Paying homage to the chess club, the sculptures also represent the proud nature of the residents of Rainier Beach. The artworks are on a light-sensitive solar powered LED system, so when it is dark the sculptures are illuminated. The community has been awarded a Department of Neighborhood’s Neighborhood Matching Fund grant to develop a concept for a chess park in the vicinity.

The King and Queen of Rainier Beach is part of SDOT’s Safe Routes to School program, created to ensure that kids can walk to school safely. One of the methods to make walking routes more visible is to install artwork along common routes students take.

0002 King and QueenAbout Peter Reiquam

Peter Reiquam earned his MFA in Sculpture from the Yale University School of Art and has been creating site-specific interactive public artworks for 30 years throughout the Puget Sound region as well as in Los Angeles, CA, Albuquerque, NM and Juneau, AK. His works range from sculptural seating to rocket ships and each is a response to the unique character and culture of its location. Using a variety of materials including metals, stone, glass and light, Reiquam strives to create durable, well-crafted and meaningful works that speak to the uniqueness of each one’s site and to do so with a balance of humor, elegance and sophistication.

Funded with Seattle Department of Transportation 1 % for Art funds.

Photo courtesy the Office of Arts & Culture

Meet the newest artist to grace Fremont’s eclectic universe: Elissa Washuta

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Elissa Washuta has one of the most unique writing studios this summer. She was selected by the Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), in partnership with Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to be the writer-in-residence in the northwest tower of the Fremont Bridge from June through August 2016.

Elissa Washuta headshotWashuta’s project will include an in-depth exploration of the historic bridge and will culminate in a unique literary work and public presentation this fall. In addition, she will engage the public through social media and community events.

Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a writer of personal essays and memoir. She is the author of two books, Starvation Mode and My Body Is a Book of Rules, named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and BuzzFeed. Elissa holds an MFA from the University of Washington and currently serves as the undergraduate adviser for the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington and a nonfiction faculty member in the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is a faculty advisor for Mud City Journal and Saturday editor for The Rumpus. Washuta has received fellowships and awards from Artist Trust, 4Culture, Potlatch Fund, and Hugo House. Born and raised in New Jersey, she now lives in Seattle.

Photo credit: Andrew J.S.