A Remarkable First Thursday in Seattle
Last night I started at the Ethnic Heritage Art Gallery in the Seattle Municipal Building on the third floor. The exhibition “Portraits” curated by Blanca Santander included works by herself
Fulgencio Lazo, GLoria Ruiz, Jose Orantes, Rene Julio,
and Tomas Oliva.
I talked to several of the artists. The theme of Portraits was strikingly developed in a lot of different styles. I am providing links above to artists with web sites.
Rene Julio’s Immigrant was a self portrait. I discovered that he is mainly a mural artist, with striking murals in various restaurants in the Seattle area.
These artists are, of course, well known in Seattle, some more than others. What is intriguing is that the need for an Ethnic Heritage Gallery is still with us. Preston Hampton, assisted by a team of curators, all employees with the city created this gallery out of whole cloth. Preston got some space and the Gallery now has four shows a year, representing different ethnic groups. The exhibitions include major artists as well as emerging artists.
From there we went to the “Skid Row” exhibition at OlsonKundig Architects StoreFront. According to their press release “Skid Row” is “a multimedia installation that focuses on innovative individuals and organizations in Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square neighborhood who are working to eradicate poverty and homelessness in the Puget Sound region. Like other [storefront] installations, Skid Road is a social practice experiment where everyone is welcome and nothing is for sale.
The installation includes the work of two artists: Mary Larson and Ronald Debs Ginther (below, one of a group of 60 watercolors that belong to the Washington State Historical Society. They are on display there until November 4. Ginther observed these scenes during the 1930s, but he painted most of them in the 1960s.
Mary Larson’s work is amazing. She creates portraits of her clients as she works at a public health facility. She has a relationship with the people she is painting and you can see that in their cheerful countenances. In the captions, we learn just a little about them, and the price of the work is in donations to Food Banks ( 750 cans of food, 1,250 sandwiches) . This photo doesn’t do her paintings justice. They are really highly saturated paintings. On the lower right is a former opera singer and he performed at the opening:
The exhibition also has beautifully designed display boards about seven different organizations that support homeless services in Pioneer Square. There is hope to have a roundtable discussion with representatives from these groups some of whom definately don’t agree with one another ( as in the controversy about the Committee To End Homelessness.) The groups are
Bread of Life Mission
Chief Seattle Club
Committee to End Homelessness in King County
Compass Housing Alliance
DESC (formerly Downtown Emergency Service Center)
Real Change
Seattle Housing and Resource Effort (SHARE)
Women’s Housing Equality and Enhancement League (WHEEL).
King County Committee to End Homelessness
Next stop was Gallery 4 Culture and the art of Nicki Sucec. She is standing in front of her sculpture made from helicopter blades, cut into a wing like structure. The exhibition is called “Ascension.” Sucec has done some wonderful projects honoring homeless people ( look at her website). This exhibition was honoring people who have overcome severe adversity (Ginny Ruffner for example). It included portraits and audio for each person.
Finally we went to the new design studio/art gallery cmd.p located on 2nd and Yesler. It is a collaboration between the Sanctuary Art and Efflux Creations. This is an impressive partnering. Sanctuary Art Center provides opportunities for homeless youth ages 13 – 25 to be creatie in many media. The director I spoke with Caroline Falt, is a dynamic and committed young women. The art works at cmd.p are for sale and 90 per cent of the money goes to the youth. The design studio is also a way for young people to have internships and to create a product they can sell ( silk screened tee shirts were on sale last night. It was a wonderful opening, with music performed by some of the youth. Usually I leave First Thursday in despair with the meaninglessness of the art. Last night I was inspired by the creative spirit alive in these exhibitions.
This entry was posted on August 3, 2012 and is filed under Art and Politics Now, Chicana Artists, economic imperialism vs democracy, Immigration.
