Tag Archives: arts

First Fridays and Second Thursdays — New Central District Art Walk joins Capitol Hill Art Walk for monthly explorations of neighborhood creation and community

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(Image: Central District Art Walk)

The Capitol Hill Art Walk has been on the move for more than 15 years (Image: CHS)

With First Fridays and Second Thursdays, Central District and Capitol Hill lovers of painting, photography, sculpture, and community now have two nights a month to mark on the calendar.

The Central District Art Walk is now making First Fridays a time for seeing new things and meeting new creators across the neighborhood.

“There’s a lot of really beautiful art and culture and history. I see [the art walk] as a way… of reminding people of the history and the culture of the Central District, and celebrating those. There’s a lot of art and music and beautiful stuff that came out of the Central District that can sometimes get lost when something like gentrification is happening,” Stephanie Morales of Made Space says about the new monthly event. The second ever walk is today.

Meanwhile, the long running Capitol Hill Art Walk walks on every second Thursday.

“We’re currently working alongside the Capitol Hill Arts District to help push public outreach marketing and venue growth, since it’s such a fantastic and vital community-building event,” coordinator Laurie Kearney tells CHS. “Currently, there’s an average of 20 venues that take place on a regular basis, which fluctuates throughout the seasons.” Continue reading →

Hillebrity Superstars | Amanda Manitach

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By Timothy Rysdyke

In 2014, Amanda Manitach was carving out a unique space for herself in Seattle’s creative community. Fresh off her first solo show at Bryan Ohno Gallery and writing regularly for City Arts Magazine, Manitach  was becoming known for her distinct blend of visual art and writing.

Over the past decade, Amanda’s practice has evolved in exciting ways. “I’ve arrived at a place where writing and art have merged,” she reflects. “Back then, those practices were separate. Now my artwork has come to be literally all about words. There’s so much possibility in text. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what happens when a picture is a word?” This fascination with language has become the hallmark of her recent and most notable work. Continue reading →

With First Hill home finally set for demolition and redevelopment, Seattle arts nomad Love City Love in search of new start

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(Image: Love City Love)

Nomadic Seattle arts venue Love City Love is searching for its next home as the end of August brings the end of its stay in a former First Hill dental office on land set to host a mass timber apartment building.

“Love City Love emerged as a blank canvas for the creative community to convene,” the LCL mantra goes. “We believe continuing to craft this alternative is not only possible but crucial to keep art and culture alive and thriving in our city.”

CHS reported here in early 2023 as Love City Love founder Lucien Pellegrin was making preparations for the Seneca dental office building to host the next run of the venue that has grown around its ability to make new gathering spaces in buildings slated for demolition or redevelopment. Continue reading →

In search of inspiration and connection? Check out your neighborhood museums with a Capitol Hill poet

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Wyeth’s Winter 1946 — North Carolina Museum of Art

Baugher

A neighborhood poet wants you to know about the halls of creativity available to you around Capitol Hill.

Capitol Hill resident and poet JanĂ©e Baugher has received the Dorset Prize awarded to an author that “exemplifies innovation, depth, and a unique perspective on the human experience.” Baugher says she gains that perspective from visiting area museums. Fortunately, the area around Capitol Hill has halls rich with beauty and creativity in spaces like the Frye and the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park.

Fellow artists’ works serve as inspiration for her craft, and she describes visual arts as a creative outlet of self expression without having to focus on herself. Baugher’s winning collection, The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles, is inspired by the work of Andrew Wyeth. She feels his art embodies the concept of the shared  human emotional experience. Launching her to the blank page, Baugher has built this collection as a way to answer why and how she’s felt so moved by Wyeth’s work.

A visit to the Philadelphia Art Museum in 2006 introduced Baugher to Wyeth. His works stand out to her for their profound ability to evoke emotion through his use of realism. Wyeth focused on the ordinary people of Pennsylvania and Maine, finding beauty and significance in the everyday.

“I turned to the visual arts as a way of extinguishing the personality,” says Baugher. Viewing Wyeth’s art allowed her to step away and into the greater realm of human emotion. Continue reading →

Inside 12th Ave’s NOD Theater, eXit Space School of Dance has taken a leap of faith on Capitol Hill

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(Image: eXit SPACE)

(Image: eXit SPACE)

While many Seattle arts organizations were hit hard during the pandemic, eXit SPACE School of Dance took a leap of faith, investing in a theater space on Capitol Hill — now the lively and flourishing NOD Theater.

Celebrating its 20th year next season, eXit SPACE began in a 900-square-foot space and now spans three studios including 12th Ave’s NOD Theater and offers over 80 classes a week.

“This space was so meaningful to our community for decades, and it was important to us to keep it open and accessible to the arts in Seattle.” said faculty member Karen Baskett.

NOD Theater was formerly home to Velocity Dance which opted to leave Capitol Hill prior to the pandemic looking for a more affordable base for its works. In a desire to preserve this space that provided an affordable place to perform and  a pillar of their community, eXit artistic director and owner Marlo Martin took a chance and signed the lease.

The theater has a long history in the dance community of Seattle and has been a home to a number of arts organizations. Continue reading →

Save Kerry Hall? Students stage sit-in, call for arts, music, and dance to be preserved as buyers eye historic property for housing and development

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Monday, Cornish College of the Arts students gathered along E Roy on Capitol Hill for a sit-in at Kerry Hall. Their hope is to save the historic building — and keep the 103-year-old studio and performance hall as a center for arts and learning on Capitol Hill.

There is also a Save Kerry Hall group formed with hopes of asking Cornish to reconsider the decision — or help shape the old building’s future by finding a buyer dedicated to continuing its role in the city’s arts scene.

“Most of us feel that the Cornish school should not be sold and it could be part of a vision of Cornish in other ways on Capitol Hill, so [there’s] this sort of long standing threat and feeling of insecurity for many of us as far as the future of Kerry Hall,” Elizabeth Jane Darrow, a former Cornish faculty member who has been helping organize efforts to save the building, tells CHS.

CHS reported here as Kerry Hall hit the Capitol Hill real estate market in April. At the time of Cornish’s announcement that it was finally preparing to sever its final ties to its birth neighborhood and fully move its campus to South Lake Union, the arts school did not include a price for the E Roy property and three-story building just off Broadway within the Harvard-Belmont Landmark District. Its broker is now awaiting offers.

Cornish students staged the sit-in at Kerry Hall on Monday to raise awareness about the pending sale. The sit-in plan included improvisational dances by Cornish graduate Sylvia Schatz-Allison and an opportunity for students past and present to write goodbye letters to the building.

“The decision to divest from Kerry Hall is a strategic one, so that we can focus on our energies on teaching and learning,” James Falzone, academic dean and professor of music at Cornish told CHS about the planned sale. Continue reading →

A literary salon at 23rd and Union, Central District Poetry Nights grow at Soul Collective

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(Image: Soul Collective)

Folino

By Nicholas Williams/UW News Lab

A Central District hair salon has become the unexpected host of monthly poetry nights in the midst of neighborhood development at 23rd and Union.

Soul Collective, located on the block with the neighborhood PCC and across the Midtown Square apartments and neighboring businesses Jerk Shack, Neighbor Lady, Raised Donuts, and the Arte Noir gallery, is a space committed to sharing its artistic expertise of diverse ethnicities, backgrounds and hair textures.

Owner Alexandria Folino says she founded the small business to desegregate hair care in an environment of unpretentious luxury.

“I decided to embark on a journey of creating a space that felt right for the type of hair on my head and others that look like me because they have all heard that their hair is a specialty in the beauty industry,” Folino said.

Folino was approached with the idea of hosting poetry nights by poets Joshua Griffin and Julie Feng.

“Alex is from the district. Julie’s from the south end. I grew up in the north end and we’ve all seen this city change,” Griffin said.

“We can speak back to what 23rd and Union used to look like. So what are you going to do now after you leave this space? Hopefully, continue to find ways to be in the community and not find ways to uproot the community.”

Folino acknowledges the Central District has changed a lot since she grew up there and says, by having events like these poetry nights, she can participate in building the new culture of the neighborhood. Continue reading →

If they can turn Seattle’s old Bed Bath & Beyond into a new arts center, just think what they can do with the shuttered Capitol Hill Amazon Fresh

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The old Value Village building was temporarily used as a pop-up arts and gathering space

With Capitol Hill suddenly faced with an empty 8,000-square-foot grocery, here is hope for filling some of the neighborhood’s most gaping retail holes with life and activity. The Capitol Hill and First Hill-connected producers behind Bumbershoot have announced they will put downtown’s emptied Bed Bath & Beyond into motion as Cannonball Arts, hosting everything from art exhibits, to concerts, to fashion shows when it opens in spring 2025.

New Rising Sun, now signed up to produce Bumbershoot for the next decade under a leadership group including Steven Severin of Neumos and Life on Mars, and Greg Lundgren of First Hill’s shuttered Museum of Museums and sorely missed Vito’s, announced plans for the new venue and said they are ready to get to work creating two stories of contemporary and performing arts space in the former 3rd Ave store.

“Cannonball Arts gives Bumbershoot a year-round platform to celebrate the wealth of creativity that calls the Pacific Northwest home,” Lundgren, co-producer and creative director of the organization, said. “It is ambitious in scale and scope, will contribute to the revitalization of downtown Seattle, and train the next generation of makers, producers and curators using Cannonball Arts as classroom.” Continue reading →

Meet the Capitol Hill artist | Nina Raizel is using laser welders and and the largest microscope you’ve ever seen to make jewelry with the Six of Pikes collective

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Meet the Capitol Hill Artist is an occasional series on CHS documenting the lives of the artists behind the neighborhood’s galleries and arts venues.

By Ananya Mishra

When I arrived at Nina Raizel’s studio, I was surprised by how much her workspace reminded me of a science lab. I saw laser welders, a variety of chemicals, and one of the largest microscopes that I had seen in a while. Handmade jewelry requires a lot of intricacy.

Nina graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing. Now as a self-employed jeweler, she makes custom pieces, repairs broken jewelry, and does contract work for other organizations. It’s also important for her to be involved in the local community. She’s a volunteer at the Seattle Metals Guild and is a member of the Six of Pikes artist collective in Capitol Hill. Continue reading →

Meet the Capitol Hill Artist | Kalina Winska is experimenting with the weather

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(Image: Ananya Mishra/CHS)

By Ananya Mishra

“A lot of things happen in the [artistic] process that are unpredictable, and I like to respond to those situations and find a way for it to work. That’s what excites me.”

Kalina Winska is an artist who grew up in Poland and has been living in Seattle for three years. Earlier this year, she moved her studio from Georgetown to Capitol Hill because she loved the energy and vibrancy of this neighborhood.

Her work is inspired by her concern for climate change and her fascination with digital weather maps. Kalina’s paintings are vibrant and play with juxtapositions.There are layers of contrasting colors, hard lines, and softer brushstrokes. Continue reading →