And there’s more good news for arts aficionados. This week kicks off a brand-new citywide festival called Arts & Culture Week (Sept. 8-14).
Granted, for some of us, every week is arts & culture week! But this marks a concerted effort to unite arts groups — across genres — for an annual series of special events.
It’s the brainchild of a small group of Seattle curators: Elisheba Johnson of Wa Na Wari; Phen Huang of Foster/White Gallery; Judith Rinehart of J. Rinehart Gallery; A. McLean Emenegger of AMcE Creative Arts; and Laura Zeck of Zinc Contemporary.
This talented assembly was looking for a way to boost our creative economy — and encourage people who aren’t already involved in Seattle arts to experience the wealth of experiences available.
Arts & Culture Week now has nonprofit status (through Shunpike), and has hired Tanya Miller as director. (You may have seen Miller at the Seattle Art Fair in July, encouraging passersby to draw directly onto the A&C Week booth.)
Some 40 venues are participating this first year, hosting special talks, workshops, live music and, in the case of J. Rinehart Gallery, a raptor encounter with an owl featured in a painting by Meggan Joy (Sept. 12).
Seattle Opera’s contribution is several Black Excellence in Music recitals (Sept. 11 – 14), featuring cast members of the forthcoming Jubilee; Pottery Northwest offers a Make a Mug class; Greg Kucera Gallery asks visitors to fill in the blank for “Art is…” and will hand-print your answer on a colorful poster (Sept. 14). For more, click the “program” tab on the website and select each day to view events happening on that date.
It all starts with the Arts & Culture Week opening party this Sunday in Pioneer Square (Sept. 8, 4 – 8 p.m. 311½ Occidental Ave. S), in the same building that formerly housed the longstanding Davidson Galleries, which suffered a fire in January.
Coincidentally (more good news!), Davidson Galleries reopened this week in a sleek new space on Yesler, next to Cafe Paloma.
At a preview event yesterday evening, founder Sam Davidson told me the plan is to host small exhibits of contemporary, modern and antique prints in regular rotation. Head in on first Thursday (tonight, Sept. 5) to see the inaugural show in the new space, featuring Humio Tomita’s electric 1930s serigraphs juxtaposed with dreamy landscape aquatints by Northwest artist Stephan McMillan.
Finally, one last snippet from this week’s barrage of local arts news: The Washington Center for the Book released its list of finalists for the 2024 Washington State Book Award.
Congrats to all the contenders, including: Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, by Jane Wong; Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, by Claire Dederer; The Liberators, by E.J. Koh; The Laughter, by Sonora Jha; and I Sing the Salmon Home, a poetry anthology edited by Rena Priest. Winners will be announced Sept. 24, but as they say at the Oscars, it’s an honor just to be nominated.