Introducing Our 2024-25 Gallery 4Culture Artists

Gallery 4Culture has a 45-year history of exhibiting innovative, underrepresented artists and art forms in solo and small-group shows! Panelists Ricky Reyes, Rosaline Dou, Sara Osebold, and Stefan Gonzales reviewed submitted applications and selected 10 King County-based artists for the 2024-2025 season.

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Gallery 4Culture has a 45-year history of exhibiting innovative, underrepresented artists and art forms in solo and small-group shows! Panelists Ricky Reyes, Rosaline Dou, Sara Osebold, and Stefan Gonzales reviewed submitted applications and selected 10 King County-based artists for the 2024-2025 season.

Audineh Asaf
September 5–26, 2024
Opening: First Thursday, September 5, 6:00–8:00 pm
In an ongoing commitment to provide voice for the silenced, Audineh Asaf’s paper “quilts” weave together the narratives of individuals who have been directly impacted by social injustices and human rights violations in Iran.

Audineh Asaf. Woman Life Freedom (Memorial Quilt), 2024. Acrylic transfer and embossment on paper collage. 45 x 30 inches

Michael Hong
October 3–31, 2024
Opening: First Thursday, October 3, 6:00–8:00 pm
Michael Hong’s ceramic sculptures embody the complexities of the immigrant experience and the concept of “hand flavor,” directly translated from the Korean term, 손 맛 (sown-maat), which denotes the unique care or skill a cook imbues into their food that is often passed down generationally.

Michael Hong. Dumpling Portrait III, 2023. Stoneware, terra sigillata, acrylic paint, butchers wax, and wood. 69 x 24 x 24 inches

JoEllen Wang
November 7–December 5, 2024
Opening: First Thursday, November 7, 6:00–8:00 pm
Using motifs and materials sourced from marginal spaces, JoEllen Wang examines the overlap of good intentions and systemic failures.

JoEllen Wang. Tarp No. 19 (11/24/21) 1st Ave S & S Hudson St, 2023. Oil on canvas. 24 x 36 inches

James Hartunian
January 2–30, 2025
Opening: First Thursday, January 2, 6:00–8:00 pm
Through the fabrication of hand-crafted kinetic devices, James Hartunian will recreate a conceptual forest from a machine’s perspective in pursuit of reimagining our natural world.

James Hartunian. Ficus Growth Chambers, 2021. Ficus Elastica, wire, solder, and LEDs. Installation view

Ric’kisha Taylor
February 6–27, 2025
Opening: First Thursday, February 6, 6:00–8:00 pm
Ric’kisha Taylor employs craft techniques and lustrous materials to captivate, entice, and divert attention in a series of multimedia works that address her personal experience within the Black American diaspora.

Ric’kisha Taylor. Untitled (Dancers in Paradise), 2021. Fabric, sequins, glitter, and collage. 48 x 36 inches

Diana Falchuk
March 6–27, 2025
Opening: First Thursday, March 6, 6:00–8:00 pm
Colorful works on paper and object fragments assembled on mirror highlight the spiritual and material nature of interconnection, solidarity, and collective care–all of which are grounded in Diana Falchuk’s Jewish-Venezuelan-American identity and ancestral traditions.

Diana Falchuk. We Reach for Each Other – Variation No. 2 (detail), 2023. Fragments on mirror. ¼ x 6 ½ x 5 ¾ inches

Hyunjeong Lim
April 3–24, 2025
Opening: First Thursday, April 3, 6:00–8:00 pm
Influenced by her journey from South Korea to the United States, Hyunjeong Lim’s surrealistic landscape paintings blend personal and cultural narratives, inviting us to reflect on our own internal and external wanderings.

Hyunjeong Lim. Trip West, 2023. Oil and acrylic on canvas. 48 x 110 inches. Photo: Jason J Kim

Nak Bou
May 1–29, 2025
Opening: First Thursday, May 1, 6:00–8:00 pm
Nak Bou’s intuitive multimedia paintings juxtapose cultural material from his parent’s generation with evocative representations of his own childhood memories. Raised in the Cambodian refugee enclaves of Dallas, Texas and Fresno, California during the late-1980s and 1990s, Bou explores the intersection of heritage and lived experience.

Nak Bou. Donut Express, 2020. Acrylic, spray paint, and oil pastel. 48 x 55 inches

Mel Carter
June 5–26, 2025
Opening: First Thursday, June 5, 6:00–8:00 pm
Mel Carter blends various media into sensory-filled, tactile installations that unearth experiences within heritage and family dynamics, Japanese diaspora, queerness, and explorations in modern witchcraft, rituals, and mythology.

Mel Carter. Benten (detail), 2022. Collected glass vessels and various organic material. Installation view. Photo: Jueqian Fang

Althea Rao
July 3–31, 2025
Opening: First Thursday, July 3, 6:00–8:00 pm
In an era dominated by synthetic biology and pervasive surveillance, Althea Rao’s work humors the intricate connections between the data we generate and the tangible traces of our existence.

Althea Rao. I was once here, I might still be, 2022. Soil, compost, microgreen seeds, grow lights, ribbon, video display, satellite images, law and policy printouts, StyleGan Nada image model, microcontrollers, resin printed neurons, copper wires, magnets, handwoven burial shroud and projection. Installation view

Congratulations to our 2024-2025 artists!

4Culture would like to thank all 140 gallery applicants for their interest in exhibiting with us and the panel for their diligence in making these selections. Artists who were not awarded shows are encouraged to reapply next year. The 2025-2026 Gallery 4Culture season application cycle will open in November 2024 with a deadline of December 11, 2024.

Now Available: Two New Artist Designed ORCA Cards

Yasiman Ahsani and Rey Daoed. Custom ORCA Cards, 2023. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: www.joefreemanjunior.com

Limited-edition ORCA cards designed by emerging artists Yasiman Ahsani and Rey Daoed are now available at the King Street Center Pass Sales Office, while supplies last!

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Limited-edition ORCA cards designed by emerging artists Yasiman Ahsani and Rey Daoed are now available at the King Street Center Pass Sales Office, while supplies last!

Developed in partnership with Metro and in celebration of the RapidRide Expansion Program, each artist’s work is distinct and features imagery tied to the contexts, histories, cultures and communities of the forthcoming G and I lines. The RapidRide G Line will connect riders with frequent and reliable service through Madison Valley, First Hill and downtown Seattle. RapidRide I Line will serve riders in the Renton, Kent and Auburn areas.

These are two of three cards in the series created by a cohort of young regional artists who were supported by mentors Angelina Villalobos and Jesse Brown. Jovita Mercado’s card was released in March, aligned with the launch of RapidRide H Line service.

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Yasiman Ahsani, Rey Daoed, and Jovita Mercado. Custom ORCA Cards, 2023. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: www.joefreemanjunior.com

Information on 2024 Project Grants, Doors Open, and COVID Relief Funds

You’ve likely heard the exciting news that last month, the King County Council unanimously passed Doors Open, a piece of legislation that will increase funding to King County cultural organizations by an estimated $90 million per year. Learn more about this landmark investment here.

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You’ve likely heard the exciting news that last month, the King County Council unanimously passed Doors Open, a piece of legislation that will increase funding to King County cultural organizations by an estimated $90 million per year. Learn more about this landmark investment here.

To put this into better perspective, 4Culture’s current annual budget is roughly $10 million—this nearly 10-fold increase brings significant change to our organization! As we quickly get to work creating an implementation plan, a top priority is maximizing all of our grant revenue: Doors Open, Lodging Tax, and federal COVID-19 relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.

To that end, we’re sharing information about a change to our usual grant calendar. To best serve King County by taking full advantage of the funds available to us over the next two years, we have decided to postpone our 2024 Projects grant program. In its place, we will focus our efforts on getting roughly $1.1 million in remaining COVID relief funding out the door to individual cultural producers in King County, which federal law requires us to do by the end of 2024. The program will open in the spring, and details on eligibility, award amounts, and more will be available soon. 2024 funds for Art Projects, Heritage Projects, and Preservation Special Projects will roll over when the program resumes, creating a pool of roughly $2 million for Projects in 2025.

We’re keenly aware that Doors Open does not include funding for individuals. Supporting King County’s dancers, historians, writers, painters, researchers, sculptors, preservationists, performers, curators, and more is central to our mission. As we craft an implementation plan for Doors Open over the next six months, ensuring that these dollars positively impact individuals as well as organizations will be a priority. We hope organizations planning to apply for a Projects grant will take advantage of the Doors Open one-time facility and operating grants that will open in August 2024. More information on those programs to come soon.

Our Projects grant is a longstanding cornerstone of 4Culture funding. We know its impact in the King County cultural community and that this will represent a significant shift in many people’s plans for 2024. This decision was not made lightly, and we thank you for your flexibility as our entire sector navigates the early months of Doors Open. As always, our staff are available to answer any questions you might have—we know this is a lot of information! Please don’t hesitate to contact us. As we collectively embark on a new year, we could not be prouder to be entrusted with these resources in service of the King County cultural community.

Artists Selected for Two Major King County Metro Projects

Haddad|Drugan. Luminous Wind, 2019. Peña Light Rail Station, Denver, Colorado. Photo: Peter Barta

4Culture and Metro are excited to announce the selection of not one but two artist teams who will help advance the future of regional public transit at the forthcoming South Annex Base in Tukwila and an expanded bus stop at Third Avenue South and South Main Street in historic Pioneer Square.

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4Culture and Metro are excited to announce the selection of not one but two artist teams who will help advance the future of regional public transit at the forthcoming South Annex Base in Tukwila and an expanded bus stop at Third Avenue South and South Main Street in historic Pioneer Square.

South Annex Base: Haddad|Drugan

Mobility is a human right and Metro is committed to getting people where they need to go—safely, equitably, and sustainably. As part of their transition to a 100% zero-emissions fleet powered by renewable energy, they are expanding capacity at their South Campus to house, operate, and maintain approximately 250 new battery electric buses. After construction, South Annex Base (SAB) will function as a stand-alone bus base. The artist team of Haddad|Drugan (Laura Haddad and Tom Drugan) has just been selected to join the SAB design team and will help influence the overall look and feel of the facilities, develop their own site-specific or architecturally integrated artwork, and recommend and support opportunities for two other artists/teams to lend creative thinking to the project.

Haddad|Drugan’s Seattle-based studio focuses on the creation of large-scale, conceptually driven art and multi-sensory aesthetic experiences that explore qualities of light, color, magic and wonder to reveal cultural and environmental conditions. Their partnership began in 2001 and they have since produced a wide range of innovative public art commissions and plans. Locally, they have worked as design team artists for the Elliott Bay Seawall, Climate Pledge Arena, and Sound Transit’s Angle Lake Station.

“For Metro’s South Annex Base, we will draw inspiration from the facility and surrounding environment to develop artworks that both represent and inspire our diverse King County community and the staff who will be using the facilities daily. We envision artworks integrated into a variety of sites, some more iconic from distant views and others more nuanced and experiential. We are excited about the potential for art to weave together stories about innovative sustainable practices, including electrification of the buses and restoration of Riverton Creek, to create a strong sense of place while also inspiring awareness about how the energy of transit can empower the community.”
– Laura Haddad & Tom Drugan


 

 

Third Avenue South and South Main Street: Preston Singletary and David Franklin

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Preston Singletary & David Franklin. Dancing Staff, 2018. NW 11th and Hoyt St. Portland, OR. Photo: David Franklin

The Third Avenue Transit Corridor is used by tens of thousands of people each day and provides connections for bus riders who are traveling to and from sites throughout the county. A quarter of the buses that operate in the corridor pick up passengers at Third Avenue South and South Main Street in Pioneer Square. With more than 2,650 average daily riders and 24 different routes served, it has become Metro’s 10th busiest stop.

To create a safer, more accessible, and more reliable experience for people catching the bus at this heavily trafficked location, Metro and the City of Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) are repairing and reconfiguring the streetscape and installing new amenities, including a signature sculpture by artists Preston Singletary and David Franklin.

Singletary lives and works in Seattle. He started blowing glass at Glass Eye Studio in 1982, developed skills as a production glass maker, and attended the Pilchuck Glass School. At the studio of Benjamin Moore, Singletary broadened his knowledge and understanding of the medium by assisting Dante Marioni, Richard Royal, Dan Dailey and Lino Tagliapietra. During this time, he also started to develop his own unique visual style.

Singletary’s practice has since become synonymous with the relationship between Tlingit culture and fine art. His sculptures merge themes from Tlingit mythology and traditional design, and he is recognized internationally for his use of glass as well as other non-traditional materials to bring new dimension to contemporary Indigenous art.

David Franklin developed a profound appreciation for the traditional art forms and histories of the Pacific Northwest when he moved here in his early 20s. Following an extensive apprenticeship with Duane Pasco, he began creating his own large-scale artworks. This experience eventually led him to initiate a collaborative public art practice with Singletary. The partnership leverages Franklin’s expertise in fabrication, project management and community engagement to support Singletary’s creative vision.

“I am honored to be selected, with David Franklin, to create a site-specific sculpture for the Pioneer Square area. I’m a lifelong resident of Seattle and I look forward to working with the community. ”
–Preston Singletary

“I am honored and excited to work with Preston Singletary on this project in the cultural heart of Seattle. We are looking forward to creating a sculpture that speaks both to the past and the future and is free for everyone to enjoy and experience.”
–David Franklin

At Harborview Medical Center, hundreds of artworks inspire healing

Katie Miller. Cellular Flow, 2023. Digital images on 3Form panels. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

Doctors and nurses visit with patients. Staff stream through the hallways. Loved ones wait in lobbies. On any given day at Harborview Medical Center, thousands of people play a part in a range of procedures, tests, and treatments that heal the sick and injured. As all of these people make their way through the hospital’s clinics and corridors, they pass by numerous artworks on the floors, walls, and near the elevators. Each artwork offers a respite, a moment of beauty or perspective. Together these pieces keep the Harborview community grounded day after day, even in the face of extraordinary challenges.

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Doctors and nurses visit with patients. Staff stream through the hallways. Loved ones wait in lobbies. On any given day at Harborview Medical Center, thousands of people play a part in a range of procedures, tests, and treatments that heal the sick and injured. As all of these people make their way through the hospital’s clinics and corridors, they pass by numerous artworks on the floors, walls, and near the elevators. Each artwork offers a respite, a moment of beauty or perspective. Together these pieces keep the Harborview community grounded day after day, even in the face of extraordinary challenges.

A public hospital managed by UW Medicine, Harborview is the only Level 1 trauma and burn center serving Washington, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, and is also a teaching and research institution and the disaster control hospital for Seattle and King County. Its origins trace back to 1877, when the county opened a six-bed hospital; 146 years later, the facility today has 540 patient beds, with more coming as part of a 2020 bond measure to expand and modernize the campus. As Harborview continues to evolve to meet the needs of the region, it remains committed to treating everyone with exceptional care, regardless of their economic status or background.

Though some artworks on view at Harborview belong to the UW Collection, most were commissioned or acquired and continue to be stewarded by 4Culture as part of the King County Public Art Collection (KCPAC). The KCPAC at Harborview was established in 1977, rooted in the belief that art can help offset the emotional, psychological, technological, and institutional experiences of the hospital. It currently includes more than 500 works in an extensive range of media, all of which aim to reduce stress and convey a sense of human dignity. Since 2000, the KCPAC works have been guided by a holistic and comprehensive art plan created by Fernanda D’Agostino; the plan describes design principles for architectural elements, landscape design, and commissioned artworks that encourage healing and support connections to the surrounding neighborhoods.

Alfredo Arreguin (1935-2023). Tasmanian Tigers, 2001. Oil on canvas. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Spike Mafford

The KCPAC at Harborview includes several subcollections and a mix of site-specific, integrated, and portable works. The Cultural Heritage Collection celebrates the hospital’s diverse community with 70 pieces by outstanding contemporary artists, among them Juan Alonso, whose large paintings honor his Cuban parents; Mark Calderon, whose pyrographs were inspired by Mexican devotional folk paintings; glass vessels by Preston Singletary; and quilts and soft sculptures by Marita Dingus. The Norm Maleng Collection—housed entirely in the Norm Maleng Building—showcases contemporary ceramics in the lobby, landscapes at elevator landings, and a number of permanently sited works throughout the building. In the West Hospital’s primary reception area, Linda Beaumont’s Full Circle, a sprawling mosaic and terrazzo floor, greets people with a mix of cultural and scientific imagery.

Donald Varnell. The Conservation of Angular Momentum (detail), 2010. Carved cedar, acrylic, and wax. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: 4Culture

Outside, artworks dot the hospital campus in dramatic and subtle ways. A sculpture and seating elements by Ellen Sollod anchor the hospital’s main entrance. Sidewalks feature site-specific inlays by Robert Horner and Gloria Bornstein. In a work by Sheila Klein, classic textile patterns lend architectural detail to the exterior of the Patricia Steel Building. Many of the hospital’s rooms have views of Beliz Brother’s Harborview Pillows, which appear to hover above a courtyard as if tossed from an open window.

Eric Nelsen. Memory, Myth, Motif: Vessel Merchant’s Caravan, 2009. Wood fired stoneware. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

Harborview’s Ninth and Jefferson Building also contains many powerful artworks, beginning with Vereinigung, a monumental sculpture by Connie Watts that features animal figures from Northwest Coast cultural traditions and was created by Watts as she recovered from a major head injury. Then, at the reception desk, Isaac Layman’s Ice Cube Tray renders a meditation on time in astonishing photographic detail. Beside the lobby’s elevators sits Eric Nelsen’s Memory, Myth, Motif, clay assemblages fired in a traditional Japanese anagama kiln in Nelsen’s Vashon Island studio. Upstairs in the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, Eric Eley’s Dispersion Field uses mathematical diagramming to form an imaginary geometric landscape in four panels. The newest addition to the building is Katie Miller’s Cellular Flow, which was installed last month in the remodeled patient care and specialty clinics on the ninth and tenth floors. The work’s 15 translucent privacy screens invite reflection by combining images of Pacific Northwest bodies of water with forms based on human cells.

Next time you find yourself at Harborview, keep an eye out for these artworks and many more. New commissions are headed to the hospital campus in the months and years ahead. The collection is always growing!

Signature Bridges Connect Us to Form and Function

Cris Bruch. Mount Si Bridge, 2008. Cast steel, galvanized steel, paint, and plantings. North Bend, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

Amid the many types of public artworks in King County’s collection—portable and permanent works on the walls, large- and small-scale installations, pieces integrated into buildings, ephemeral experiences and participatory initiatives—one group of artworks is particularly unusual: our signature bridges. Since the late 1990s, 4Culture has partnered with the county’s Road Services Division to include artists on their bridge design teams. This collaborative and creative approach to developing transportation infrastructure elevates the experience of traveling over our region’s waterways, often offering a glimpse into who we are and where we want to go.

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Amid the many types of public artworks in King County’s collection—portable and permanent works on the walls, large- and small-scale installations, pieces integrated into buildings, ephemeral experiences and participatory initiatives—one group of artworks is particularly unusual: our signature bridges. Since the late 1990s, 4Culture has partnered with the county’s Road Services Division to include artists on their bridge design teams. This collaborative and creative approach to developing transportation infrastructure elevates the experience of traveling over our region’s waterways, often offering a glimpse into who we are and where we want to go.

Many public art agencies around the country create artworks as part of other kinds of infrastructure projects, like transit stations, recycling centers or water treatment plants. Some also “activate” bridges with artist-designed elements or even residencies and performances, as the City of Seattle’s ARTS office has done with the Fremont Bridge, for example. But 4Culture stands alone nationally in the scope and scale of its bridge commissions.

Barbara Grygutis. South Park Bridge, 2014. Powder coated steel and historic elements. South Park, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Andrew Pogue

Whether you’re traveling across a span on foot, by bicycle, or by car, the impact of an artists’ thinking can be subtle or dramatic. Maybe you’re going over the Duwamish River and you notice the large, elaborate gears embedded into the railing of the South Park Bridge; artist Barbara Grygutis took those from the original 1931 bridge and included them in its replacement to signal the location’s history and industrial identity. Visit the historic 1921 Meadowbrook Bridge (which, by the way, featured in Twin Peaks a couple of times) and you’ll see four relief panels by Bruce Myers that speak to the surrounding flora and fauna. For the Novelty Bridge in Duvall, Carolyn Law devised unique color experiences for travelers heading toward or away from the city. In Redmond, Cliff Garten created a series of curved design elements for the York Bridge, echoing the shapes of the river below.

Cliff Garten. York Bridge, 2006. Anodized aluminum, concrete, and steel. Redmond, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Ned Ahrens

Cross the Snoqualmie River via the Mt. Si Bridge and its bright red color will pop against the surrounding evergreens. Artist Cris Bruch gave some insight into his work, “I thought about the bridge as an event, an experience that should contain some awe and excitement, which has a narrative structure to it.” Indeed, from the nearby plantings he selected to the contrasting green elements he devised for the railing, Bruch’s contributions transform the journey from one end of the bridge to the other, calling attention to its environment and architecture while heightening the moment of one’s suspension over the river.

As time passes, older bridges inevitably require replacement or improvement. In 2013, 4Culture commissioned Leo Berk to create a Bridge Manual for future short-span bridge projects in King County. A few years prior, the county had identified more than 50 bridges between 20 and 110 feet long that needed to be replaced. Berk created a kit of parts that can be used in different combinations on all of these bridges—an effective way to enhance even the most humble of crossings.

Around the world, bridges are celebrated as placemaking icons: the London Tower, the Golden Gate, the Brooklyn Bridge, and countless others, both famous and not. In these beautiful feats of form and function, it’s impossible to distinguish where their engineering ends and their artistry begins. A perfect kind of public art.

Bridges are fundamentally about connecting, about linking one place with another, about opportunity and potential. Like art, they help keep us tethered to the earth, history, and each other.

Guest Post: Reflections on My Preservation Internship with Beacon Hill Council

Rosa Woolsey, 2023 Equity in Historic Preservation Undergraduate Intern, in front of the 4Culture Office, Photo by Emily P. Lawsin.

Rosa Woolsey, the 2023 Equity in Historic Preservation Undergraduate Intern, reflects on her introduction to historic preservation and her internship project, researching culturally significant places for Seattle’s Beacon Hill Council and the Beyond Integrity initiative.

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Rosa Woolsey, the 2023 Equity in Historic Preservation Undergraduate Intern, reflects on her introduction to historic preservation and her internship project, researching culturally significant places for Seattle’s Beacon Hill Council and the Beyond Integrity initiative.

The goal of this project was to identify and explore places on Beacon Hill that are culturally significant to its neighbors and in the context of a historic preservation survey. Through employing ethnographic methods in the context of preservation, we were better able to center the voices and experiences of community members who have been excluded from the work of historic preservation.

The primary challenge, and ultimately, advantage, I had with this internship was that I do not have a background in historic preservation. Rather, I have been trained as a student of anthropology. When I started this position, I was excited to apply my skills to a new realm of cultural work and gain experience in community-based research which is exactly what I was able to do this summer.

In hindsight, my internship unfolded in three parts: background gathering, conducting interviews, and writing. For the first month, I had a lot to learn about preservation: the various acronymed organizations, landmarks preservation standards, how practice differs from local levels all the way up to national standards, as well as how preservation is structured in surprisingly inequitable ways. In line with my anthropological sensibilities, I was surprised and frustrated to learn that cultural significance is a negligible part of historic preservation work. In a way, this made my job a bit easier—it was clear to me that what preservation is in need of is the people-centered mission and ethnographic methods of anthropology.

Although I had a personal connection to Beacon Hill through the Cambodian Buddhist temple, Watt Dhammacakkaram, I also had a lot to learn about the neighborhood’s history and the many communities that make up Beacon Hill. This included getting my feet on the ground and taking an initial tour of the neighborhood with my project advisors so I could get a feel for the geography and energy of the place I would spend all summer learning about. After lots of reading and context gathering, I was introduced to a wealth of community leaders and began to schedule interviews with neighbors who were generous enough to share their time and stories with me.

I am lucky to have been working with a meaningful and relatively straightforward research question: What places in your community do you care about? From there, my job was to listen and to document. This is where my background in anthropology and journalism came through. I learned more about the specifics of conducting oral history interviews and was enthusiastic to expand my skills in interviewing and story-gathering. After about a month of carrying out interviews, transcribing, and reflecting on what themes emerged in my conversations, it was time for me to begin the writing process.

For the last month, I have brought all of this information together into a cohesive narrative, putting the voices of neighbors at the forefront of this storytelling. What I came up with was a document that is both a catalog of eleven culturally significant sites on Beacon Hill as well as a critical response to the inequities of traditional preservation practice in the form of a blended methodology study. Those focus sites are: El Centro de la Raza, the Ponce Torres Family House, the Rasmussen Family House, Day Moon Press, Jefferson Park, Watt Dhammacakkaram, Saint George Catholic Church, MacPherson’s Fruit & Produce, Fou Lee Market & Deli, Comet Lodge Cemetery, and the African American Academy. These places were drawn from a longer list I compiled of 74 sites that are recommended for future research and documentation, which is also included in the report. After finishing my final report, I delivered two presentations, one to the Beacon Hill Council, and another to 4Culture staff/board/advisory committee, Beyond Integrity members, and preservation advocates. I was encouraged by the warm reception and feedback on how this work is significant in the greater scope of where preservation is moving.

Through this process, I learned a lot about Beacon Hill as well as the current state of historic preservation, why it is the way it is, what directions practitioners are trying to move it towards, and how anthropology fits into that work. It was especially good timing for me that the undergraduate intern position was established the same year that I graduated. I am grateful to have come into this opportunity as a recent graduate; the chance to immediately apply the skills in interviewing and writing that I developed in college to a new context has been immensely helpful in coordinating what my next steps are. Through this work, and seeing the need for social scientists in preservation, I have felt affirmed in my background and interest in anthropology and the value of culturally-minded work. As such, I feel a greater sense of direction in looking towards options for graduate school and intend on continuing my studies in anthropology.

About Rosa
Rosa Woolsey graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, Minor in Religion, and Concentration in Global Studies in 2023 from Whitman College, where she served as News Editor and News Reporter for the Whitman Wire campus newspaper. For her senior thesis, she completed an ethnographic research project on Buddhism and cultural identity among the Cambodian American diaspora in the Seattle area. Her academic interests and ambitions are fostered by her Cambodian and mixed-race background. Rosa’s primary focus area within Anthropology includes Asian American cultural hybridity, especially in the contexts of migration, religion, and language. In summer 2023, Rosa was introduced to the world of preservation as an Equity in Historic Preservation Intern for Seattle’s 4Culture, where she carried out a community-centered oral history project documenting culturally significant places on Beacon Hill, one of the city’s most diverse and understudied neighborhoods. In this work, she recognized a mutual goal of cultural sustainability in the work of preservation and in her prior research.

Dig into Rosa’s Culturally Significant Places on Beacon Hill report, also located on our Beyond Integrity page.

Congratulations to our 2023 Arc Artist Fellows!

2023 Arc Artist Fellows Jo Cosme, Kalei’okalani Matsui, Alicia Mullikin, Tommy Segundo, Che Sehyun, Lex Vaughn, and Timothy White Eagle

4Culture is honored to announce the recipients of the 2023 Arc Artist Fellowship!

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4Culture is honored to announce the recipients of the 2023 Arc Artist Fellowship!

The 2023 Fellows are:

Jo Cosme, Multidisciplinary visual artist
Kalei’okalani Matsui, Ha’api’i, dancer, teaching Artist
Alicia Mullikin, Chicana dance artist, beadworker, arts advocate
Tommy Segundo, Native formline artist and educator
Che Sehyun, Future ancient storyteller
Lex Vaughn, News Satirist
Timothy White Eagle, Multidisciplinary visual and performance artist

The Arc Artist Fellowship provides critical – but rare – unrestricted awards of $12,000 to artists residing in King County. This year we received 37 highly competitive applications from King County artists working in dance, music, theatre, media, film, literature, and the visual arts.

“Congratulations to the 2023 Arc Artist Fellows! As we all try to figure out whether this a post-pandemic world, and what exactly that means, I’m so proud this program can serve as an artistic commons. A place where this year’s Fellows can meet, create, collaborate, and perhaps most importantly, be in community together.”

-Brian J. Carter, 4Culture Executive Director

Each year, a new cohort of Arc Fellows are selected, with an eligibility requirement that changes based on feedback from the Fellows. In 2022 and 2023, eligible applicants were Indigenous, Aboriginal, or Native artists of diverse international ancestral lands, who live in King County, the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples.

We seek to lift up the expression of cultural sovereignty of Indigenous makers as culture bearers and as contemporary artists.

Arc Fellows will assist in determining the Arc Eligibility Requirement for next year’s fellowship as well as participate in a public cohort presentation organized by 4Culture and in planning and community engagement for the 2024 program.

The Arc Artist Fellowship will provide the Fellows with portraits and a page on the 4Culture website featuring images and links to explore their work.

Congratulations to Jo, Kalei’okalani, Alicia, Tommy, Che, Lex, and Timothy! Stay tuned to learn more about the 2023 Arc Fellows and how you can connect with their work.

 

 

Doors Open Resources

Taking a class. DASSdance. 2022

The King County Council is currently considering Doors Open, a proposal from King County Executive Dow Constantine that would increase funding to arts, heritage, science, and historical preservation non-profit organizations through a 0.1 percent sales tax. If approved by the King County Council, tax collection would begin in April 2024. With over 50 years of grant-making experience, 4Culture is the County’s designated agency to distribute funding and implement the program.

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The King County Council is currently considering Doors Open, a proposal from King County Executive Dow Constantine that would increase funding to arts, heritage, science, and historical preservation non-profit organizations through a 0.1 percent sales tax. If approved by the King County Council, tax collection would begin in April 2024. With over 50 years of grant-making experience, 4Culture is the County’s designated agency to distribute funding and implement the program.

Doors Open is the result of a decade long legislative effort to increase funding in Washington State and King County for the cultural sector.

Knowing that increased funding was a possibility, 4Culture worked hard to plan for an equitable Doors Open program. One that meets the growing needs of the cultural sector and aligns with 4Culture’s mission, vision, and values.

Here are some resources about the legislation currently in play and how it may impact you:

Doors Open legislation and additional supporting materials.

Head over to our Data Hub to dig into the community-based research behind our planning:

Advocacy

Inspire Washington is the advocacy organization championing this effort. They have built a broad and powerful statewide coalition to champion advocacy and resource development for Washington’s cultural sector.

Visit DoorsOpenKingCounty.org their advocacy website for the initiative.

Press Coverage

The Seattle Times

The Stranger

Join Us in Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Muckleshoot Tribe Canoe Journey, Sunday, July 31, 2023 Alki Beach in West Seattle.

Since Indigenous People’s Day was made a King County holiday last year, 4Culture staff have been seeking out intentional ways to learn more about the Native American tribes that make their home in and around King County. This year, staff members attended events that brought people together in celebration. This is part of our ongoing effort to deepen our relationship with Indigenous communities in King County in ways where we are invited to participate.

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Since Indigenous People’s Day was made a King County holiday last year, 4Culture staff have been seeking out intentional ways to learn more about the Native American tribes that make their home in and around King County. This year, staff members attended events that brought people together in celebration. This is part of our ongoing effort to deepen our relationship with Indigenous communities in King County in ways where we are invited to participate.

We started out this year’s activities attending the Seattle Rep production of Between Two Knees by the 1491s, an intertribal comedy team, and got together to discuss the stellar performance and its impact on us. The Seattle Rep did a great job of providing additional resources for audience members to learn more and experience different Indigenous artists’ perspectives.

The weekend of July 21, a number of staff attended the 2023 Seafair Powwow at Daybreak Star. This annual powwow is a wonderful way to experience a Native party! Seeing so many styles of regalia and traditional clothing is stunning, as is the athleticism of the dancing. Everyone is represented in the dance circle, from Tiny Tots to the matriarchs, and guests can join in during the intertribal songs. This year was very special as we were honored to visit with previous 4Culture staff Denise Emerson, whose artwork was on the official powwow merch! To prepare for our staff meet-up, we shared a few resources like Daybreak Star’s Pow Wow FAQs,  Powwow 101 from the NAYA Family Center and Pow Wow Series: Part One, The History & Reclaiming Our Right To Dance by the Indigenous Goddess Gang. This longform article gives a comprehensive timeline of the history of powwows in the US and Canada, through a personal lens. All of us who attended this year’s Seafair Powwow were lifted up by the experience, and inspired by the powerful communities who welcomed us.

Late in July 2023, more than 60 canoes representing tribes from Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia set out on Canoe Journey 2023. Their final destination was Muckleshoot, where the Muckleshoot Tribe planned to welcome them. Along the way, the teams of pullers (not paddlers) stopped in other Native communities, like Lummi, Swinomish, Suquamish, where they were welcomed in celebration of the journey.

On the morning of Sunday, July 31, canoes began to land on Alki Beach in West Seattle. One by one, each canoe approached the shore and requested permission to land from the Muckleshoot tribe, whose representative welcomed each nation. Pulling teams, usually reflecting several generations, worked together to pull their heavy wooden crafts out of the water and onto the beach. Several 4Culture staff went to Alki beach to join the crowd that witnessed the canoes welcomed to shore.

After all of the canoes landed, the pullers and other celebrants left Alki for the Muckleshoot Community Center, where protocol was held from August 1 through August 6. During protocol, representatives from each tribe in attendance share songs, dances, and stories. The order of tribes during protocol is determined by the distance that they traveled, with the hosting tribe going last.

Canoe Journey is a celebration of Native culture and ties that exist among communities who have plied the Pacific Northwest waters since time immemorial. The contemporary Canoe Journey tradition began in 1989, when it was called the “Paddle to Seattle.” Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s celebration was the first since 2019, when the Lummi Nation hosted.

To wrap up our report, here are some resources about local indigenous history and practice, as well as info on Daybreak Star’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day Celebration on October 9:

Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2023 at Daybreak Star

United Indians of All Tribes Foundation

Visit Seattle Support for Seattle’s Indigenous Community

Indigenous Peoples’ Day at the Burke Museum

Native Americans of Puget Sound – A Brief History of the First People and Their Cultures

First Peoples of the Pacific Northwest – Research Guide at Evergreen State College

Pacific Northwest History and Cultures – Native Knowledge 360

Edward S. Curtis Digital Collection at the Seattle Public Library

Indigenous Tribes of Seattle and Washington – American Library Association

Indigenous Traditions

Andrea Wilbur-Sigo. Grandfather’s Wisdom, 2012/2023. Carved and painted cedar. Brightwater, Woodinville, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

The King County Public Art Collection features a wealth of work by Indigenous artists who carry forward the cultures of First Peoples.

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The King County Public Art Collection features a wealth of work by Indigenous artists who carry forward the cultures of First Peoples.

Among the wetlands and woods that surround Brightwater, at Delta Pond near Little Bear Creek, Andrea Wilbur-Sigo’s Grandfather’s Wisdom reflects the history and culture of the region’s First People. Twenty upright cedar paddles flank the front frame of a longhouse, “a modern view of what a longhouse would look like standing in a place that it’s highly likely one might have been,” Wilbur-Sigo said when the work was created in 2012. Unfortunately, after a decade in the elements, the longhouse had weathered—so 4Culture contracted Wilbur-Sigo to restore it. As of this month, her work is complete and Grandfather’s Widom is as clean and crisp as ever.

Wilbur-Sigo is a member of the Squaxin Island Tribe, and descendant of the Skokomish Tribe and many other tribes of Puget Sound; she is also the first known woman carver in her family of carvers and a longtime advocate for Coast Salish traditions. For Grandfather’s Widom—her first-ever permanent public artwork—she used symbols that hold great meaning for all Puget Sound tribes: the Killer Whale, Octopus, and Thunderbird, all of them rendered in the crescents, trigons, wedges, and circles that define Salish style.

Preston Singletary. Hyacinth Medicine Amulet, 2016. Cast bronze. Clark Children and Family Justice Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

The King County Public Art Collection (KCPAC) includes a wide variety of works that celebrate Indigenous artists and cultural traditions—from Coast Salish to other Pacific Northwest First Nations and beyond. These artworks share stories and values, honor Indigenous stewardship of this land, and lift up Native artforms themselves, which continue to be passed on from one generation to the next—preserved despite the genocide and assimilation that could have extinguished them. Today’s artists both carry and evolve these traditions.

The collection’s works by Indigenous artists range from traditional to modern using many different materials. For example, Preston Singletary (Tlingit) fuses contemporary blown and carved glass, cast lead crystal, and bronze with Northwest Native themes and designs. The KCPAC includes several of his artworks from various stages of his career in its portable holdings, including Killer Whale Totem and Hyacinth Medicine Amulet. Susan Point, a descendant of the Musqueam people, focuses on Coast Salish traditions. Among her pieces in the county’s collection: a set of six carved cedar panels on the Green River Trail that share the legend of the Northwind Fishing Weir as well as a relief mural and gate design featuring Coash Salish iconography at the West Seattle Pump Station.

Singletary and Point also both have works on view at Harborview Medical Center, as do a number of Indigenous artists, including Dempsey Bob (Tahltan, Tlingit), who currently has a major retrospective on view at Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts, and Connie Watts (Nuu-chah-nulth, Gitxsan, Kwakwaka’wakw), whose Vereinigung hangs from the ceiling of the main lobby of the Ninth and Jefferson Building.

Connie Watts. Vereinigung, 1997. Birch plywood and hardwood dowels. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Spike Mafford

For more artworks that tell Native stories, check out Eagle by celebrated Indigenous sculptor Marvin Oliver (Quinault, Isleta-Pueblo) or a pair of totems by David Boxley (Ts’msyan) that depict his culture’s Beaver and Salmon legends. (A master carver, Boxley also hosted one of the first potlatches in the region since they were outlawed in in 19th century.) A series of petroglyphs by Roger Fernandes (Klallam) on the Green River Trail illustrate a Duwamish ceremony.

The pieces above reflect just a small portion of the KCPAC’s works by Indigenous artists—and 4Culture is consistently adding more. Through our Curator’s Choice program, we recently acquired a beaded bag by Denise Emerson (Skokomish, Navajo), and a new sculpture by Michael Halady (Duwamish) debuted last month at the King County International Airport. Meanwhile, RYAN! Feddersen (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation) is working on a RapidRide commission; Timothy White Eagle (mixed-race Indigenous American) is devising a piece for the West Duwamish Wet Weather Storage Facility; and the forthcoming South County Recycling and Transfer Station will welcome two new artworks featuring the Sun, Moon, Frog, and Heron by Muckleshoot Indian Tribe Cultural Division artists Keith Stevenson, Tyson Simmons, and Sam Obrovac.

4Culture is honored to support these artists and many others through our commissions and acquisitions, and we are constantly exploring how we can do more for Indigenous communities. As you look for ways to mark Indigenous Peoples Day this month, we hope you will seek out some of these remarkable artworks.

Rich History at Seattle’s First Airport

Michael Halady. Spirit of the Duwamish (detail), 2023. Carved cedar. King County International Airport, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

A new story pole by Duwamish carver Michael Halady joins a collection of artworks at the King County International Airport that honor the location’s past.

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A new story pole by Duwamish carver Michael Halady joins a collection of artworks at the King County International Airport that honor the location’s past.

In 1910, just a few years after the Wright brothers first successfully went airborne, a crowd of 20,000 people gathered at The Meadows, a horseracing resort near the Duwamish River. The draw? Pioneer aviator Charles “Crazy Man of the Air” Hamilton was in town to put on a show, diving a Curtiss biplane into the resort’s lake from 500 feet. Reportedly, he was drunk. (He also survived the crash, and many others.)

Within the next year, the City of Seattle’s planning commission set out to transform the farmland along the river into an industrial area. Businessman William E. Boeing Sr. subsequently bought a manufacturing plant there, and it became home to his nascent aviation company, known by 1917 as the Boeing Airplane Company. On that site, Boeing produced and tested 50 Model C trainers for the United States Navy during WWI. Then, in 1928, King County citizens voted overwhelmingly to pay a tax in order to purchase the land and create the region’s first modern municipal airport and its only passenger terminal, which opened in the spring of 1930.

Dedication of Boeing Field Administration Building, 1930. [Cropped copy of original photograph by E. Miller.] Series 400, Department of Transportation Road Services Division, photograph and moving image files, item 400.77.212 (95-005-1742), King County Archives.
Today the King County International Airport (KCIA), aka Boeing Field, averages 180,000 takeoffs and landings each year, serving a combination of small commercial passenger airlines, cargo carriers, private aircraft owners, helicopters, corporate jets, military and other aircraft. The Boeing Company still conducts some operations there, and the Museum of Flight is next door. In 2003, the original KCIA Administration and Terminal Building underwent a major renovation—and 4Culture stepped in to restore, commission, and install a series of portable and architecturally integrated artworks.

Brad Miller. 30,000 Feet, 2003. Rulers, neon, and color photographs. King County International Airport, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

Visit the KCIA and you can see 30,000 Feet, Brad Miller’s enormous sculpture made of 30,000 one-foot wooden rulers, which point to a pair of illuminated photographs hanging from the ceiling. A terrazzo floor by Paul Marioni and Ann Troutner imagines the connections between earth, the moon, and the cosmos beyond. Norman Courtney’s Luminaries uses metal and glass to create Art Deco-inspired, spaceship-shaped pendant lights. A collection of portable works—including paintings, photographs, and small sculptures—hang on the walls of the building’s interior. Outside, several large-scale sculptures line the perimeter of the property, including Peter Reiquam’s Metropolis Fence, which conjures 1930s aviation posters in a series of cut-steel panels. Together, these works celebrate the history and purpose of the site.

Peter Reiquam. Metropolis Fence (detail), 2004. Laser cut and painted steel. King County International Airport, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

Of course, people have lived on and cared for these lands long before aviation ever existed. In December 2020, Greg Thomas with KCIA, reached out to 4Culture about commissioning a new work to honor the Indigenous people—specifically the Duwamish—who had made the site their home long before European settlers arrived in the region.

“They came to us to assist with the project because they wanted guidance in the artist selection process,” says 4Culture Public Art Project Manager Selina Hunstiger. “We were excited to get involved and facilitate a panel that ultimately selected Michael Halady to carve artwork honoring his heritage.” Halady is a direct descendant of Duwamish leader Chief Seattle, for whom the city is named.

That new work—Spirit of the Duwamish —was recently installed at the entrance to the KCIA Terminal Building. A story pole carved from 600-year-old cedar, the form of the sculpture references the house posts that held up two Duwamish longhouses on the site until at least 1855. It’s also a welcome figure with two major symbols: The lower one depicts the collective spirit of the Duwamish welcoming people to their ancestral lands, and the top one depicts Changer, a supernatural being and major figure in the cosmology of Puget Sound First Nations. Changer’s story is one of transformation—fitting for a place so steeped in Indigenous and modern history.

Excited about art at airports? You can also explore the works at Sea-Tac the next time you’re there!

Guest Post: Dispatch from the 2023 King County Heritage Internship

Our King County Heritage Internship Program connects heritage organizations with students and emerging professionals seeking work experience in the heritage field. This year, we partnered with the Museum of Flight on an internship opportunity to work with their collections. Andrew Le is the intern for this year’s program, and he recently received a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington. Andrew started working with the Museum of Flight in February, and he will complete his internship in August. Here, Andrew shares insight into his experience.

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Our King County Heritage Internship Program connects heritage organizations with students and emerging professionals seeking work experience in the heritage field. This year, we partnered with the Museum of Flight on an internship opportunity to work with their collections. Andrew Le is the intern for this year’s program, and he recently received a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington. Andrew started working with the Museum of Flight in February, and he will complete his internship in August. Here, Andrew shares insight into his experience.

I am originally from Wichita, Kansas, which earned its nickname “the air capital of the world” by producing more airplanes than anywhere else on Earth. Aviation is part of my heritage. Understandably, I jumped at the opportunity to work at the Museum of Flight through 4Culture’s King County Heritage Internship. Not only do I work in an incredible aerospace museum with many friendly people, I also get to improve access to the diverse materials in their collections and gain valuable experience in my field.

The collections department at the museum is full of unique and interesting things. From Chinese-language airplane design handbooks to secret model wind tunnels, the department has no shortage of objects that stop aviation nerds like me in our tracks. However, having so many interesting things can cloud access to important areas of history. The folks at the museum needed to filter through everything to highlight specific areas of diversity, specifically material created by or pertaining to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), LGBTQ+ individuals, and women. Thus, this Heritage Internship program aimed to improve the visibility of the diverse material within the collections and took off at supersonic speeds.

The project took shape in two parts. The first half of the internship focused exclusively on identifying diverse materials. This process mirrored the Commemorative Initiative created by the museum’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, which identified five months commemorating specific identities. Using these months as a launchpad, I searched each of the collections (archives, library, and small objects) for materials related to these identities and scaled the project to fit the findings. In practice, research began in the library in order to create a list of terms (for example names of diverse aviators or engineers, organizations, or specific historic events) which could be keyword searched in each of the collections databases. While this process often landed on trial and error, the result was a list of over 400 items and collections representing substantial diversity, significantly more than previously thought.

The second half of the internship focused on documentation. Although the project had already identified a lot of Cool Stuff, it wouldn’t be worth much without some form of access. The list of over 400 items lived as an Excel Spreadsheet with lots of data. I retained the original spreadsheet for internal use and created a clean, public-facing copy with an instruction manual for external use. Additionally, I documented the search process for reproducibility and future iterations of this work.

This internship at the museum, most of all in the collections department, is a perfect intersection of my personal interests and professional goals. Working closely with museum staff and uncovering bits of under told aviation stories has been an immensely fulfilling experience, especially for a recent graduate. I hope this project not only helps the museum, but also helps the understanding of aviation history as a whole.

A Hidden World of Water

Buster Simpson. Bio Boulevard and Water Molecule (detail), 2011. Painted steel and concrete. Brightwater, Woodinville, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Jon Kamita

Commissions made in partnership with King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division reveal and celebrate crucial water systems.

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Commissions made in partnership with King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division reveal and celebrate crucial water systems.

Inside Brightwater, one of the largest wastewater treatment facilities in the world, workers are constantly monitoring a state-of-the-art filtration system that processes many millions of gallons of wastewater every day. Around the clock, they track variations in weather and waste to ensure that the entire system is doing its job without interruption—guided in part by the sounds they hear coming from the facility’s vast pipes and machinery.

Brightwater’s work is crucial to the health of our community. This fall, artist Susan Robb will invite the public into what she calls the “hidden world” of wastewater through Deep Listening to the System, a sensory experience designed to honor the essential efforts of wastewater employees. The journey will begin with a tour of Brightwater, exploring the complex infrastructure that produces recycled water for irrigation, biosolids for organic fertilizer, and biogas for electricity. After the tour: a stop at the Brightwater Environmental Education and Community Center for a short meditation on gratitude for our natural resources and the people who help preserve them. Then comes the sound bath, a “sonorous event,” Robb says, created by a musician playing crystal singing bowls, gongs, chimes, hand drums, and shakers.

Deep Listening to the System
is just one of many artworks that tell the story of Brightwater, located north of Woodinville. Following the sound bath, participants will be encouraged to walk along the site’s three miles of trails, where they can discover pieces like Andrea Wilbur-Sigo’s newly restored longhouse, a pair of iconic sculptures by Buster Simpson, laboratory and blown glass in the shape of micro-organisms by Ellen Sollod, and many others—all of them guided by a single art plan and focused on the meaning and movement of water.

Ellen Sollod. Collection and Transformation, 2011. Laboratory glass, blown glass, mirrored glass and steel. Brightwater, Woodinville, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Benjamin Benschneider

Brightwater belongs to a collection of facilities operated by King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD), which protects water quality for about 1.9 million people within a 424-square-mile area. Working in partnership with WTD, 4Culture has commissioned an array of temporary and permanent artworks; together they illuminate the agency’s many feats and immense positive impacts on the county’s environment and public health. Locations include not only wastewater treatment plants but also pump stations and the sites that handle stormwater during heavy rains, which are known as Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) treatment facilities.

Susan Point. Water – The Essence of Life, 1995. Cast concrete and laser cut stainless steel. West Seattle Pump Station, Alki, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: joefreemanjunior.com

At the South Treatment Plant in Renton, Donald Fels’ kinetic and mandala-like Water Plant rises from a pond and Lorna Jordan’s Waterworks Gardens infuses a series of five connected outdoor spaces with the classical design and theatricality of Italian gardens. At pump stations in Kirkland, Tukwila, Fremont, Bellevue, and Alki, works by W. Scott Trimble, Claudia Fitch, Perri Howard, Dan Webb, and Susan Point consider the lifecycle of water and the routes it travels.

Artworks at CSO control sites beautify stormwater storage and processing while raising awareness of the largely invisible CSO system itself. In West Seattle, a piece by Robert Horner uses rock gardens and rammed earth walls to mimic the path water takes to Puget Sound, and in Myrtle Edwards Park on Elliott Bay, a plaza and a collection of graphic panels by Haddad|Drugan depict underground collection, transport, and treatment operations.

Sans façon with El Dorado. Monument to Rain (concept rendering)

New CSO control projects are also underway at the Wet Weather Treatment Station in Georgetown. This month, a series of outdoor visuals by Don Wilkison will make their debut, in conjunction with free events offering artist-designed packets of pollinator seeds that, when planted, will help the public contribute to clean water efforts. Later in the year, 4Culture will celebrate the completion of Sans façon’s Monument to Rain, a 35-foot clear cylinder that turns rain into theater. All of the works connected to the Georgetown facility were shaped by a CSO Art Plan by Sans façon, which provides a curatorial framework for future artworks and amenities at these locations.

A forthcoming project by Erik Carlson at the Rainier Valley Wet Weather Treatment Station in Beacon Hill/Mount Baker focuses specifically on one of five themes in Sans façon’s plan: “The Intangible,” the poetic material that can’t be conveyed in charts, graphs, numbers and spreadsheets. Carlson considers how wastewater engineers work with the stuff of poetry—such as wind, weather, and time—but, he says, “This poetry itself is neither obvious nor easily accessible to the outsider’s eye, lying submerged as it does within a sea of data.” His text-based artwork, Water Log, uses phrases drawn directly from regional news sources to write open-ended stories about the role of water in our everyday lives and imaginations.

Also on the horizon? A pair of commissions that were recently awarded to Timothy White Eagle and Laura C. Wright, who will create temporary artworks connected to the West Duwamish Wet Weather Storage Facility.