New funding focus to increase the public’s access to educational and cultural experiences

Summary

4Culture, the cultural funding agency for King County, Washington, is expanding the program disciplines that it supports by adding Science and Technology to the existing Arts, Heritage, Historic Preservation, and Public Art program areas. This expansion is made possible through the new Doors Open Sales Tax, passed unanimously by King County Council in December 2023. It is an exciting opportunity to increase the public’s access to Science and Technology focused educational and cultural experiences.

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Science and Technology organizations will have access to a variety of grantmaking programs, starting with applications opening in late Summer 2024 for general operating support and for capital facilities projects. In 2025, additional programs that support in-school educational programming, free and reduced admissions tickets, start-up funding, and countrywide initiatives will become available.

The new Department will be headed by Bart J. Cannon, PhD., who has been with 4Culture since 2014 in multiple roles including Funding Program Administrator, Data Manager, and most recently Director of Operations. Prior to his time at 4Culture, Bart was Public Policy Coordinator at OutFront Minnesota and served as the Executive Director at Blue Earth Alliance, a local nonprofit that utilized visual storytelling as an advocacy tool for environmental and social justice issues.

Bart played a key role in the construction of the science and technology elements of the Doors Open Ordinance implementation plan and has been busy meeting regularly with representatives from the science and technology community to ensure funding programs align to their needs. This work includes the completion of a Science and Technology landscape analysis and the establishment of a standing Science and Technology Advisory Committee to provide input, guidance, and advice to this new area of work.

Quotes

“This expansion of 4Culture’s program focus into science and technology is an exciting opportunity to bring needed support to a new segment of the community. 4Culture has existing relationships with many of the organizations that are represented in this sector, and is eager to build out funding support to this community as the work expands. Opening our grantmaking to zoos, aquariums, science centers and botanic gardens will provide the public with opportunities that enrich the lives of all those who live and visit King County,” – Brian J. Carter, Executive Director, 4Culture

“An enduring passion for science has shaped my life.  Helping local nonprofits expand hands-on access to the tools and methods of science is a priority for me.  I firmly believe that a love of knowledge and an active engagement with science by all ages in all communities benefits everyone. “ – Bart J. Cannon, Science and Technology Director, 4Culture

About Doors Open
Doors Open, the new sales tax that makes this expansion possible, was passed on December 5, 2023 by the King County Council. The legislation increases funding to the County’s arts, heritage, science, and historic preservation non-profit organizations through a 0.1 percent sales tax. 4Culture is the County’s designated agency to distribute these funds, anticipated to be approximately $100 million per year. A minimum of 25% of all Doors Open funding will go to organizations outside of the city of Seattle, and a minimum of 10% of all funding will go to organizations serving historically underserved communities in King County.

4Culture is a public development authority that has been in existence for 60 years. To access Doors Open funding, King County cultural and science organizations will apply to grant programs; all applicants will be reviewed by community peer panels. Discipline-specific Advisory Committees review grant recommendations and final funding determination is made by our Board of Directors. 4Culture’s will integrate Doors Open funding into our existing equitable granting processes and operations.

4Culture is King County’s cultural funding and services agency, supported by Doors Open, Lodging Taxes and the 1% for Art ordinance. With a focus on racial equity, we fund, support, and advocate for culture to enhance the quality of life in King County. To learn more about our programs–arts, heritage, preservation, and public art –please visit 4culture.org, email hello@4culture.org, or call 206-296-7580. We encourage you contact staff directly if you are interested in learning more about a specific program area.

Robert Morris’ celebrated Untitled Earthwork (Johnson Pit #30), one of the first ever publicly funded Land Art projects, was listed in the Washington Heritage Register in June 2021. On the heels of this honorary designation comes precedent-setting inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places for “significant contribution to the broad patterns of history,” embodiment of “distinctive characteristics,” and “high artistic values.” A contemporary earthwork has never received such status.

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.

The intensive nomination process was led by Rich Freitas, Historical Landscape Architect at the National Park Service, and Kasia Keeley, Associate Designer at Mithun, alongside 4Culture staff Dana Phelan, Kelly Pajek, and Jordan Howland. Numerous art and design professionals, the Cultural Landscape Foundation, and Washington State Architectural Historian Michael Houser lent support as well.

Houser notes that the listing is one of the most unusual in Washington from a variety of perspectives. “Listing a property less than 50 years old is quite special, and this is the first project in the United States to use funding from a 1% for Art program for arts-based environmental reclamation. The nomination will set precedent for others to come.”

Pajek, Public Art Director at 4Culture, adds “Acknowledgement of Untitled Earthwork (Johnson Pit #30) on both a state and federal level is such an important step to not only recognize a treasured work of public art in our region but to also protect the vision of Robert Morris. During these times of rapid development and environmental change, it is crucial to preserve spaces like this for future generations.”

Inspired by early efforts to use art as a means for rehabilitating abused post-industrial sites, 4Culture‚ then known as the King County Arts Commission‚ sponsored an innovative symposium called Earthworks: Land Reclamation as Sculpture in 1979. It was a remarkable and timely vision attuned to the local problem of abandoned gravel mines, the national Land Art movement, the regional ethos of environmentalism in design, and the national focus on the environmental impacts of mining and mine reclamation.

The Commission brought together a unique team of government agencies and artists to discuss the potential of earthworks—large-scale sculptures that use the earth itself as their medium—and to create historic public artworks designed to restore natural areas damaged by industry.

Robert Morris received the first demonstration project commission. He removed undergrowth from an abandoned 3.7-acre gravel pit in the Kent Valley, terraced the earth, and planted it with rye grass, in effect returning the land to active use. Decades later, the destination continues to serve as a community gathering place.

Anticipation and response to the symposium in the national arts and landscape architecture press expressed excitement and cautious optimism over its premise. It was described by Artforum as “a project of major public dimensions” and Untitled Earthwork (Johnson Pit #30) was hailed as “the most ambitious Earthwork project this country has ever seen.”

Today, in addition to proving the effectiveness of art as a reclamation tool, we can see how Morris’ efforts and those of the consortium helped establish the viability of public art as an answer to public infrastructure challenges and lay the groundwork for what is now a standard practice of including artists in the development and planning of public spaces. 

Robert Morris

Morris was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1931. He received an education in engineering from the University of Kansas, studied art at Kansas City Art Institute and California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, studied philosophy at Reed College in Oregon, and took a break from school to serve in the Army Corps of Engineers.  After college, Morris spent several years living in San Francisco before moving to New York City in 1959 and receiving a master’s degree in art history from Hunter College in 1963. His early explorations of painting, dance, and choreography would influence the sculpture, earthwork and performance work for which he received most of his acclaim. Morris’ particular interest in Land Art was rooted in perception, the carceral, the phenomenological, and ancient form making and symbology.

Over his career, Morris had solo exhibitions at numerous major museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1970), the Art Institute of Chicago (1980), the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C (1990) and a retrospective at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1994.  His writing is equally influential to his visual work, and a series of essays produced in 1966 for ArtForum magazine entitled, “Notes on Sculpture,” remain a foundational critical text within the field. Likewise, Morris’ 1993 publication Continuous Project Altered Daily compiled several influential writings on sculpture including a version of his keynote address for the symposium. At the time of Morris’ death in 2018, Morris was living in Kingston, New York and new work of his was on view at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City. 

Morris’ involvement in Land Art had its formal beginning over a decade before the King County Earthworks Symposium, with his 1966 proposal Project in Earth and Sod for the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. The work was not built, but Morris continued exploring this conceptual practice with a series of sketches, proposals, and participation in the major Land Art exhibitions of the time. Of the work Morris was generating, three large-scale earthworks were constructed.  These works included Observatory in the Netherlands; Grand Rapids Project ‘X’ in Michigan; and Untitled Earthwork (Johnson Pit #30). 

Untitled Earthwork (Johnson Pit #30) is the only large-scale Morris earthwork in the United States that has been well-maintained close to its original form and condition. 4Culture remains its steward and King County Roads Services Division owns the land.

Living as I do in an age deprived of the gods and numbed by the ironically entropic consequences of our own technology, my work can hardly be construed as celebrating either the transcendent or the industrial. But as this work is publicly funded, people whose tax dollars went toward its construction will demand to know how, failing the act of celebration, the work justifies the expenditure of the money and effort. Some of them will at least want to know what it ‘means.’ To this I can only reply that the distinctive difference of art, what marks it off from all other organized human activity, is that it does not seek control through explanation. That it offers the freedom to experience and question is not an opportunity that its audience always welcomes. But the value of the present work, if any, will have to be sought on these terms. – Robert Morris

4Culture

As the cultural funding agency for King County, Washington, 4Culture works to make the region vibrant through Arts, Heritage, Preservation and Public Art programs.

Related Links

• 4Culture
• King County Roads Services Division
• Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation
• National Register of Historic Places

Learn more about Morris and Johnson Pit #30 on our website and visit from dawn to dusk 7 days per week, 21610 37th Pl S, SeaTac, 98198, WA. 

 

 

Summary

The 4Culture staff and board are excited to welcome Nina Yarbrough as our Arts Program Director.  In addition to her deep passion for and experience in the arts, Yarbrough brings a wealth of business development, community engagement, and cultural programming skills to 4Culture. Her work with both large and small cultural organizations and her dedication to racial equity will provide a balanced and unique perspective to the role. She will begin work in September, filling a vacancy left by Charlie Rathbun who retired in March.

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Over the summer, she will wrap up her duties as the Business Development Manager for the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas where she built a successful fundraising program from the ground up. Prior to that, she worked at the Seattle Opera where she managed the organization’s $60 million capital campaign to build a home at the Seattle Center. Nina hails from Cincinnati, Ohio with a background in theatre performance, spoken word, and playwriting. She received her MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University and is currently a member of 4Culture’s Recovery Task Force, analyzing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cultural sector and creating an equitable vision for recovery.

The Arts Program Director is a senior leader at 4Culture, overseeing the development, implementation, and evaluation of our arts funding programs and serves as a liaison to the King County arts community.  The department runs a large portfolio of grant programs and initiatives addressing the needs of artists, arts organizations, and groups. In 2020, Arts distributed $4.7 million to over 900 individuals and groups through COVID-19 relief and annual grant programs. The position will play a key role in helping rebuild the arts community in the wake of the pandemic and work to expand access to communities that have historically been excluded from arts funding in King County.

Quote

“Nina brings a contagious energy and an innovative intellect to 4Culture. She will undoubtedly use these qualities to help the cultural sector recover from the impacts of the pandemic, and spur its necessary evolution to be more accessible, inclusive, and equitable.”  – Brian J. Carter, Executive Director, 4Culture

4Culture is King County’s cultural funding and services agency, supported by Lodging Taxes and the 1% for Art ordinance. With a focus on racial equity, we fund, support, and advocate for culture to enhance the quality of life in King County. For question about arts, or any of our programs, please email hello@4culture.org or call 206-296-7580. We encourage you to contact staff directly if you are interested in learning more about a specific program area.

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The 4Culture staff and board are proud to welcome Patricia Moss to the Board of Directors. 4Culture is King County’s cultural funding and commissioning agency supported by Lodging Taxes and the 1% for Art ordinance. A 15-member Board of Directors is the governing body of 4Culture, with individuals representing the cultural, geographic, and ethnic diversity of King County. Moss was appointed by the King County Council on March 23, 2021. 

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Quote

“Patricia’s dedication to building up the arts in our community makes her a valuable addition to the board, I am delighted that she will be helping to guide 4Culture’s work advancing arts and culture in King County.” Reagan Dunn, King County Council Vice Chair

Recently Appointed

The 4Culture staff and board are proud to welcome Seth Margolis and Latha Sambamurti, who were recently appointed to the 4Culture Board.

4Culture and King County Marine Division’s First Public Art collaboration

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The art provides a welcoming gateway and a visual indication of a uniquely Northwest journey. Berk’s design reminds us of how our working waterfront developed where tidal flats once existed. Tied together with blue nautical rope, the stanchions reflect the pilings that underpin the waterfront underneath the terminal. The stanchions are stained to reference tidal marks and the rope gently curves to mimic the waves of Puget Sound.

Berk’s installation is the result of a successful first-time collaboration between 4Culture and the King County Department of Transportation Marine Division, which is responsible for managing Water Taxi service.

The new passenger-only ferry terminal opened in August featuring a new covered facility, ADA improvements, expanded space, and incredible views. Construction required the removal of over 7,000 tons of creosote-treated timber piles, capping of contaminated sediments, while minimizing impact to marine mammals. The new facility has earned a Platinum certification under the King County Green Building Program. The opening of the new terminal also marks the 10 year anniversary of passenger ferry service in King County.

This is Leo Berk’s second transit-based public art commission: his work can also be seen at the Sound Transit University Link Light Rail Station. In addition to many public art commissions, Berks has had solo exhibitions at the Frye Art Museum, and the Seattle Art Museum.

Related Links

• Leo Berk
• King County Water Taxi