June Sekiguchi: Within/Without

ArtXchange Gallery through February 25th

 Artist Talk Thursday, February 2 at 3:00        Reception to follow 5:00-8:00

June Sekiguchi was a 2011 recipient of an Individual Artist Project. We’ve invited her to share the artist residency that the award funded as well as the artwork that resulted from her residency experience.

My sculptural installation, Within/Without,  represents a set of opposite experiences: the most wonderful opportunity I’ve had in my life for my art, and the worst time in the pain of loss. From the outside, this work was created in response to an artist residency I had in Laos at the invitation of Prince Nithakhong Somsanith. Funded in part by a grant from 4Culture, the residency goal was to observe Lao art practices in order to inform new studio work. From the inside, it’s a temple to honor my mother. My time in Laos coincided with what turned out to be the process of my mother dying from injuries from a car accident.

Luang Prabang is Laos’ cultural capital and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 because of the many temples that exist in the small town. Exiled to France, Prince Somsanith has returned to Luang Prabang in recent years to help revive the traditional arts that were dying out since the communist government takeover in 1975. The sensory experience in the meditative atmosphere of monks chanting compelled me to make something for my mother in reverence.

I approached the residency free from preconceived direction. I was ready to abandon the tool I was predominantly using, to find new methodologies and new directions. Prince Somsanith fast-tracked me to artisan workshops in silversmithing, weaving, ceramics, woodcarving, papermaking and stencil making.  As I absorbed various techniques and mediums, I came to value why I had been drawn to pattern and surface in the first place. It was the appreciation of the hand in a knowing-ness and an aesthetic fed by history, linking these arts to a living, breathing tradition.  I realized that rather than abandoning my previous practices, I needed to push my medium to its ultimate conclusion.

I found many opposite notions throughout the Lao culture. Theravada Buddhism can exist and thrive under a communist government and co-exist with spiritual animism. Rich, sumptuous temples have existed over centuries, housing the Buddhist precepts of impermanence and non-materiality while the rest of the country lives in the raw beauty of bamboo.    In my responsive work I use contrasting materials and construction as a metaphor to convey the opposites I was feeling internally and what I was observing externally as an outsider looking in. Fragility and stability; life force and collapse; complexity and simplicity exist within and without.

The next deadline for Individual Artist Project applications is March 14. June Sekiguchi’s artwork will be on exhibit through February 25th, ArtXchange Gallery, 512 1^st Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98103

Student at 826 Seattle reading, © Alicia Craven

Through the On-Site Review program, 4Culture evaluates arts and heritage organizations who receive Sustained Support funding. On-Site Reviewers attend events produced or presented by recipients and write up short reviews, which help to give the adjudicating Sustained Support panelists a patron’s-eye-view of each organization.  Each month, the 4Culture blog presents excerpts from these reviews.  This month’s review is by Cathy Fields.

A small group of parents, friends and tutors filled the chairs clustered around a microphone on one side of the Couth Buzzard, a coffee shop and bookstore. Alicia Craven, 826 Seattle’s after school tutoring coordinator, introduced each of six students who took turns reading from either their own writing, or something they had read and enjoyed. The students were all of elementary school age, and varied from the extremely shy child to the budding performance artist who read with a theatrical flourish. They all, however, received a hardy applause from their audience, including some store patrons that were shopping for books or sipping coffee.

A few 826 students that were not reading came to support their peers. One of these students sat beside me, and during the moments between readings, quietly filled me in on where the performing students had misread or misquoted a poem or story. In addition to a terrific memory, she showed a lot of interest in the program. One of the younger students, who was shy about reading to an audience, had selected a short story to share. When she got stuck on a word, she carefully sounded it out, and did very well for her age. Later I spoke with a tutor about the program and was told that this student had only been in the country a few months, having emigrated from Eritrea. I was amazed that she spoke without much accent, and read very well.

826 Seattle employs some creative ways of deflecting the negative stigma associated with needing help. The center shares space with a novelty shop named Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company that sells a quirky collection of space related items. It acts like a decoy to the real purpose of the building. In addition they have a Youth Advisory Board that serve as mentors and role models for the younger students. Although I only witnessed a small part of what 826 does, I could see that the students were interested, and proud of their accomplishments, and that the tutors were supportive and committed.

Curtis Erlinger, Distant Shore (detail), Ink and rain on paper © 2011

Curtis Erlinger

After Another 

Dates: February 2 -24, 2012

Opening: First Thursday, February 2, 6:00-8:00 P.M.

Inspired by an ingenious safety device used by mountain rangers to prevent electrocution from lightning strike,  Seattle-based artist Curtis Erlinger created a series of three- dimensional “lightning” stools, incorporating glass insulators, and a selection of figurative drawings for his February exhibition in Gallery4Culture. The drawings, executed in a broad range of scale, are carefully rendered copies of photographic images, done in layered washes of acrylic ink.  Translated with the artist’s sensibility, the drawings amplify the lure of the photographs. Erlinger presents his drawings shrouded in an overlay of thin white cloth that is sandwiched between the paper and the glass.  The result is mysterious; it clarifies rather than clouds the images and transforms the drawings into objects.

Curtis Erlinger grew up in St Louis, Missouri.  He earned his BFA and MFA at the University of Missouri.  In 2009, after a stint in Buffalo, New York, Erlinger relocated to the Pacific Northwest.  Since coming to Seattle, he has taught at the Kirkland Arts Center, Pratt Fine Arts Center and at the Northwest School.  Erlinger is a member of the artist cooperatives Punch and SOIL.

SRJO, 2011, photo by Bruce C. Moore

From 4Culture’s On-Site Review program:  Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra presents “An Evening with Ol’ Blue Eyes” (Sat, Oct 29, 2011, at Benaroya Hall).

It is hard to imagine how anyone who appreciates big band jazz or Frank Sinatra could not have loved this performance. Though the atmosphere of the hall and the musicians’ dress was extremely formal, they spoke to each other and to the audience in a relaxed tone, often taking time to razz each other about something. The whole concert had an air of inclusion and was not stuffy in the least.  The two very different, yet equally talented guest singers, Danny Quintero and James Caddell, have exceptional voices and wonderful stage personalities. The 22-year-old tenor, Danny, has a silky-smooth, Sinatra-like voice and is credited with talent far beyond his years. The more experienced and jovial James Caddell is a baritone with a deep, operatic voice and a stage presence to match. Contrasting the two made for a very interesting night. Caddell, by far the biggest personality on stage all night, was dressed all in black, including his cowboy hat and boots. Highlights of the concert included Caddell’s powerful rendition of “Luck Be a Lady Tonight,” Quintero’s “The Song is You,” a long, playful trombone solo (with plunger) during “Makin Whoopie,” and of course the encore duet of “New York, New York.”

4Culture’s On-Site Review program evaluates Sustained Support grantees. This post was written by Nicki Sucec.

Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra performs year-round. You can find out about upcoming performances at:  www.srjo.org

Through 4Culture’s first combined Arts & Heritage Cultural Facilities program, nine organizations each requesting over $30,000 of support were awarded funding, providing a total of $535,000 for larger-scale projects:

Funding for Heritage projects included the City of Tukwila Parks & Recreation Department for  land acquisition to expand the Duwamish Hill Preserve; and Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association for renovation of collections storage and classroom space following a year of  monitoring environmental conditions in the existing facility. Four arts projects were supported, including Historic Seattle’s restoration of Washington Hall as a performance venue and community arts facility; and Pratt Fine Art’s renovation to create a dedicated Youth Arts space and improved Woodshop.

The Sammamish Heritage Society was awarded funds to relocate and build a new foundation for the historic Reard House.
Andres Caldera © All Rights Reserved www.andrescaldera.com

Funding will assist Northwest Film Forum to replace seating in their Capitol Hill Cinemas.
Northwest Film Forum © 2011 Matt Daniels

Pratt Fine Arts Center will use 4Culture support to renovate their Blue building, creating a new woodshop and dedicated Youth Arts studio.
Pratt Fine Arts Center © 2011

The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation will use 4Culture support to rehabilitate interior spaces in the Stimson-Green mansion.
Stimson-Green mansion © 2009 courtesy of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation

The Northwest African American Museum will use 4Culture support to reconfigure their Museum Store, incorporating the Genealogy Resource Library to create an improved Learning Center.
Gallery © 2011 courtesy of the Northwest African American Museum

Evergreen City Ballet will use 4Culture’s support to create a retractable wall that will allow them to better utilize the Black Box theater at their Kent facility
Evergreen City Ballet © 2010

Additionally, two separate panels, one for Arts, one for Heritage, convened to review applications not recommended for funding by the combined cultural facilities panel, and requests $30,000 and under. The Arts Cultural Facilities panel meeting on November 8th recommended funding totaling $270,650 in support for 18 projects countywide: Grand Illusion Cinema will add air conditioning; Photographic Center Northwest will continue renovations to create digital color studios; the new Crown Hill Community Arts Center will be able to replace part of its roof; and Evergreen City Ballet will finish their Black Box theater.

On November 15, the Heritage Cultural Facilities panel recommended funding totaling $166,613 for 10 proposals. Projects recommended for funding included the Sammamish Heritage Society’s proposal to move the historic Reard House onto a new foundation; and the Northwest African American Museum’s reconfiguration of the Museum Store, incorporating the Genealogy Resource Library to create a mission-aligned Learning Center.

Panel recommendations were reviewed by 4Culture’s Arts and Heritage Advisory Committees and submitted to the 4Culture Board for final approval. For a full list of funded arts cultural facilities projects visit www.4culture.org/apply/artsfacilities. For a full list of heritage cultural facilities projects visit www.4culture.org/apply/heritagefacilities.

For more information on 4Culture’s Arts Cultural Facilities program, contact Deb Twersky at (206) 205-8558 or deb....@4culture.org. To learn more about 4Culture’s Heritage 4Culture’s Cultural Facilities program, contact Eric Taylor at (206) 296-8688 or eric...@4culture.org.

4Culture Workshop

This winter, 4Culture staff is pleased to offer free workshops to assist applicants interested in applying to our programs. Applications for artists, art groups, heritage specialists, landmark property owners, arts organizations and heritage organizations will be available in January 2012, with deadlines dates in late-February and March.  Join us to learn more about our upcoming opportunities to apply for funding, including:

Group Arts Projects
Individual Arts Projects
Heritage Special Projects
Heritage Cultural Education
Landmark Rehabilitation

Our informal workshops offer a general introduction to 4Culture’s funding programs, as well as provide step-by-step guidance through the application process and an opportunity to talk directly with staff and hear from other applicants.

Kent
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 – 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
4Culture workshop follows a monthly SOCO Culture Meeting from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m.
Kent Senior Activity Center, 600 East Smith Street, Kent

Vashon
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 – 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Vashon Library, 17210 Vashon Highway SW, Vashon Island

Seatac
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 – 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Valley View Library, 17850 Military Rd. S, SeaTac

South Bellevue
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 – 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Newport Way Library, 14250 S.E. Newport Way, Bellevue

Black Diamond
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 – 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Black Diamond Library, 24707 Roberts Drive, Black Diamond

Woodinville
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 – 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Woodinville Library, 17105 Avondale Road NE, Woodinville

Seattle
Heritage Special Projects & Education – Deadline: February 29, 2012
Thursdays, January 26 and February 2, 9, 16
12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
4Culture, 101 Prefontaine PL S, Seattle

Landmark Rehabilitation (for landmarks outside the city of Seattle) - Deadline: March 7, 2012
By Appointment: Flo Lentz 206 296.8682 or flo....@4culture.org

Group Arts Projects – Deadline: March 7, 2012
Thursdays, February 2, 9, 16 and 23
1:00 to 2:00 p.m.
4Culture, 101 Prefontaine PL S, Seattle

Individual Artist Projects – Deadline: March 14, 2012
Tuesdays, February 14, 21, 28and March 6
Noon to 1:00 p.m.
4Culture, 101 Prefontaine PL S, Seattle

Application guidance is also available on-line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at: http://vimeo.com/album/1770197

Visit our calendar and opportunities page on our website for information about additional opportunities, offered by 4Culture and through other organizations and foundations.

Members of 4Culture's Board of Directors, photographed by Youth in Focus's Kari C. and Duy H.

Every arts and heritage organization relies on dedicated, willing volunteers for a host of tasks that are essential to fulfilling the mission of the organization they serve.

This message is a “THANK YOU” to all of those people who quietly toil to bring cultural experiences to life.

You are Board members, ushers, docents.   If you volunteer with a small arts or heritage organization, you may entirely run the organization.  You are tutors, art instructors, heritage exhibit designers, community choruses.  You are marketing and development interns, errand runners, work party volunteers.

In the case of 4Culture, you are the fifteen members of our Board of Directors; the thirty one members of our four standing advisory committees; the scores of jurors who serve on funding panels and dozens of panelists who help us select artists for opportunities such as Gallery4Culture exhibits, e4c, the Public Art Artist Registry, the Touring Arts Roster and Site Specific performances.

Tina was recruited to join 4Culture in 2005 to envision and implement a program to mediate the County’s public art collection.  Although many communities have invested in significant civic art collections, few are offering a means of enhancing the public’s appreciation of the art through interpretive programs and outreach. During her tenure, Tina accomplished much to improve engagement with the collection, including a re-design of the public art website, adding stories about the remarkable artists, fabricators and King County project partners at the center of the creation process.  She implemented Listen4Culture, a web-based or cell phone access program that allows collection audiences to hear the artist describe the ideas behind the work.  The Listen4Culture model also helped 4Culture’s Heritage and Preservation programs to launch a “Listen” component to Destination Heritage.  Tina worked to establish strong and fruitful partnerships with the University of Washington, Local Arts Agencies and other public art agencies throughout the country.  She instigated the PA Tumblr Blog and at last count had 1300 following her tweets @PA4culture.

Tina sat in the first desk near the door because she said, she thought it was her job to meet and greet and help visitors to feel at home at 4Culture.  Not a day went by that she did not serve as an outstanding ambassador for culture in our region.  Her enthusiasm was infectious, and her commitment extraordinary. On behalf of the entire staff and Board we want to thank Tina for her amazing contributions to this organization and to our cultural community.  She will be missed.

Deadline:  Monday, January 9, 2012, 5:00 P.M.

Gallery4Culture’s application for the exhibition season from September 2012 through August 2013 is now available online. Review the guidelines and online application here.

Individual artists, artist teams and independent curators residing in King County, WA are eligible to apply. Artists may not be represented by a commercial gallery at the time of application. Members of artist-run collectives and cooperative galleries are eligible to apply. Artists who have had solo exhibitions at Gallery4Culture are ineligible for four years from the time of their previous application.

Gallery4Culture offers approximately 1,000 sq. ft. of street level exhibition space in the Tashiro Building in Pioneer Square, Seattle.  Gallery4Culture exhibits contemporary art in all media.  Solo, two-person, and curated small group exhibitions will be considered, as well as exhibitions that feature nontraditional media and methods underrepresented in commercial galleries.

If you have questions about the gallery program, please contact: Esther Luttikhuizen, esther.luttikhuizen[at]4culture.org, 206.296.8674.

Gallery4Culture is free and open to the public 9:00 A.M to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Friday, closed weekends and government holidays.

Brent Watanabe, This Heavy Load, Mixed media © 2011 Winifred Westergard

It’s budget time at 4Culture. Even though 4Culture is an independent public entity, its funding is appropriated annually through the King County budget process, which will be completed the weekend before Thanksgiving.

4Culture receives most of its funding through three county revenue streams: the capital budget for the Percent for Arts Program; lodging taxes allocated by the state for cultural programs in King County; and a small general fund appropriation for maintenance and stewardship of the 1,600 piece King County art collection amassed since 1973.

Lodging taxes are an interesting economic indicator. The lodging sector noticed a trend in mid-2008 that predicted the approaching recession about six months earlier than most of us realized. Convention cancellations and reduced leisure travel bookings foreshadowed the economic collapse that became evident to all of us by the end of the year. The lodging taxes allocated for cultural programs in 2009 fell precipitously, followed by modest gains in 2010, but still 15% below the 2008 levels.

That trend is now reversing. Lodging taxes in 2011 are on the rise, a sure sign that the local economy is in recovery mode. While that is good news for arts, heritage and culture in King County, it will not result in an increase in our grant funding in 2012. Here’s why.

As anticipated, the annual lodging tax revenues for 4Culture will end on December 31, 2012. The legislation passed in Olympia last session thankfully enables 4Culture to spend down its endowment between 2103 and 2020 to cover the gap until we get back into the lodging tax funding stream in 2021. In this seven year period our funding levels will be predicable but relatively static.

In 2009 and 2010 the 4Culture Board saw our funding going down in tandem with the lodging industry, and approved the use of 4Culture’s interest reserves to maintain consistent levels of awards to the field. They felt during hard economic times it was critical to provide stable levels of support when so many other funding streams were also down. But knowing we will rely on those reserves to bridge our revenue gap  in the near future, we are budgeting conservatively through the next year. What does that mean?

We anticipate that our funding levels in 2012 will be roughly equal to what they are in 2011.  Some programs may be more competitive. And let’s hope lodging taxes continue to grow with the economy in 2012. After that, it’s fixed income time for lodging tax awards until 2021.

Much more troubling is the county’s capital budget. Several capital projects that typically would have allocated 1% for art have been cancelled or postponed. The largest public works project in King County history, the Brightwater water treatment plant, is now completed. Until the economy recovers sufficiently for the county to consider infrastructure investments, public art revenues will be down. Fortunately, the county will continue to provide the modest costs of stewarding the arts collection from the general fund.

I believe we serve our community best when we are open and transparent about our finances and keep the cultural community informed about the trends that impact our ability to support the work of the field.

One final note. Most of you may not be aware that 4Culture has been audited annually by the state Auditor’s Office since we became a public development authority in 2003.  Since then we have had fifteen audits, seven audits to determine if we are operating in compliance with state laws and eight financial audits.  The auditor just completed the 2010 audits of 4Culture with no findings.

Since this message is about money and budgets, I thought you might like to know that we take our responsibilities for sound management seriously.

Jim Kelly

John Ackermann © 2011 Mike Hipple

Check out the 2012 calendar

4Culture provides application workshops in-person and on-line, in addition to one-on-one assistance via email or phone. Our 2012 workshop schedule will be posted in mid-December. Check back for locations, dates and times and in the meantime, visit the on-line guide for your preferred program.

UPDATE: The first workshop schedule for 2012 is now posted 

© 2011, Coyote Central, Photo by Jess Schwab

aLIVe meets PARK(ing) Day

Melissa Glenn and Matt Inpanbutr of SHKS Architects bring their aLIVe project Bi(K) o garden to 4Culture for PARK(ing) Day in downtown Seattle and will remain installed for a month. The “garden” occupies the footprint of a typical parking space and juxtaposes that footprint with the narrow space it takes to park a bicycle. The artwork also provides an alternative to concrete or asphalt streetscape, offering instead plant materials and construction techniques found in green roof and bio filtration systems.

On Friday, September 16th in cities around the globe artists, activists and citizens will transform metered parking spaces into temporary public parks and other social spaces, as part of an annual event called “PARK(ing) Day.” Invented in 2005 by Rebar, a San Francisco-based art and design studio, PARK(ing) Day invites people to rethink the way streets are used and promotes discussion around the need for broad- based changes to urban infrastructure. The 2010 event included more than 800 “PARK” installations in more than 180 cities on six continents. 4Culture is proud to participate, and to have the installation in place for the duration of the Seattle Design Festival which takes place September 16-25. 4Culture will be participating in the design festival with a lecture by the Brightwater Design Team at the Seattle Public Library on Saturday, September 16 from 10:30 am – 12:00 noon.

Bi(K)o Garden installation at SHKS Architects in Fremont,  Photo by Melissa Glenn @2011

For two days on a mid-July weekend, personalities from Saar Pioneer Cemetery came to life in Voices of Kent’s Pioneers, a series of onsite historical performances, showcasing the stories of selected individuals and families interred in the historic burial ground. Through collaboration between the South King County Genealogical Society and Book-It Theatre, with support from 4Culture’s Heritage Special Projects and Site-Specific programs, a cast of three women and three men portrayed multiple characters in a production adapted from genealogical records by Rachel Atkins, and directed by Kelly Kitchens.

Using humor and pathos, the actors gave voice to the departed as audience and cast moved from graveside to graveside. This year’s production follows the model and success of the inaugural historical performance at Saar Pioneer Cemetery in 2010, and strengthens the case for continued creative interpretation of heritage sites.

Image: Voices of Kent’s Pioneers July 17 performance © 2011, 4Culture.

Check out a couple great upcoming events by 4Culture Individual Artist Projects recipients including choreographer, KT Niehoff and writer, Alma Garcia. They’re ready to share their new work with you. Enjoy!

Parts Don’t Work

Thursday, July 21 from 5-6pm

Northwest Film Forum

1515 12th Avenue, Seattle

$5 at the door for the screening only/$20 for screening and reception

RSVP required

Part Don’t Work is a short dance film shot on location at the Fun Forest Amusement Park (now defunct) directly under the Space Needle. Starring Alexis Alicia Bianca Cabrera, Alison Cockrill, Lara Paxton, Lisa Marlene Thompson, with guest appearances from Ricki Mason and KT Niehoff. Parts Don’t Work is Directed, Choreographed, Produced and Co-Edited by KT Niehoff. Benjamin Kasukle is the Director of Photography, Christian Hansen is the 2nd DP and Co-Editor, Mychal Cohen of Goodweather Studios is the Sound Designer and Eric Beach created the Original Score. Support in part by 4culture and Northwest Film Forum.

Other: Three Mixed Heritage Writers – One Evening of Uncategorizable Poetry and Fiction

Friday, July 29, 2011 6:30 PM

Couth Buzzard Books

8310 Greenwood Avenue N, Seattle

Free

Readings presented by local artists, Alma Garcia, Kim-An Lieberman and Storme Webber, with Israeli/Balkan folk-pop by Tribute to Matti Caspi. If the sound of that line-up doesn’t grab you, then you need a vacation.

Alma Garcia, © 2011, Courtesy of the Artist

14 emerging Seattle artists set forth to transform a group of neighboring homes in Seattle’s North Capitol Hill. The homes, slated for demolition later this summer, will be turned into site-specific neighborhood art installations.

Located at 711 Bellevue Ave E in Seattle, the project is free to view from July 16 – August 7, Noon-7pm.

Produced by MadArt, Mad Homes supports local emerging artists with a rare opportunity to create art without conventional constraints. MadArt is a 4Culture 2011 Group Arts Projects recipient for this project.

Artists include Troy Gua, Julia Haack, Meg Hartwig, Luke Haynes, Amanda Manitach, Ryan Molenkamp, Allan Packer, Jason Puccinelli and Elizabeth Potter, Sutton Beres Culler, Laura Ward and Allyce Wood.

Who can resist a shrink wrapped home or wall clothes?

Photo: Luke Haynes, Interiors #1 (Wall Clothes) © 2011 Bryan Ohno

April 25, 2011, 8:15 p.m.

I meet Hans Berge, and fellow King County ecologists Dan Lantz and Laura Hartema, on the north bank of the Tolt River. Hans and his colleagues will sample fish and their habitats at flow levels comparable to those existing when they did similar work two years ago, prior to completion of the floodplain restoration project. Project designers begin with certain assumptions. In this case, according to Josh Latterell, “We think the fish prefer certain slow-water habitats, but we need to find out if they actually tend to select one type of habitat over another.”

Hans has tracked the flow gage on the Tolt, in order to schedule this evening’s activity. One of the three previous “fish counts” was conducted at 760 cubic feet per second (cfs), a measure of the volume of water passing by a point on the river. When we arrive at the site, the rate of flow is 756 and rising, which is “close to perfect,” according to Hans.

As we wait for 9 p.m. and darkness, Hans explains: “We will seine bank, bar, backwater, and side channel habitats, to measure density of juvenile salmon and steelhead.” These relatively shallow areas, with low-velocity flows, are good for juvenile salmon, especially Chinook. Fish counts take place at night, when salmon do not need to hide from predacious birds or other fishes, but are actively feeding and therefore susceptible to being caught, temporarily, by the monitoring team.

Hans outlines some of the newly-visible benefits of the restoration project. During the day, smaller fish can hide in the woody debris accumulating in the floodplain. At night, they seek habitats “in the lee of the wood,” low-velocity, shallow water, sheltered areas formed behind wood that obstructs flow. As the fish mature, increase in size, and gain swimming ability, they are less vulnerable to predators, and move further into deeper, swifter waters for feeding.

Laura, Dan and Hans call out directions, ask questions, argue, banter, and share surprises while setting and pulling nets, or “seines.” I appreciate the flow of their conversation, as I attempt to take notes on the fly. At one point, I hear “Do it on the down,” which sounds intriguing. This means setting the net heading downstream and then hauling it upstream to close it around the catch. My job is to time each haul, from the moment the team begins to move the net in a wide circle in the water, to the time they pull the haul onto the shore.

It is a beautiful night: warm and not raining, a sweet and rare interlude in one of the coldest and wettest recorded winter and spring seasons in the Pacific Northwest. Once I figure out how to juggle camera, flashlight, stopwatch, pencil, paper, and my inevitable clumsiness in chest waders, I watch three people engage in a slow specific dance, deploying a large net across flowing water. Their actions, the net and the water are illuminated, intermittently and rhythmically, by the miner’s lamps on their heads. Each haul takes about a minute, but the experience of watching this mesmerizing, illuminated watery dance in the dark was, and remains, mysteriously “outside of time.”

The fish caught in each haul are carefully transferred from the net into large plastic buckets. I record the Haul # and elapsed time on a slip of waterproof “Rite in the Rain” paper, and drop it into a designated bucket. It floats among the fish and some “bycatch,” mostly cottonwood seeds, which I initially confuse with the tiny juveniles.

The team gathers on a gravel bar, at a folding camp table illuminated by a battery-operated lamp. Laura removes each fish from the bucket with a small net, placing it in a plastic container of water dosed with a sedative, to make the fish easier to handle and prevent injury. Hans says, “I prefer to dose them really light – it’s easier for them to recover.”

Hans measures each fish, from its nose to the fork in its tail. “To measure them, you have to head them upstream,” he says, referring to the device he created: a very effective assemblage of a transparent ruler and a length of PVC pipe, capped at one end to hold water. The species of fish, its weight, and the “nose to fork” measurement, are recorded on the data sheet for each haul. The length of the fish provides information about how long it has been out of the gravel and at what rate it is growing. Weight is also important, as the biomass of fish per unit stream area is another measure of habitat productivity. Once data is recorded, each fish is transferred back to the bucket, and then returned to the river.

Fish from hauls 1, 2 and 3, in side channel habitat, include some of the following, with measurements in millimeters, called out by Hans, and recorded by Dan:

Shorthead Sculpin – 64; Chinook – 39; Chinook – 53; Torrent Sculpin – 48; Riffle Sculpin– 45; LND (Long-Nosed Dace) – 56; “Little” Coho – 36; Riffle Sculpin – 63; Chinook – 48 mm, a “fry.”

The term “fry” refers to a life stage that begins after fish emerge from the gravel, and prior to their migration to salt water.  As they get closer to making the journey to salt water, they go through a transformation to become smolts. At some point during Haul #2, excitement erupts:  A river lamprey – 113 mm. The team tells me this is a very ancient creature. It looks like a very large worm.

Work continues for several hours: a total of five hauls. I appreciate the simple question driving fish counts: “What do the fish want?” Interconnected and nuanced answers will help ecologists prioritize and balance habitat-related changes to be set in motion through the design of future projects. I wonder if urban planners engage in similarly sensitive monitoring of new projects, to explore “What do the people want?”

Vegetation, gravel and wood surveys are scheduled for July.

Photos by Elizabeth Conner

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cover design Fernandez de Leon with printers Jennifer Borges Foster, Stephanie Laursen, David Nixon & Kevin. Music and video by David Nixon.

The Filter Volume 3 release party is coming up on Friday, June 17 at 8pm at the Fremont Abbey. More info and tickets here.

The event will feature readings from Zachary Schomburg, John Osebold, Stacey Levine, Maged Zaher, Karen Finneyfrock, Ed Skoog, Elizabeth Colen, Elissa Washuta and Sarah Bartlett . Freshly letterpressed copies of the book will be available for purchase.

The cover of the new Filter has a paint-by-numbers theme, and the box structure is letterpress printed by Kate Fernandez of Fernandez and Sons. The book is filled with artist’s work in individually bound chapbooks of prose and poetry, with art postcards and posters that you can remove and display. The contributors in Filter III are:
Yusef Komunyakaa, Zachary Schomburg, Stacey Levine, Amanda Manitach, Maged Zaher, Sharon Arnold, Martha Silano, John Osebold, Rebecca Brown, Counsel Langely, Ed Skoog, Karen Finneyfrock, Sean Ennis, Sarah Mangold, Gala Bent, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Elizabeth Colen, Sandra & Ben Doller, Brandon Shimoda, Ben Beres, Brandon Downing, Sarah Kate Moore, Dan Rosenberg, Susan Rich, Susan Denning, Sid Miller, Sarah Bartlett, Shawn Vestal, Marie-Caroline Moir, Lucy Corin, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Jill McDonough, Jessica Goodfellow, Jessica Bonin, Friedrich Kerksieck , Erika Wilder, Elissa Washuta, David Bartone, Chris Dusterhoff, Britt Ashley, Becca Yenser, Anne Gorrick.

Apply for ArtsEd Washington’s Principals’ Arts Leadership program (PAL)

We invite you to join with elementary school principals from around the region who are committed to empowering their schools with the creative foundations of learning – pivotal to delivering a complete education to every student.

With approximately 63 percent of principals noting their dissatisfaction with the quantity of arts education in their schools*, ArtsEd Washington is delivering tools and resources that are enabling elementary school principals to directly lead their schools arts efforts and impact change in arts learning opportunities for their students.

Recruitment is underway for a new cadre of principals to begin this program in the Fall. Learn more and sign up to join us!

*K-12 Arts Education: Every Student, Every School, Every Year. Washington State Arts Commission 2009

Photo: Students dancing at Adams Elementary, a PAL participating school. Photo courtesy of ArtsEd Washington.

Offices will be closed Friday and Monday

4Culture will be closed for a furlough day on Friday, May27th and will observe the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, May 30th. The offices will be closed both days and will reopen for normal business hours on Tuesday. Enjoy your long weekend.

Relja Penezic & Victoria Jordanova, Fragments of Unused Time (detail) © Relja Penezic & Victoria Jordanova

For twenty-plus years, 4Culture has provided support for the visual and performing arts, public art, heritage programs, historic preservation and cultural development of the region. Since 1992, the agency has managed a portion of existing lodging taxes for cultural programs in the County.

“This is a big day for 4Culture and the thousands of citizens and visitors that benefit from our services in every corner of King County,” states Jim Kelly, Executive Director. “This took seven years and could not have happened without our prime legislative sponsors and champions Senator Ed Murray, Senator Scott White, Representative Ross Hunter and House Speaker Frank Chopp.  5834 had strong bipartisan support.  We also have to thank King County Executive Dow Constantine who recognized the importance of this program and made this one of the County’s legislative priorities this session.”

The original legislation for 4Culture assured the future of the heritage and arts program by funding the program with lodging taxes through 2012, and creating an endowment fund from a portion of these same local lodging taxes, that was meant to sustain the program after 2012. With the downturn of the economy, however, the endowment had not met original revenue projections.  Without the passage of ESSB 5834 this session, 90% of 4Culture’s programs and support for arts and heritage would’ve been eliminated by 2012.

When signed into law by Governor Gregoire, ESSB 5834 will permit King County to direct an existing portion of local lodging taxes to 4Culture beginning in 2021. In order to bridge the funding gap between 2013 – 2021, the bill authorizes 4Culture to spend down an endowment it has been accruing for the past 10 years.

“4Culture can now plan for a stable future,” said 4Culture board president Dale Smith, “We will continue to steward these public funds in ways that serve all King County residents and provide access to the economic, social and educational benefits of art, heritage and cultural development in all county communities.”

Beginning January 1, 2021, at least 37.5 percent of the county lodging tax revenues will be distributed to the account dedicated for 4Culture’s programs. Another 37.5 percent of the county lodging tax revenues will be distributed for affordable workforce housing and services for homeless youth. Sponsors of the bill included Senators Murray, Litzow, McAuliffe, Nelson, Hill, White, Kohl-Welles, Fain and Eide.

Established in January 2003, 4Culture is a public development authority serving King County’s cultural communities. It continues the work of the King County Arts Commission, Public Art Commission, and the heritage programs of the Landmarks Commission. 4Culture is a tax-exempt public corporation with a 15 member Board of Directors who are nominated by the King County Executive and confirmed by the Metropolitan King County Council.