Per Susan Robb:

” My! You smell divine. What’s the scent you’re wearing?”
” Why thank you. It’s called Soos Creek”

I wanted to use smell to capture my experiences with the Regional Trails so  over the past six months I have been collecting materials (from plants and berries to horse manure and cocoa pods) found at various Regional Trails (or directly nearby) and distilling essential oils from them. I then mixed these oils into trail-specific fragrances. The process was alchemical and magical (similar to the trails themselves) – one whiff of pine scent can transport me back to the Preston Snoqualmie trail where I gather the needles.

Join me on the Burke Gilman trail on September 28 and from 12 – 2, come get spritzed and cloak yourself in the scent of the trails.

Per Paul Rucker:

After walking along a Regional Trail, I will present an hour-long musical suite inspired by the journey to lunchtime trail-goers.  I look forward to engaging with folks who happen upon me on Tuesday, September 21, noon time.  An interactive component will be featured.

Per Stokley Towles:

On September 27, Susan and I will be out on the Regional Trails.  I will interview people to ask them about their experience on the trails, and am especially curious to see how their relationship to that space has changed with the changing weather.

For more information on the Trails Project, please visit www.trailsproject.com.

Images:

Burke Gilman Trail by Stokley Towles

Paul Rucker and cello at “Water Pieces”, a concert at Rattlesnake Lake, the southernmost point of Snoqualmie Valley Trail by Heather Dwyer.

Susan and Stokley’s feet at the first rest stop on the Long Walk from Seattle to Snoqualmie Falls by Stokley Towles.

Alka Badshah – Bellevue – King County District 6
Alka trained as an architect and went on to pursue a career in IT, building and managing User Interface Design.  She worked with various high tech companies for over 20 years, most recently as a Group Manager of a User Experience team at Microsoft.  She has a deep interest in using the knowledge of human behavior in improving our spaces – whether they be virtual spaces on a computer screen or physical environments in our cities and neighborhoods.

Since Microsoft, Alka has been involved in various endeavors, including angel and other investing, being active in philanthropy serving on the board of directors of Tateuchi Center, A.K. Guy Award Committee and Advisory Board of the South Asia Center at UW.  As a Director of Tateuchi Center, Alka initiated a campaign to raise a million dollars from the South Asian Indian community in support of the Center.  Alka has also been involved with furthering education in the field of math, science and business by coaching and judging for organizations like DECA & FPS (Future Problem Solving.)  She is a graduate of MIT’s media lab and has an undergraduate degree in Architecture.

Alka and her husband Akhtar live in Bellevue.  They have 3 amazing sons, youngest of them being in high school.  She enjoys interacting with artists and talking to them about their thinking process.

Alan Cornell – Kent – King County District 7
Alan is Senior Vice President at Nitze-Stagen, providing guidance, oversight and decision making for the firm’s investment, property management and development activities.  He is a Real Estate Developer and his background includes corporate strategic planning, market research, business development and consulting. He has over 30 years of commercial and industrial real estate experience, has developed several suburban business parks as well as urban centers such as the Union Station Campus.  Alan has a Masters Degree from the University of Nebraska in Economics and holds a Washington State Real Estate License.

He has been active in Pioneer Square and International District Communities for over two decades and is interested in community revitalization and urban spaces.  Currently a member of the Seattle Goodwill Board of Directors, he serves on several of their committees including the Executive, Nominating, Compensation and Site Development Committee.  He is also Chairman of the Seattle Chinatown International District Public Development Authority (SCIDpda) Real Estate Committee and, in past years, has served on several other area Boards and Committees.

Kirstin Haugen – Bothell – King County District 1
Kirstin Haugen is a resident of Bothell where she chairs the Cascadia Community College Board of Trustees.  She is a past member of the Northshore Performing Arts Center Foundation Board and the King County Charter Review Commission.

Kirstin was formerly the account executive at the public affairs firm The Mercury Group, and Chief of Staff to King County Councilmember Bob Ferguson.

aLIVe artist Dominic Muren will be sewing and bartering at two Madrona spots this afternoon and Saturday. This afternoon he will be at the Madrona Market (Union and Martin Luther King way)  from 4:00-7:00. Hustle your bustle on over  and barter for a shopping bag made from recycled materials. A wine tasting at Bottlehouse wine bar is tomorrow’s visit – sip and sew. Are we having fun yet? Enjoy the weekend!

4Culture, Artist Trust and the Estate of Su Job have just announced local artist, Kelly Lyles as the recipient of the 2010 Conductive Garboil Grant, a yearly, non-restricted award of $3,000.

The Conductive Garboil Grant was developed by artist Su Job just before her passing in December 2008 and acknowledges Seattle artists with a connection to Pioneer Square who have “demonstrated a profound ability to challenge the limits of conductive creative discourse and its effects on our society, pushing the creative act beyond the accepted limits, definitions, or purposes of art while engaging audiences outside the aesthetic industrial complex.”

Even if you don’t know Kelly personally, you probably recognize her photo. She had her first Seattle exhibition in Pioneer Square in 1982, at The Prints and The Pauper and has since planted deep-roots in the community. Her representational (and often humorous) paintings are regularly on view – ranging from punny views of animals crossed with ‘all-American’ products like Mice-A-Roni, Benson & Hedgehogs, and Star-Ducks Coffee, to watercolors of historical and mythological figures.

Kelly’s flamboyant persona and attention-getting ArtCars are staples at First Thursday and art events around the city. She considers her embellished vehicles “rolling canvases, the ultimate public art”. Perhaps you have seen the Excessories Odd-yssey, a Honda van covered with women’s fashion accessories (jewelry, purses, shoes, belts, sunglasses and more) on the road or at the Seattle ArtCar Blowout, which she founded and has produced for the past 11 years.

And yes, there is more…Lyles also extends her considerable talents and adventurous spirit to organizations such as the Fremont Arts Council, SIFF, multiple local theaters, and as an art instructor at Bellevue College. But perhaps she is best known for her massive email list, to which she forwards visual arts information and opportunities – keeping us all in the loop.

Come and celebrate with Kelly as she is honored on Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 6 – 8pm, at 4Culture, 101 Prefontaine Place South, Seattle, WA 98104.

Photo Credit: Paul McRae

Click here to view the embedded video.

In early August, a peer-selection panel chose 16 artists/artist teams from a highly competitive pool of applicants. From stop-motion animation to a narrative exploration of the Puget Sound by canoe, selected works represent a diverse sampling of electronic media. Projects will be presented as soon they have been adapted to meet technical requirements of the site, as early as October 7, 2010.

To date, 23 artist/artist teams have presented or are presenting from 1-5 media artworks on e4c. In addition, e4c has been included in Digital Fringe, an international animation festival based out of Melbourne, Australia. e4c was the only US venue in 2009.

SELECTED ARTISTS:

Julie Alpert & Andy Arkley — Seattle, WA
e4c will present a collaborative animation piece entitled, Round and Round, by this artist team. Their goal was to create a short collection of animations using things found around the house. Additionally, e4c will feature two animations by Andy Arkley entitled; Fifty Four Fifty and What It’s All About, music-based animations that supplement live performances of his band, The Brand Flakes.

Evertt Beidler — Portland, OR
e4c will feature several works by Beidler that focus on ideas around labor and repetitive behavioral patterns. Beidler writes, “What attracts me most to this location is that a significant portion of the potential viewers will be commuting to and from work, caring out routine activities during the course of their day.”

Tony Buchen & Jazzmean Goodwin — Santa Fe, NM
This long standing collaborative team will present a select group of experimental works using three-dimensional models to explore virtual realms on e4c. The videos represent ways of experiencing sculpture that are not pragmatically possible in the physical worlds.

Brit Bunkley — Jamestown, RI/Wanganui, New Zealand
For e4c, Bunkley has proposed two videos that are composite 3D animations with actual footage. By manipulating virtual and actual images, videos and objects are convincing and yet unsettling.

Drew Christie — Seattle, WA
e4c will present Fire, Fire, I heard the Cry, a short animated history of the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. The animation was created by making hand printed pictures from linoleum engravings. These engravings were inspired by historic photographs of the fire’s aftermath.

Lisa Marie Evans — Tucson, AZ
Evans will present an excerpt of an extensive text animation piece that displays varying thoughts as a test in how our perceptions of a physical space alter as we perceive someone’s thoughts.

Joseph Farbrook — Boston, MA
e4c will present two works by Farbrook: Cell in The New Body and Texture. These works explore alternative uses of text, displaying sentences as flashing single words, so that they cannot be read in the traditional sense.  As the viewer looks upon the words flashing, sentences form in the viewer’s mind as a kind of mental after-image.

Neal Fryett — Seattle, WA
On e4c, Fryett will present videos based upon simple gestures that are intensely focused on object-based events contained within the contemporary living space. These works use common, unconsidered objects as platforms for the projection of ideas experiences and questions.

Ben Houge — St. Paul, MN
Houge will adapt Shanghai Traces, a real-time generated video that is a meditation on Shanghai’s rapid change of pace in preparation for this year’s World Expo, incorporating items sold by street vendors who have been expelled from the city center during the event.

Miguel Jara — New York, NY/Bogota, Columbia
e4c will feature recently developed works entitled, In the Woods and Chex Eux. Both works are created from drawings on paper, which are then scanned and compiled as cell animation.

Britta Johnson — Seattle, WA
Excerpts from two recent works will be presented on e4c. Johnson utilizes stop-motion animation, sound and narrative elements to examine the benefits of a natural drainage system in Waterway and the tale of shipwreck victims going mad in Crashing Waves.

Dmitry Kmelnitsky — Venice, CA
Kmelnitsky will present his work, The City Unfolds. He writes, “With this piece, I ask the questions ‘Can we read a city like a book? Can its streets unfold before us like pages, inviting us on a journey of the imagination?”

Jonathan Monaghan — College Park, MD
Monaghan will create a new animation and adapt three others to create a 4-channel series that depict simple forms and elements, many that refer to symbols of institutional power, such as the bald eagle. However, everything is distorted as candy-like and surreal.

Anna Norton — Philadelphia, PA
Norton will present a selection of works from her series of time-lapse photography pieces that explore historical architecture as a container for time as it is defined and revealed by light. She writes, “The ephemeral quality of the light plays upon the structure and suggests a tension between historical time and geological time; the animate and inanimate; permanence and transience.”

Piper O’Neill — Seattle, WA
e4c will feature several of O’Neill’s stop-motion, animation works. Animations, made using found objects, drawings, cutouts, music and film clips from the past, O’Neill examines her own interested in themes of nostalgia and inherited histories.

Scott Schuldt — Seattle, WA
Schuldt’s View from the Canoe Project is a non-traditional documentary work that incorporates the artists reflections on nature and the attitudes people have about water. The work also demonstrates how the artist has been able to find a very real sense of wilderness in an urban setting.

4Culture is pleased to announce the newest earthwork in the King County Public Art collection, Pillow Field by Cao|Perrot Studio (Andy Cao and Xavier Perrot).  227 earthen mounds, representing the cultural diversity of White Center, are covered by creeping thyme which will blanket the 16,000 square foot site with pink blossoms from late spring to late summer.  A generous central staircase and ADA accessible ramp frame the sculpted quadrants of earthwork and replace the former rough terrain and steep slope. Pillow Field celebrates the newly completed pedestrian connector between the Greenbridge mixed-income housing development and the White Center Central Business District.  This improved pedestrian corridor along SW 98th Street already sees heavy use from the community, from high school athletic training to elders enjoying their daily stroll.  Pillow Field is part of King County’s successful community collaboration, begun in 2005, to create a safe and welcoming pedestrian passageway along SW 98th Street.

Vandalism

Though many residents are enjoying the benefits of the new pedestrian corridor, vandalism has caused King County to close portions of the site for safety reasons. Vandals stole the stainless steel hand-railing and cut the electrical service to the pathway lights. The corridor’s central stairway is unsafe without these amenities and so is currently blocked off awaiting repairs, though the ADA ramp remains open. Portions of the artwork have also been repeatedly vandalized with graffiti. 4Culture has been working with the artist to address this issue.

As stewards of the County’s public art collection, 4Culture works hard to commission artwork that enriches the built environment throughout the county. The partnership that helped to build Pillow Field came together to ensure that this underserved area would benefit from King County initiatives that promote Equity and Social Justice, walkable neighborhoods, increased health and enhanced community.

Art in the Environment

From our work at Harborview Medical Center we know what an important role environment can play in health, and how including artwork in the environment can positively impact the psychological and physical well-being of residents. That important collection site has also helped us learn about maintaining artwork that is exposed to heavy use and occasional abuse. With an increased focus on equity and social justice in our public art practice, we have begun to think about viewing all of our sites through the Harborview lens: Is this a healing environment? Does this site promote the well-being of the community in which is located? How can we create meaning, bring beauty and add value and health to this particular place and the people who use it every day?

What do we do?

Pillow Field demonstrates that success can happen in steps. The 98th Street intervention was desired and achieved by input and support from the community as well as a powerful coalition of government and community resources. The artwork clearly transformed the site, adding ease, beauty, connection and an enhanced sense of place to the neighborhood. Within days high school athletes were running the switchback ramp as part of their training and many citizens were expressing their appreciation through both feedback and everyday use.

The vandalism is occurring because we live in difficult times and because, for the very reasons the project was built, the neighborhood has been hit hard by the times. So we take a few steps back, paint out the graffiti, replace the handrails more securely, reconnect the lights. We work with law enforcement and enlist the power of the community through neighborhood watch programming to decrease opportunity for damage. Over the coming months and years Andy Cao’s earthwork landscape will fill out; the thyme will blossom, and a method will emerge that will allow the site to be respected and celebrated. Hopefully, Pillow Field’s abundance will be reflected in the community that surrounds it.

King County Executive Dow Constantine first supported funding for the 98th Street Corridor as a member of the County Council. Under his leadership as Executive the County is embracing the Equity and Social Justice Initiative and the  promotion of healthy living. 4Culture would like to acknowledge the role that County and coalition support has played in improving the quality of life in White Center. White Center hosts a community blog that has coverage of the artwork site.

© Andy Cao, Pillow Field, 2010 Photos by Stephen Jerrome
© Akio Takamori, LOVE, Ceramic, 2008, Public Art Collection at Harborview Medical Center, Photo by Peter de Lory

Click here to view the embedded video.

Seattle 100: Portrait of a City is the culmination of a two-year personal project by renowned photographer, filmmaker, and activist Chase Jarvis. Seattle 100 shares more than 300 black and white portraits and biographies of each subject. It is a curated collection of artists, musicians, writers, scientists, restaurateurs, DJs, developers, activists, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, all of whom are defining and driving culture in region.

Jarvis has created a snapshot of a city’s culture through its people. It’s a 100, not the 100, and it invites each of us to survey our own surroundings, our lives, our friends — and those not yet our friends — that make up the place we live. The place we call home.

Chase Jarvis, in collaboration with Small Lot Co-Op, Terra Blanca Winery, and Theo Chocolate will release a Seattle 100 book, collection of Seattle 100 wines and a Seattle 100 Theo Chocolate bar. All proceeds will benefit 4Culture! Wha? That’s right. All sales will support 4Culture’s programs.  We feel loved.

aLIVe artist Dominic Muren will be at the University District Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning, August 21st with Production Cycle, a mobile, micro-factory in the form of a pedal-powered sewing machine.  Muren will make reusable cloth shopping bags to be given away at the market. The currency for the bags will be information about other waste stream products that can be recycled into goods. Muren, who recently presented his Humblefacture project in a Ted talk, will be working the market beginning at 8:30.

Graphic by Dominic Muren: Humble Factory

Sunday, Aug 22, 2pm
Rattlesnake Lake Recreation Area, North Bend
RSVP requested

Trails Project artist Paul Rucker looks forward to seeing you on the banks of Rattlesnake Lake, for a concert at the southernmost point of the Snoqualmie Valley Trail. Join Paul where the trail meets the water for an opportunity to interact with his work, and to create some of your own.

Paul will be playing original compositions written using water from the lake and invites you to compose your own watercolor images as you listen.  Paul will provide music, watercolors and paper, the trail will provide your twig/paintbrush or feather/stylus and the lake your water.

Picnic blankets (and picnics!) are encouraged, as are camping chairs and swimming gear should you desire a post-concert dip.

Directions:  from the Snoqualmie Valley Trail – follow signs to the lake.
Driving directions – from I-90, take Exit 32, 436^th Ave SE.  Go South on 436^th Ave SE/Cedar Falls Road SE for 2.7 miles and follow the balloons to Rattlesnake Lake Recreation Area.  Look for the Trails Project directional signs.

For more information on the Trails Project, please visit the Project website. To learn more about King County’s Snoqualmie Valley Trail, please visit the Parks website.

image © Paul Rucker

Click here to view the embedded video.

This free, family-friendly environmental event will feature treatment facility tours, tours of nearby Waterworks Gardens, and opportunities to visit a demonstration garden nourished with composted biosolids.

Visitors are also invited to view Water Plant, a new public artwork by Fall City artist Donald Fels created through an active collaboration with employees of the Plant, 4Culture, and metal fabricator Benson Vess. The kinetic sculpture is animated by water, balance and gravity. A recycled stainless steel impellor at its core, it brings playful attention to the way water “works” using the same straight-forward, universal mechanics employed to clean water at the treatment plant. Fels will talk about the piece and his creative process at 11:15am.

More information

By Beth Sellars

The Long Walk inspired as many personal responses as participants.  Forty of us hiked 40+ miles through landscapes that many of us had only driven.  We all participated for different reasons, but were united in a collective goal of “reaching the end.”  The 40 individual participants ultimately morphed into a most unique art form; one of cohesive, but diverse group interaction with the spatial experience of the environment.  Along the way, we met old and new friends, shared in new experiences and dealt with physical suffering, always assisting one another.

Susan Robb and Stokley Towles, with Tamar Benzikry-Stern’s constant assistance, masterfully organized the incredible complexity of the project and were strikingly agile in revising problem areas.  Jed Dunkerley, self-titled “blister medic”, earnestly repaired wounded feet and kept everyone on the march.  PA Jana Brevick was pivotal in the success of the event, driving a rental truck filled with our gear, food, and water to every stopping point, repeatedly loading and unloading the confusing array of goods we had entrusted to her.  She was unflappable, and remarkably upbeat.

Although we walked along highways and byways, and through occasional construction, we primarily walked along the lush undergrowth of rivers and creeks, over bridges, continued along sun drenched or tree lined trails and roads, and along the railroad trail that hugged the hillside in an ever-increasing grade into the Cascades.  Mt. Rainier hovered on the horizon above the green expanse of corn fields in the Snoqualmie Valley.  Beavers silently swam alongside our stride, disappearing under water only to catch up with us further upstream.  Back water of vibrant green and pools of lilies yielded the sounds of competing frogs while eagles soared overhead.

The welcome shade of trees was enhanced by the sounds of songbirds.  Golden light of the full moon flooded the camp ground each night.  During the second night at the Tolt River campground, I listened to the long trill of coyotes howling.

Numerous bats living in the tall bat houses at Tolt McDonald Park swooped in a flurry through the dense swarms of mosquitoes that virtually disappeared as we enjoyed dinner in “high dress.” The evening ended with the captivating film Der Rechte Weg by Peter Fischli & David Weiss that paralleled our hike in surprising ways.

The combined resources of 4Culture and King County Parks Department made this project possible through a summer-long commission to three artists, including Susan Robb and Stokley Towles.

With the project, forty people gained new perceptions of the environment that surround us daily.  Let’s hope this type of collaborative project can be made possible in the future for even greater numbers of participants.  It brings significant new meaning to the art experience.

Aligned with the collective culture-building that was part of this experience, participants’ documentation in a variety of media will be combined to create an image slideshow and composite video piece.  Stay tuned.

Image © various Long Walk participants:
Group shot by David White
Jed Dunkerley by Sara Edwards
Jana Brevick by Rebecca Cummins
Mount Rainier above the Snoqualmie Valley by Beth Sellars
Beth Sellars and Rebecca Cummins in “formal wear” by Rebecca Cummins
End-of-walk group soak by Beth Sellars

Vimeo – Festival & Awards
Deadline: July 31, 2010

The Best Video Award will be selected by a group of judges from multiple categories and the Vimeo Awards staff. This award will be selected from top finalists in each category. If you win your category, you’ll be in the running for best overall Film or Video, the grand prize includes a $25,000 grant to produce your next big hit. The Vimeo Festival and Awards will kick off with a preview event in Amsterdam on September 10th, followed by a two-day festival on October 8-9, in New York City.

YouTube Play – A Biennial of Creative Video
Deadline: July 31, 2010

YouTube is looking for amazing animation, motion graphics, narrative, non-narrative, or documentary work, music videos and entirely new art form’s to showcase at the Guggenheim in New York City, and throughout the Guggenheim network of museums in Bilbao, Venice and Berlin. YouTube Play is a collaboration between YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum, presented by HP and Intel, to unearth and showcase the very best creative video from around the world.

ASCAP Foundation: Music Grant Program
Deadline: August 1, 2010

The ASCAP Foundation is a publicly supported charitable organization dedicated to sponsoring American music creators and encouraging their growth through music education and talent development programs. The ASCA Foundation invites proposals from nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations engaging in music education and talent development programs that are consistent with the mission and objectives of the foundation and which support music education for aspiring songwriters and composers.

Call for Artists – Mystic Sons of Morris Graves
Deadline: August 1, 2010

Artists interested making a counterfeit copy, an homage or a send-up of any work in the Graves oeuvre are encouraged to participate. Artists are being asked to “channel” Morris Graves in anticipation of a séance to be held on his 100th birthday August 28 in the Vandenbrink Community Room at the same address. There are no fees, no sales commission and no rejections. The Rock|DeMent Visual Art Space at 306 S. Washington, Studio #104 will be accepting submitted work for the show over the weekend of July 31-August 1.

National Parks Service: Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program
August 1, 2010

Do you have an idea for a local conservation and outdoor recreation project, but need assistance to move that vision into reality? The mission of the Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance program (RTCA) is to assist community-led natural resource conservation and outdoor recreation initiatives.  RTCA staff provide guidance to communities so they can conserve waterways, preserve open space, and develop trails and greenways.

The Visual Arts Touring program (VAT)
Deadline: August 2, 2010

VAT is a competitive grant program. Using National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding, WESTAF will allocate matching grants of up to $50,000 each to visual arts organizations to support tours of visual art exhibitions of important regional artists. The Western States Arts Federation, is a nonprofit arts service organization dedicated to the creative advancement and preservation of the arts. Based in Denver, Colorado, WESTAF fulfills its mission to strengthen the financial, organizational and policy infrastructure of the arts by providing innovative programs and services to artists and arts organizations in the West and nationwide.

Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition – Vocals and Composers
Deadline: August 6, 2010

Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz is pleased to announce that the 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition will be held on October 3-4 in Washington, DC. Jazz vocals will be featured this year.The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, a nonprofit education organization, was founded in 1986 by the Monk family along with the late Maria Fisher, an opera singer and lifelong devotee of music. Its mission is to offer the world’s most promising young musicians college level training by America’s jazz masters and to present public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the world.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services – Conservation Assessment Program
Deadline: August 6, 2010

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. IMLS is seeking grant applicants for its Conservation Assessment Program, designed to provide an affordable and accessible collections conservation assessment program to small and medium-sized museums of all types. Museums, institutions of higher education, and organizations that support museums are encouraged to apply.

Memoir (and) – Prize for Memoir in Prose or Poetry
Deadline: August 15, 2010

A prize of $500 and publication in Memoir (and) is given twice yearly for a memoir in the form of a poem, a short story, or an essay. The editors will judge. Submit up to five poems or up to 10,000 words of prose. Memoir (and) is a nonprofit literary journal born with these ideas in mind. Our mission is to publish traditional as well as nontraditional forms of nonfiction allied with memoir. This includes, but is not limited to, autobiography, diary, personal and critical essay, reportage, autobiographical fiction, alternative histories, “flash memoir,” narrative poetry or “poemoir” (it’s okay to groan, we did) and graphic memoir.

New York Public Library – Young Lions Fiction Award
Deadline: August 27, 2010

A prize of $10,000 is given annually to honor a novel or short story collection by a U.S. citizen who is 35 or younger. Publishers and agents may submit 10 copies of a book (or bound galleys) published in 2010, a nomination form, an author biography, and book reviews.Each year five young fiction writers are selected as finalists by a reading committee of Young Lions members, writers, editors, and librarians.

Glimmer Train Press – Short Story Award for New Writers
Deadline: August 31, 2010
A prize of $1,200 and publication in Glimmer Train Stories is given quarterly for a short story by a writer whose fiction has not been published in a print publication with a circulation over 5,000. Submit a story of up to 12,000 words. Entry fee.

Performing Artists – USArtists International
Deadline: September 7, 2010

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts have announced the availability of guidelines for the 2010–2011 cycle of USArtists International (USAI), which provides support for American dance, music, and theater artists who have been invited to participate in significant international festivals and engagements that represent extraordinary career opportunities anywhere in the world outside of the United States and its territories.  The deadlines for the program are: September 7, 2010 for projects taking place between November 1, 2010–October 31, 2011; December 13, 2010 for projects taking place between March 1, 2011–February 28, 2012; and April 22, 2011 for projects taking place between July 1, 2011–June 30, 2012.

The New Orleans Photo Alliance’s Grants – The Clarence John Laughlin Award
Deadline: September 15, 2010

The Clarence John Laughlin Award was created by the New Orleans Photo Alliance (NOPA) to support the work of photographers who use the medium as a means of creative expression. It honors the life and work of Clarence John Laughlin (1905-1985), a New Orleans photographer best known for his surrealist images of the American South. The Clarence John Laughlin Award grants one $5000 prize annually to a photographer whose work exhibits sustained artistic excellence and creative vision.

Hedgebrook Writer’s Residency
Deadline: September 23, 2010

Hedgebrook retreat for women writers is on Whidbey Island, about thirty-five miles northwest of Seattle. Situated on 48-acres of forest and meadow facing Puget Sound, with a view of Mount Rainier, the retreat hosts women writers from all over the world for residencies of two to six weeks, at no cost to the writer. Residents are housed in six handcrafted cottages, where they spend their days in solitude – writing, reading, taking walks in the woods on the property or on nearby Double Bluff beach. In the evenings, they gather in the farmhouse kitchen to share a home-cooked gourmet meal, their work, their process and their stories. The Writers in Residence Program is Hedgebrook’s core program, supporting the no-cost residencies of 30-40 women writers at the retreat each year as well as 5-10 alumnae return stay residencies.

Residency Program – Bemis Center for Contemporary Art
Deadline: September 30, 2010

Few programs exist either on the national or international level where the sole mission is to support the creativity of artists. From the beginning, the art-making process has been the highest priority at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, where both the atmosphere and environment offer ideal situations for creative growth and experimentation. We address the practical aspects of this mission by providing well-equipped studio spaces, living accommodations and monthly $750 stipends. Located in two urban warehouses totaling 110,000 square feet, our facilities are designed to foster creativity and the productive exchange of ideas. Artists from around the world come to the Bemis Center to work in this supportive community and confront new challenges.

Grammy Foundation – Grant Program
Deadline October 1, 2010

The Grammy Foundation Grant Program, funded by the Recording Academy, annually provides grants for music archiving and preservation efforts and for scientific research projects related to the impact of music on the human condition.The foundation will award archiving and preservation project grants to organizations and individuals working to advance the archiving and preservation of the music and recorded sound heritage of the Americas. The archiving and preservation area has two funding categories — preservation implementation ($20,000 maximum award each) as well asplanning, assessment, and/or consultation ($5,000).

COUCHFEST 2010 – Couch Fest Films
Deadline: October 8, 2010

Celebrating its third annual year in 2010, Couch Fest Films is a cozy shorts film fest hosted in people’s houses. During Couch Fest Films, lovers of film can sit shoulder to shoulder with total strangers watching short films and snacking. On Saturday, November 6th, 2010, each Couch Fest Films house will have its own genre of short movies that play on rotation all day. Starting every hour, each inviting house will have its owunique 30 minute program of short films. Ultimately, the hope is that you might interact, share and discover fellow lovers of film. They are looking for submissions of films and willing hosts. Films should be no longer than 6 minutes and houses should be friendly!

Interested in public art opportunities? Check out our amazing list of possibilities here!

Photo: © 2007  Shout Only Alice

Trails Concert: Solo Cello

Sunday, August 22, 2pm
Rattlesnake Lake Recreation Area, North Bend
RSVP requested

Join Trails Project artist Paul Rucker for a cello concert on the banks of Rattlesnake Lake, the southernmost point of the Snoqualmie Valley Trail.   Join Paul where the trail meets the water for an opportunity to interact with his work.

“For the past few years, I’ve created new music and improvisations based on audience participation,” Paul describes.   “Participants have created clay sculptures, drawings, and put together puzzle pieces to generate graphic scores and points of inspiration for my work.  For this concert, something brand new will be offered: Water Pieces – compositions written using water from the lake.”

Paul is exploring the trail system and creating original musical compositions inspired by people, nature, and characteristics of particular trails for the Trails Project.  A commission by 4Culture and King County Parks, the Trails Project has three multidisciplinary artists creating temporary, interactive public art experiences on and about the Regional Trails System throughout this summer.

For more information on the Trails Project, please visit the Project website. To learn more about King County’s Snoqualmie Valley Trail, please visit the Parks website.

Paul Rucker by Jennifer Stanton

Tune in to 94.9 FM on Friday July 16th @ 9am to hear some favorite summer sounds, courtesy of KUOW listeners and the Seattle Phonographers  Union.  Better yet, submit some of your own for the Phonographers Union to perform with!

The Seattle Phonographers Union, which includes artist Christopher DeLaurenti who is currently working on a RapidRide soundscape with 4Culture’s Public Art program, convenes to explore “the ways in which we recognize, differentiate, map and navigate our sonic environment.”  Together with KUOW’s Weekday, they are seeking recordings of your favorite summer sounds, and accepting them via SPUsummersounds@gmail.com.

For more information, visit KUOW’s website, and be sure to check out the Friday morning on-air performance.

image (c) Seattle Phonographers Union

Connie Watts’ artwork, Vereinegung has been recognized with a Public Art Network award for excellence in the field. Watts’ monumental, suspended sculpture is installed in the lobby of Harborview Medical Center’s Ninth & Jefferson Building. Created while Watts was recovering from a head injury, Vereinegung incorporates elements of totemic animals important to the artist’s Northwest Coast cultural tradition, as well as human forms. Watts donated the sculpture to the collection, pleased to find a permanent home for the artwork within a healing environment.

Americans for the Arts’ PAN Year in Review for 2010 recognized 40 of the year’s best public art works in the United States and Canada, from 29 cities in 15 states. The works were chosen from more than 300 entries from across the country. Additional regional artists recognized with a 2010 PAN award include Beliz Brother, Dan Corson, Laura Haddad & Tom Drugan, Carolyn Law, Peter Reiquam and Norie Sato & Bill Will. A collective 4Culture tip of the cap to you all.

Artist Drew Daly’s artwork is recognized in the current issue of Sculpture Magazine. Daly recently installed his seating element Reverb, public artwork for the King County Correctional Facility in downtown Seattle. In addition to working with Public Art 4Culture on the correctional facility, Daly was a 2008 recipient of an Individual Artist Project grant from 4Culture. Congratulations, Drew!

Community members came out in force last night to say their goodbyes to the beloved and iconic South Park Bridge. By foot, bike, car, and bus they traveled the span one last time while Duwamish tribal drummers, bagpipers, and a funeral band played songs of mourning.  El Son De Los Diablos dancers processed.  Muralists painted the concrete walls of the approaches. Classic cars lined the streets.  Voices spilled out of the businesses along 14th Avenue South.  After hours of revelry, the seismically vulnerable span was eventually raised to its final resting place as the emotional crowd chanted “we want a bridge!”

If and when funds are secured to build the replacement for this critical link, 4Culture will be there.  Artist Barbara Grygutis has been working with the County’s design team since 2008.  She plans to fabricate a pedestrian railing that incorporates the historic iron rail panels and gears and site the massive rockers (the mechanisms that were once used to open and close the bridge) like sentinels on either side of the Duwamish…a nod to the integrity and strength of this special place.

A reminder to all that 4Culture’s offices and Gallery4Culture will be closed this Friday, July 2 for a staff furlough day, and Monday, July 5 in honor of Independence Day.

A full list of  4Culture furlough days can be viewed here.

2009 Individual Artist Projects Recipient, Chris Engman, Object, Shadow, 2009, Inkjet print

Eroyn Franklin: Detained
Exhibition Running: July 1- 30, 2010 (4Culture will be closed July 2 – 5 for furlough & holiday)
Opening: First Thursday, July 1, 6 to 8:00 p.m.

Seattle-based cartoonist and visual artist Eroyn Franklin comes to Gallery4Culture this July with an exhibition of large-scale drawings centered on the stories of two individuals held as illegal immigrants in local detention facilities.  Franklin has closely followed the work of a trio of independent journalists from the Common Language Project whose mission is to report under-told stories.

Two of the drawings, panoramic scrolls close to 50 feet long, are a graphic novel under development.  Drawn in pen and ink with alterations in blue pencil, they offer not only compelling narratives, but a unique glimpse into the artist’s thought process.  One panoramic drawing follows the life of a Mexican detainee, Gabriela Cubillos, inside the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma; the other tells the tale of a Cambodian detainee, Many Uch, held in a (now closed) Seattle facility.  Both individuals have since been freed, although Many Uch could be deported at any time. Franklin’s two non-linear drawings concentrate on aspects of the everyday lives of Gabriela Cubillos and Many Uch outside of detention.

Please join us for a special event: Thursday, July 8, 7:00 p.m.
A presentation by artist Eroyn Franklin along with the CLP independent journalists whose reporting provided the content for this show.  Free and open to the public.

eroynfranklin.com

© Detain (detail), pen and ink, color pencil on paper, photo by the artist