The post Seattle Podcast: Spencer Frazer: Second Act Artist Changing the World appeared first on Seattle magazine ..read more

Like philanthropist and art collector Jon Shirley, I remember my first encounter with a piece by Alexander Calder. For me, it was The Eagle, arguably the crown jewel of Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park — a work that, poetically, Shirley has had a long relationship with and provided the institution funds to purchase in 2000. He first encountered The Eagle in the early 1970s in Fort Worth, Texas. I don’t remember the exact date, but I know I was in college at the University of Washington, and had a burgeoning love for contemporary art. To see Calder’s 39-foot-tall metal sculpture “in th ..read more

After more than 30 years of active involvement in Seattle’s art scene, Mary Ann Peters finally has her first solo museum show. Opened this month at the Frye Art Museum and titled Mary Ann Peters: the edge becomes the center, the exhibition features two bodies of work: the artist’s this trembling turf series — all 10 panels of which are being shown together for the first time — and a new, site-specific installation titled impossible monument: (gilded), which is a continuation of her impossible monuments work. For Peters, a second-generation Lebanese American artist, the Frye is a “perfect match ..read more

My first encounter with the work of James Wehn occurred in the 1980s during a family trip to the Seattle Center. At some point that day we found ourselves walking around in the nearby Belltown neighborhood when someone in the group pointed to a statue of Chief Seattle. The 400-pound bronze statue sits at Tilikum Place, the triangular plaza in front of The 5 Point Cafe, and shows Seattle with his right arm extended up, as if in greeting. I was still in high school at the time and had just learned about Chief Seattle in my Washington state history class, so the moment served as perhaps the first ..read more

It was a beautiful, clear morning in late October, and if you were walking your dog by Stan Sayres Memorial Park in South Seattle, or driving on Lake Washington Boulevard South, you would have seen him. A spry gentleman in his 60s, perched in the elbow of a madrona tree, about 9 feet up. This tree is dead — Seattle Parks and Recreation had decapitated it — but to Edwin Fountain, it is a canvas. A piece of marble. A sculpture waiting to emerge. I ask him what it’s going to be. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m waiting for it to tell me.” You can find Fountain’s tree sculptures all over South Seattl ..read more

For millennia, movement has been an integral part of the human experience. From location changes to athletic achievements and emotional expressions, the body in motion took on an ever-changing range of meanings as it traveled the world. Like many, dancer and performance artist Lavinia Vago started exploring movement early — through ballet. Growing up in a small town outside of Milan, Vago, who says she was a “very active child,” took ballet and gymnastics and participated in sports until she was around 11 or 12 when she decided to focus on dance. “Everyone has different entry points to dancing ..read more

From the get-go, Stacey Levine’s latest novel, Mice 1961, plunges the reader into a story of motion. Full of fast-paced, dramatic language, slicing humor, and a cast of characters that simultaneously attract and repulse, the book (released through Verse Chorus Press) reads quickly — within the first handful of pages, two sisters are running through the sun-soaked streets of their South Florida town — unspooling a strange tale about family, longing, conformity, belonging, and finding the freedom to enjoy life fully, on one’s own terms.  “I’m interested in playing with language,” says Levi ..read more

For Seattle, celebrating 50 years of Pride is about honoring the past while pushing for progress. This year’s theme, “NOW!,” is both a call to action and a nod to the origins of Seattle Pride, reflecting our city’s history of leading the movement for queer rights. Seattle’s LGBTQ+ history stretches back to the late 1800s when Pioneer Square, known at the time as “Fairyville,” was a sanctuary for the queer community, housing thriving gay bars and social spaces.  Seattle Pride 2022 Photo courtesy of Seattle Pride In 1974, a picnic organized by activist David Neth brought fewer than 200 ..read more

On the night of Nov. 3, 1885, a mob composed of hundreds of people marched through Tacoma, expelling members of the Chinese community from their homes, intimidating them (with weapons and threats) into leaving the city permanently, and then burning down the remaining houses — often with all of the victim’s possessions still inside.  The night of terror, which would spawn an expulsion process dubbed the “Tacoma Method,” included many prominent citizens, and was endorsed by Tacoma’s mayor at the time, Jacob Robert Weisbach. This shameful page in Northwest history is addressed in the recentl ..read more

It’s almost noon, and Jean Smart is present as ever during a phone call. She actually asks the first question, about whether I’m a Seattle native. “Oh, you are!” she exclaims, her voice lighting up with even more warmth when she finds out I am a fellow University of Washington alum and, like her youngest, also a Chinese adoptee. She then proceeds to tell me how wonderful it was to grow up in Seattle. She still calls the city home. Nowadays, most people recognize Smart as the character of Deborah Vance, the lead character in HBO’s Hacks, a legendary comic every bit as callously cruel as compass ..read more