Welcome to the most important Arts + Efficiency challenge we’ve ever made. Phew!
The problem hits the stands at present, and you need to use our map to discover a copy of your very personal. And we’ll be rolling out the tales right here on TheStranger.com over the subsequent two weeks, so preserve checking again.
It’s been a tough few years on this planet of artwork and tradition. In 2020, we requested our venues, eating places, and principally each different establishment within the metropolis to carry their breath for a yr and a half, and simply once they began to get some oxygen, we knocked them again down with inflation, dwindling audiences, and the existential angst of one other Trump election. In the meantime, the price of residing retains going up, however we preserve forgetting to pay artists residing wages.
All that’s to say, it’s changing into more and more unattainable to be an artist on this metropolis, so we needed to say THANK YOU to the creatives who’ve caught it out and are holding Seattle bizarre, lovely, and somewhat bit out of this world.
Within the challenge, you’re gonna meet a few of our favourite folks. (Until you already knew them, during which case, we applaud your good style.) We’re newly obsessive about Sophy Wong, a dressing up and clothier who’s clearly from one other planet. Her reimagined house fits are constructed for our post-climate disaster future, however we’d put on them any day of the week. Contributor Mindie Lind interviewed comic Tina Friml in what Lind affectionately referred to as a “crip-on-crip” dialogue about idiots, internalized ableism, and the way having a incapacity can really feel like being a VIP. We’ve by no means learn a dialogue prefer it—which, they identified, is a part of the issue.
Then we visited artist Natalie Krick’s SoDo studio, the place she’s constructing her new set up for the Frye: a life-size collage of Marilyn Monroe, constructed from the two,600 photos of photographer Bert Stern’s The Full Final Sitting, all taken for Vogue simply six weeks earlier than Monroe died in 1962.
And do you know that Fairly Women Make Graves is getting again collectively?? Managing Editor Megan Seling as soon as stated she’d throw herself into visitors to get to see them dwell once more (in a Make-a-Want kinda means—don’t make it that darkish). To mark this miracle of native hardcore, Megan interviewed (nearly) all the present members of the band (dangit, Derek), in addition to a few of their colleagues, buddies, and followers, then swept up their sound bites into an oral historical past of this iconic native group. For these of you who’re new to PGMG, it’s an ideal primer. For the remainder of us, it’s one small effort to attempt to make sense of the band’s magic.
We’re preparing for the brand new seasons of, nicely, all the pieces that occurs onstage. That features the Pacific Northwest Ballet, which is pulling out all of the stops for his or her new manufacturing of Sleeping Magnificence. Information Editor Wealthy Smith talked to native glass artist Preston Singletary, who’s designing the intricate, majestic set (not made out of glass, although, it seems—that’d in all probability be very harmful).
We additionally explored how town’s arts group is discovering new methods to thrive on this loopy place. We met Katie Lee Ellison, who based the studying sequence Nonfiction for No Motive, which is doing its half to revitalize the native writing scene. However we additionally took a have a look at the massive image: Employees Author Vivian McCall dug into the potential of Doorways Open, a brand new $100 million fund from King County that might very nicely save a few of our most beloved native arts establishments.
We give you a listing of contributor Meg Van Huygen’s very favourite eating places (make it your mission to go to each this season), and your favourite authors’ very favourite books. And lastly, as a deal with: Senior Employees Author Charles Mudede and Professor Daubi Abe wrote “Anatomy of a Music: Rapper’s Delight,” a deep-dive annotation of the track that turned the muse of contemporary hiphop. It’s simply the radio model for now. As we talked about above, that is the most important A+P challenge we’ve ever achieved. We’ll have to avoid wasting the complete 14-minute observe for subsequent time.
Hannah Murphy Winter
Editor-in-Chief
