West Seattle, Washington
21 Tuesday
Chief Sealth International High School language-arts teacher Heather Griffin shares the photo from this morning – featuring students rehearsing for a performance to which she tells us you’re invited, this Thursday night:
Ninth-grade students at Chief Sealth International High School are participating in the 16th Annual Page to Stage drama-based instruction conducted by Book-It Repertory Theatre. Students have been studying poetry in their Language Arts classes, and have used that work to create a final performance for you to see on Thursday, February 11th, at 7 p.m. We welcome the community to join us in this dynamic interpretation of student-written poems at the Chief Sealth International Auditorium.
Sealth is at 2600 SW Thistle.
West Seattle High School music director Ethan Thomas sends word tonight of a student’s big achievement:
Maxwell Lemke (junior at West Seattle High School) placed at the top of his division at the Elliott Bay Regional Solo and Ensemble competition at SPU on Saturday. He performed the tuba solo “Beelzebub” by Andrea Catozzi, accompanied by senior Will Sullivan on piano. He will now advance to the State competition at Central Washington University in April. Both Maxwell and Will are strong members of the West Seattle High School music program and are involved in band, orchestra, jazz ensemble, and perform in the pit orchestra for our school musicals.
Maxwell’s father recorded the video during the division-winning performance.
(WSB photo from 2013 celebration at Vietnamese Cultural Center)
Looking ahead to next Sunday – you’re invited to a New Year celebration at the Vietnamese Cultural Center in West Seattle. From Lee Bui and Lynda Bui:
The Vietnamese Cultural Center would like to invite the community to our Tết Celebration for the Year of the Monkey. We will have lion dancing and fireworks. Afterwards there will be light refreshments and karaoke inside.
12 pm-3 pm Sunday, February 14th – 2236 SW Orchard St.
If you haven’t been to the VCC – here’s some backstory from the WSB archives.
(WSB photos @ Roxhill Elementary)
They asked for help – you gave it – and Friday was delivery day for some of the students in the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras‘ Southwest Seattle Strings Project: Donation-funded supply baskets with practical and vital items such as replacement strings, chin rests, shoulder rests, rosin, and method books.
Back in November, we published the call for donations to fund one basketfor each of the seven local schools with which SYSO partners – Arbor Heights, Concord, Highland Park, Roxhill, Sanislo, and West Seattle elementaries, and Denny International Middle School. The drive was a success, and today we were there as Roxhill got its basket.
Through SYSO, students can borrow instruments for free if needed, and they get expert coaching from professional musicians in free weekly lessons. But the supply baskets were just a bit above and beyond what the project could do, so the extra donations made sure the students can keep taking advantage of the gift of learning music.
During the next West Seattle Art Walk – one week from tonight – it’s your chance to offer your thoughts about the public art installation that’s on its way to The Junction. We reported last year about the plan for art in Junction Plaza Park, 
the greenspace at 42nd/Alaska where the community gathers for events including the annual Christmas-tree lighting and special features during West Seattle Summer Fest. As mentioned briefly in our report on last night’s Southwest District Council meeting – with a promise of this followup – the artist chosen for the project, Troy Pillow, will be at Cupcake Royale from 6-8 pm on Thursday, February 4th, showing proposed designs for the art installation, which is partly funded by a grant from the Department of Neighborhoods and partly with “public benefit” funding from the nearby Spruce development. So drop in while you’re visiting for Art Walk, evening shopping, dinner, etc. – here’s more info from the West Seattle Junction Association.
Tonight brought the first of two big film-related events for Emerald Water Anglers (WSB sponsor) in The Junction:
The shop often hosts events and tonight it was the EWA Film Festival, set to continue until about 10 pm. From left below, filmmakers Leah and Russ Ricketts, Daniel Silverberg, Flyfish Journal editor Steve Duda, a West Seattleite, and EWA proprietor Dave McCoy:
This was the lead-in for an even bigger event next week, when EWA brings the Fly Fishing Film Tour to the historic Admiral Theater, 7-10 pm Wednesday (February 3rd). Tickets are $15 and you can buy yours at the shop. Here’s the tour trailer; read more about the tour here.
(File photo, courtesy C & P Coffee)
Not only is C & P Coffee Company (longtime WSB sponsor) a hub for coffee and conversation, live music, and events – classes are taught there too. Co-proprietor Cameron calls our attention to a series starting tomorrow night – watercolor painting. The instructor is well-known local artist Jennifer Carrasco, who teaches a six-week series of evening classes, 6-8 pm Tuesdays, both for those learning to paint and those who want to refine their technique. E-mail the instructor – jennifer@carrascostudio.com – for more info and to sign up.
Resolved to get more movement into your life this year? Dance! West Seattle (WSB sponsor) is enrolling now for the winter session, which starts Monday:
We have classes for ages 2 (out of diapers) through adult, and would love for you to join our dance family. While specializing in Classical Ballet, we have added Contemporary and Hip Hop to the curriculum. Call or e-mail to arrange for your free trial class and start the New Year off with a dance in your step. Sign up by January 15th to participate in our June performance of “La Fiesta” and other dances. Visit our website dancewestseattle.com or call 206-938-3062 for more information!
DWS is headquartered in the historic Fauntleroy Schoolhouse.
What has long been the home of Brace Point Pottery is actually “downtown Arbor Heights,” as Loren Lukens explained when we visited his studio/shop last night, the first night of its annual holiday show and sale, which is continuing right now (until 6 pm) and again 10-6 tomorrow. Downtown, because the commercial buildings there at and near 4208 SW 100th used to include a market and a drugstore, he explains. But for almost 20 years, he and wife Beth Kirchhoff have made art and music there.
Looking for light on this gray day? The brightly lit studio/storefront shows some of the creations:
Brace Point Pottery is hosting four other artists in the space for this weekend’s special occasion:
It’s part of the Seattle Sampling studio tour this weekend, which has four other West Seattle stops – see the full tour map here.
(WSB photo from one stop on this year’s WSGT)
While this is the dormant season for many gardens, it’s a busy time of planning for the next West Seattle Garden Tour, which is now inviting artists to get ready to enter next year’s poster contest:
The West Seattle Garden Tour provides an opportunity for local artists to showcase their original artwork on marketing materials, including the cover of the WSGT ticket book and promotional poster. The winning artist also receives a $500 cash award. Winning and honorable mention artworks will be featured during the June 2016 West Seattle Art Walk.
Please accept this invitation to submit your original artwork to the annual WSGT Poster Competition. Submission rules and entry form are available on our website.
The West Seattle Garden Tour (WSGT) is one of the premier garden tours in the Northwest, as well as a fundraiser for local non-profits promoting horticulture, education or the arts. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organized by a group of dedicated volunteers. Since its inception in 1995, the WSGT has donated nearly a half million dollars to local beneficiaries.
Entries are due in early February.
(SYSO photo)
Students at seven local public schools get the priceless gift of coaching from professional musicians via the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras‘ Southwest Seattle Strings Project. If needed, the students can borrow instruments for free from Seattle Public Schools. But the ability to assist stops there, which means it stops short of providing badly needed supplies such as replacement strings, chin rests, shoulder rests, rosin, and method books. So a modest donation drive is under way right now – explained in this clip:
SYSO hopes to put together a supply basket worth more than $1,000, with the assistance of the discount at Hammond-Ashley (mentioned in the video), for each of the seven local schools with which it partners – Arbor Heights, Concord, Highland Park, Roxhill, Sanislo, and West Seattle elementaries, and Denny International Middle School. You can help build the baskets by chipping in a bit here.
(WSB photos)
Potential gifts you won’t find anywhere else await you right now at the Duwamish Tribe Longhouse in West Seattle; it’s Day 1 of the three-day Native Holiday Gift Fair. Above, Vashon Island-based Shotridge Studios‘ offerings include laptop sleeves and phone cases by Tlingit master carver/artist Israel Shotridge; below, artist Margie Morris is at work during the fair, adding designs to drums:
While you’re there, get your copy(ies) of the West Seattle Wildlife Calendar, with photos by Mark Wangerin (you’ve seen his wondrous bird photos here on WSB). It’s a benefit for Chief Sealth International High School environmental programs, and students are helping sell them – Elaine was on duty when we stopped by:
No admission charge at the Longhouse, which is also a cultural center, but if you want to support the tribe’s fight for federal recognition, “Stand With The Duwamish Tribe” T-shirts are being sold too:
You can also buy snacks/lunch while there. The fair continues until 4 pm today, 10 am-4 pm tomorrow and Sunday, at 4705 W. Marginal Way SW (turn into the parking lot from the west side
Story and photos by Michelle Riggen-Ransom
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
If you live in West Seattle, you probably already know that you can enjoy a meal out in Chicago, or Brooklyn, or even exotic Rhode Island just by visiting local restaurant Endolyne Joe’s (WSB sponsor). With its rotating, site-specific themes changing every four months, at Joe’s you can be sipping mojitos under a palm tree one season, slurping pasta and drinking vino at a cheerful Italian café the next.
But what you may not know is that beneath the restaurant is a cavernous basement filled from floor to ceiling with funky props, exotic creatures, and hand-painted signs from themes of yore. Looking for a giant wooden shark, or a glittery, oversized Mardi Gras mask? You’ll find it here, tucked away in the depths below the hundred year-old building where Endolyne Joe’s has made its home for well over a decade.
Our newest WSB sponsor has been providing quality dance enrichment for West Seattleites of all ages since 1983!
For more than 30 years, West Seattle has been home to one of the region’s best schools for dance instruction and art enrichment. Dance! West Seattle (formerly Seattle Civic Dance Theatre) has exposed hundreds of children and their families to the joy of dance through classes, pre-professional company experience and community performance. With classical ballet at its core, Dance! West Seattle has expanded its class offerings over the years to include *Tap, *Jazz, *Hip Hop, and *Contemporary.
“We’re one of West Seattle’s best-kept secrets,” says Artistic Director Kim Dinsmoor.
This might be because of our off-the-beaten-path location! Dance! West Seattle is located in the lower level of Fauntleroy Schoolhouse (9131 California Ave SW), with the main entrance facing SW Director. Walk by any weekday evening or Saturday morning to hear music drifting out of the tall studio windows. Then, stop in and say hello! We are happy to offer a FREE CLASS to any student (ages 3-Adult) new to our studio.
Unlike other schools, Dance! West Seattle doesn’t focus on competition. Professional instructors lead students in a supportive and creative environment so they develop strong minds, bodies and spirits and a love for artistic expression through movement! We look forward to serving the West Seattle community for another 30 years.
ENROLLING NOW! Find us online @ dancewestseattle.com and facebook.com/dancewestseattle | info@dancewestseattle.com | 206-938-3063
We thank Dance! West Seattle for sponsoring independent, community-collaborative neighborhood news via WSB; find our current sponsor team listed in directory format here, and find info on joining the team by going here.
This year’s Community Art Showcase at Southwest Library featured 112 creations by 57 artists and musicians – and librarian Jane Gibson says that if you’re among them, tonight and tomorrow are your last chances to go get your work and bring it home! She shared the photo collage of participants; click the image for a larger version. The library at 35th SW & SW Henderson is open until 8 tonight and 10 am-8 pm tomorrow.
This week’s quarterly Morgan Community Association meeting was so wide-ranging (as usual), we’re breaking it into two reports. This first one is something you’ll be hearing more about soon:
(WSB file photo)
You might recognize that mural from the back of the commercial building on the southwest corner of California and Fauntleroy. Dan Austin, who owns one of the businesses in that building – Peel and Press – told MoCA on Wednesday night that he’s leading a project to save the mural, painted by Bruce Rickett a quarter-century ago, as mentioned in this 1990 Seattle Times story. And “save” is the word, not just “restore” – Austin said it’s falling apart, and one more winter of rain/wind against the west-facing mural – which depicts the mid-1920s Morgan Street Market – might just peel some of it away.
He told MoCA he’s consulted with Peter Malarkey, who – as we showed you last month – recently restored the mural inside the Colman Pool building. Austin said there’s “a game plan” that he’ll be presenting to various civic organizations. He said that if this works, he would hope it would lead to a “blueprint” for action that could be shared with others in West Seattle to maybe get more of the local murals restored, especially the ones in The Junction.
The first sum of money that would be needed, $2,500, would stabilize the mural to get through the winter. From there, Austin said, there’ll be various price points for various stages of saving the mural, with the total restoration cost around $35,000. And yes, he confirmed, he’s talking to other tenants, including the building’s biggest one, Starbucks.
After Austin spoke, MoCA passed a motion in support of the project and lauded him for taking it on.
Coming up in report #2, more from the meeting, which had begun with an SPD update on the local arsons, as the most-recent one had happened in Morgan; we quickly added video of the briefing to what was at the time our most recent followup.
While artist Jesse Link worked on that West Seattle Junction mural, we published a few in-progress looks (starting October 8th) … and realized we hadn’t been back in a few days to see if it’s finished. It is! (If you haven’t seen it “in person,” it’s on the south side of the almost-done apartment building at 4535 44th SW. It’s his second West Seattle mural in less than two months, after the bear on the north side of Shack Coffee in Luna Park.)
Thanks to Eddie for another photo of artist Jesse Link‘s ongoing mural-painting on the south-facing wall of Lofts At The Junction (4535 44th SW) – Eddie first told us one week ago about the start of work on the mural, and we followed up with a few notes and the backstory.
(Photo by Kelly Beal)
Here’s something else you can do this afternoon – or any day between now and month’s end: Check out this unusual local art display: Dano Beal, a West Seattle resident who also happens to be an award-winning schoolteacher, is displaying what he describes as “whimsical birdhouses” at Tully’s Coffee on Alki.
He explains: “This project started over 2 years ago, with an old, funky birdhouse found at a yard sale. I decorated it as a gift for my Mother, covering it in wild and wonderful ornaments, personal trinkets, and broken jewelry… For several years I had been collecting vintage and costume jewelry purchased at local estate sales, church bazaars, and antique stores. Every piece always came with a wonderful story, usually shared by elderly folks or the people who loved them… Each one of the birdhouses in this exhibit is made using a variety of vintage pieces, religious icons, toys, found objects, and ‘grandma jewelry’.” They’re on display all month at Tully’s, which is on the corner of 60th SW and Alki SW.
Sunday nights are usually quiet on the calendar – event highlights often ending around mid-afternoon. Not tomorrow. So here’s a heads-up if you haven’t already seen this on the calendar: The Southwest Seattle Historical Society is presenting a free concert and film, “Some Places Are Forever Afternoon: A Tribute in Music, Words, and Film to White Center’s Richard Hugo,” 6 pm Sunday inside the historic White Center Fieldhouse at Steve Cox Memorial Park (1321 SW 102nd). Admission is free, thanks to funding by 4Culture; the concert features pianist/composer Wayne Horvitz (who’s in the video invitation above), who released a Hugo-tribute CD in July. The event also will screen “Kicking the Loose Gravel Home,” an hour-long 1976 film about Hugo, who was just 58 when he died in 1982.
Last night, we reported on the first day of work by artist Jesse Link on the mural long planned for the south-facing wall of the Lofts At The Junction apartment building (4535 44th SW). We went by late this afternoon to see how it’s going. The artist was gone for the day, but it’s clear that, as he had told us in a brief shouted exchange yesterday, it’s a heron and a boat – with the words WORK IN PROGRESS painted across the space for now, lest anyone think otherwise.
Thanks to Eddie for the photo and word that painting is under way on The Junction’s highest-profile mural in a long time. A mural has always been in the plan for the south-facing wall of The Lofts At The Junction (4535 44th SW), but the design wasn’t done until long after the project went through Design Review and started construction. After Eddie shared the tip this afternoon, we went over and hollered up at the artist to ask what’s in store – not knowing at the time that it’s Jesse Link, last featured here when he painted a mural on The Shack coffee house in Luna Park a month and a half ago. This afternoon, via that ground-to-bucket exchange, he told us the mural will feature a heron and a tugboat.
Last day of September, and the holidays are in view. Three events are inviting artists to apply, with deadlines coming up fast:
ART UNDER $100: Deadline is TOMORROW for South Park Arts‘ annual mega-event Art Under $100, happening again this year at the Seattle Design Center. While the event isn’t until December 12th (1-8 pm), the application deadline is October 1st, and you’ll find all the info on the application page – just go here.
FALL ART OPENING AT ‘THE BUILDING’: October 14th is the deadline to apply to be part of this event in Gatewood. The announcement:
Our Fall Art Opening is free and open to the public! We will be featuring local artists’ works, music, & food, just in time to kick-start the Holiday Season. We hope that you can join us for this amazing night!!
We are looking for artists doing work in different mediums at a variety of price points for the holiday season.
The Building’s 3rd Annual, Fall Art Opening!
Saturday, November 14th
5:00-10:00 pm
4316 SW Othello St.m West SeattleE-mail Submission Deadline is October 14th, $25 participation fee once accepted. Please email samples of your work with a detailed description and prices to Brenda Scallon – brenda@acaravan.com – thank you in advance for your participation; we look forward to seeing your work!
HIGHLAND PARK IMPROVEMENT CLUB BAZAAR: Handmade arts and crafts are what organizers want to see from vendors at HPIC‘s annual bazaar, also set for November 14th (daytime – 10 am-3 pm). Find out more, including contact info, on the HPIC website.
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