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Artistic Director Leaves Empty Space

Eddie Levi Lee, Empty Space Theatre's artistic director since 1993, will be amicably stepping down in February of 2001. While Lee has overseen a dramatic resurrection of Fremont's once-teetering theater, sources suggest that for some time he's been ceding decisions to other artistic personnel. The result has been an increasingly adventurous selection of plays in the past few seasons: Amy Freed's The Psychic Life of Savages (a juicy, thinly disguised portrait of poets Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell) and local playwright Louis Broome's Texarkana Waltz (a cowboy musical with lesbian lovers and patricidal fantasies) leavened the usual smoke-machine-and- chain-saw wackiness. We can only hope the incoming artistic director continues to cultivate such rich variety. BRET FETZER

SAC Funding Increase

The long-underfunded Seattle Arts Commission (SAC) is poised for a significant boon in the ongoing battle to revitalize its presence on the local arts scene, with the passing of a resolution to divert 20 percent of the city's net admissions-tax receipts to SAC. This resolution, rooted in last year's recommendations by the mayor's arts task force, would add approximately $1,066,000 to SAC's total budget--over a 20-percent increase. Unlike other SAC funding increases currently proposed (for example, the upping of the one-percent-for-arts program to two percent), the proposed resolution provides for a funding source that is unaffiliated with building projects, and hence more flexible. Especially welcome is the news that the funding will be made available to individual artists and smaller arts organizations.

Newly appointed SAC Executive Director Susan Trapnell (who took office last April) sees the proposal as critical to energizing SAC's role in the developing arts landscape. "The money is important, but more important is the impact it has on people's attitudes," she says. "We are working hard to establish the perception that it is not the artists who need the city's support, but the city that needs the artists' work," she continues, noting that the proposed resolution is the first major step in a longer-term plan to overhaul SAC.

The resolution goes before the full council on Monday, August 28, and is expected to pass. JAMIE HOOK

Artists are Dogs!

The hottest art show in town at the moment is curated by two Belltown dogs, Junky and Duke. Longtime collaborators, Junky and Duke work in various media, including wood, soft plastics, and various fabrics (e.g., T-shirts) to create a deceptively simple, deeply moving body of work that, as represented by their current show, speaks to the universal condition of the urban dog. Some standouts include Fate of the Empty Water Bowl, an angry, impassioned work in soft plastic; and Authority Problem, a surprisingly funny piece in industrial-grade, government-issue rubber. The more affordable pieces are aggressively priced at two hard rubber bones, while some of the costlier items are as much as a 50-pound bag of meal-grade barley. Notes the Speakeasy's gallery curator, "This has been our best-selling show ever." Hurry on down!! JAMIE HOOK