Turn, Turn, Turn... Aw, Shaddup
Things appear to be changing, dammit. When I emerged from my blissfully stoned cold-medicine cocoon, there was the cold slap of reality.
At a screening of videos by artist Brent Watanabe, the excellent Jennifer West--of the bathroom video installations--confirmed that she's off to Los Angeles for graduate school next fall, making my job one big notch less interesting. Rumors are reaching my ears of other artists threatening to leave this lame-ass city, to which I can only say, please don't--at least until I can leave, too.
(Brent's videos somewhat made up for my sour mood, especially his thrift-store video, an accidental find that he has skillfully edited down into a work both searing and touching, about the camera's relentless pursuit of a girl approaching--perhaps already sensing--her awkward adolescence. Her father behind the camera is not a benevolent presence; his barely contained violence keeps the whole thing under pressure.)
***
SOIL is once again without ground, pulling up stakes and looking for a new space. According to my casual and conversational source, the cooperative was tired of being located in the back of a gym (what with all that hideous equipment and the locker-room smell) and a gallery that no one could find (what with that tiny little falling-through-the-rabbit-hole door). I have been following SOIL's peregrination around the city for years now; please, God or Paul Allen, let them find a good, big, cheap space.
And another nice little gallery is closing: Eyre/Moore, after three years in business (no small accomplishment in this aforementioned lame-ass town, not to mention that I had finally learned how to pronounce "Eyre"). When the gallery's lease came up for renewal, owners Missi Moore and Rich Eyre decided to call it quits. Guess why? Financial difficulty, as well as Seattle's general indifference to artists like Enrique Martinez Celaya and Rich Lehl. I have only one thing to say: Huh?
But the owners are philosophical: Missi will be privately consulting, helping collectors build their collections, and Rich is dorking around, thinking about his next move. Meanwhile, their artists are looking for new gallery representation. Somebody had better step up to the plate.
***
There was, in my in-box, some news that, if not exactly good, was at least kind of neutral. BAM has a new executive director named Kathleen Harleman, who has worked with art institutions in Fort Lauderdale, Wellesley, and Toronto. And over at the Seattle Arts Commission, Kristine Castlemen, SAC's deputy director, has been named acting executive director following the departure of Susan Trapnell.
***
And late word has it that the Breakroom is for sale; this, too, is neither good nor bad, unless the price of a whiskey sour goes up.
***
Be on the lookout for members of the Seattle Santa Rampage this weekend (as I understand it, they'll be on their baddest behavior in Belltown on Friday night and Capitol Hill on Saturday). The carousing Santas are out there, and they're grumpy. Believe me, I understand.
***
But, even as the weather gets worse and worse and people leave town and good galleries go homeless, sometimes you have one of those humans-are-great moments that go straight to your veins like a B-12 shot. Last weekend I posed for artists at the Seattle Academy of Fine Arts Drawing Jam. (With my clothes on, you guttersnipes.) There was no posturing, no high-minded intellectualism, no wine and cheese--just lots of people drawing, many of them older folks. Some of them were very good at it; others, frankly, not so much. But you'd have to be a real misanthrope not to feel the intense pleasure generated by all the hard work, the work itself being the only reward. I am not a real misanthrope, I guess.
