ArtSEA: The streets are alive with the sights of Seattle Art Fair

Founded by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2015, this buzzing hive of artistic activity fills the huge arena floor with creative displays by 90-some galleries, local, national and international. And outside the official grounds, a host of satellite events spins in the fair’s mighty orbit.

I got a glimpse of the forthcoming festivities earlier this week when I was walking through Pioneer Square to a Mariners’ game. Above the jerseyed baseball fans streaming toward the stadium: an artist on a bright yellow platform ladder, painting an octopus on a canvas affixed to the side of a brick building. 

The artist, Drew Merritt, is creating the piece as part of Art Frames, one of several satellite events curated by Pioneer Square art powerhouse ARTXIV. For its third Art Fair season, the group is filling the historic RailSpur Building (419 Occidental Avenue South) with art installations under the banner Forest for the Trees. 

The outdoor painting-in-progress event — in partnership with a coalition of building owners and city organizations — has invited 15 artists to create new public murals in identical square frames permanently affixed to building exteriors across Pioneer Square. (See a map of all the locations and artists here.)

The artists have been working on the paintings all week, and will celebrate the completed pieces at a RailSpur mural celebration open to the public (July 27, 1 - 7 p.m.).

Also at RailSpur is a not-to-be-missed collection of new work by local artists — this batch created inside the building. The unoccupied fifth floor was loosely sectioned into 10 open painting studios, in which a rotating group of 35 artists worked in residency for three months on pieces that eventually will be hung in the new Hotel Westland, opening next door in the fall.

“Some of the artists didn’t want to leave,” ARTXIV’s Gage Hamilton told me at a preview this week. That’s not surprising. The fully windowed space is light and airy with big views. 

And the community artmaking approach proved fruitful — the resulting works are huge and energetic: a sun-shafted woodland by Kimberly Trowbridge; polka-dotted Indigenous iconography by Joe Feddersen; a fall forest scene by Juliet Chen. 

You can view many of the works exactly where they were made; another portion created during the residency will be on view in the ARTXIV booth at Seattle Art Fair. So you can see the complete collection of paintings during the span of the Art Fair (July 25 - 28, times vary) ... but that’s it! Afterward they’ll be moved into Hotel Westland for guests to enjoy. 

FYI, a lot more murals are in Seattle’s future thanks to the Hope Corps Downtown Seattle Mural Project, part of Mayor Harrell’s Downtown Activation Plan. More on this project in a forthcoming newsletter, but this weekend you can get a sense of these murals — which will soon appear from SoDo to Belltown — in SEA TBD at RailSpur (July 27 - 28 on floors 7 and 8).

But back to the main event! The Seattle Art Fair can be a bit overwhelming, especially when you first walk in and encounter that enormous grid of white gallery cubes. (Pro tip: This is not the occasion to wear your cute but slightly painful shoes. Learn from my mistakes!)

Push past that initial paralysis by proceeding either up and down the rows, front to back, or moving through them concentrically, starting with a big outer circle. Either plan will be thwarted as soon as you see a friend, or spot something you want to investigate across the hall, but it can be calming to know you once had a plan and could pick it back up at any time.

In addition to the tidy gallery rows, the Seattle Art Fair features several large-scale “public projects” in the common areas. I suspect you won’t be able to miss South African artist Ralph Ziman’s “SPOEK 1,” part of his Casspir Project. For this striking sculpture he collaborated with 100 South African artisans to cover an apartheid-era police vehicle in beaded panels — comprising some 70 million glass beads. The 11-ton, 9-foot-tall, 22-foot-long vehicle now stands as a beacon of peace and renewal.

Also new to the public project mix this year: the Corning Museum of Glass (a very big deal in the glassblowing world) presents New Glass Review 43, a pop-up installation showcasing stars of the contemporary glass-art world including local favorites Anna Mlasowsky, Matthew Szösz, Bri Chesler, Eriko Kobayashi and Morgan Madison.

Look for local ceramic artist Emily Counts’ Sea of Nectars (courtesy of local gallery studio e), a pageant of large-scale figures with a curious distribution of facial features. Back in 2023, I wrote about previous Counts exhibit Sea of Vapors (at Museum of Museums) and I expect a similarly entrancing mix of pastel-glazed women who embrace aging, power, humor, connection and a funky sense of style.

Artist talks abound at the Fair, and cover topics such as: New Artists/New Collectors, with local artists Joe Rudko and Julie Alpert; Everything’s a Little Bit Wild, a discussion of how climate change is portrayed in art with local writer Jon Mooallem and artist Meghann Riepenhoff; and a signing with iconic grunge-music photographer Charles Peterson, whose new book Nirvana captures moments from the band’s glory days.

There is so much Seattle Art Fair stuff happening I’m afraid I’ve only scratched the surface! Check out the long list of participating galleries, or just show up and see what weird and wonderful works you stumble upon. 

Many booths will be decked out in high style — some with interactive options. For example: If you have unwanted pairs of jeans lying around, bring them to the Method Gallery booth (D13), where Seattle artist Megan Prince will rip them to shreds and weave them into large-scale “jean bodies” on site. 

Across the city, you’ll find related events: Urban Garage, a celebration of Tashiro Kaplan building artists in Pioneer Square; the Summer Artists Market, featuring ceramicists from Pottery Northwest; Bellevue Arts Museum’s annual BAM Arts Fair; and brand-new players like Actualize AIR, a warren of artist studios housed in the old Downtown Banana Republic building (née Coliseum Theater), which is having its first open house.

Whether you choose to nibble at a single event or gorge on as many as possible, the main thing is to get out there and sample the rich buffet of art our city has laid out before us.