ArtSEA: Back to (art) school at Gage Academy’s new Downtown digs

The 35-year-old institute’s new South Lake Union digs (at 2107 Westlake Ave.) are just two miles from its previous setting on Capitol Hill. But as artist Gary Faigin (who co-founded Gage with his wife, architect Pamela Belyea) said during the grand opening last weekend, “This might as well be 20, 50, 60 miles away.” And that’s intentional. 

Gage’s big move was driven in large part by a desire to be more accessible — in terms of ADA requirements and public transit, as well as public awareness.

Noting that he had never encountered walk-ins at Gage previously, Faigin was thrilled about the potential of foot traffic at this location. (In fact I saw two pedestrians making inquiries while I was there.) “You couldn’t be more active and urban than this location,” he enthused.

ArtSEA: Notes on Northwest Culture is a weekly arts newsletter from Cascade PBS.

Gage started in 1989 as a series of classic technique workshops — painting, drawing, sculpting — and began operating year-round in Seattle in 1991, then as the Academy of Realist Art.

In 2004, the school (which does not offer degrees) moved into the historic St. Nicholas building, a quiet, leafy property off 10th Avenue East. Constructed in 1926 as a private school for girls, the old building still emanates Jacobean charm. For 20 years, Gage’s landlord lived next door, in the huge, concrete form of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral.

The school’s new landlord looms large in a different sense: Amazon owns the 37-story tower in which the art school now occupies 14,000 square feet. That’s thanks to the tech giant contributing $7.5 million in construction costs and rent assistance for the course of Gage’s 10-year lease. 

As Gage executive director Kathleen Allen said during the event, the hope is that this collaboration can serve as a “proof of concept for the arts community and tech community to work together.” 

Seattle architecture firm NBBJ worked to make the two-story, street-facing space both intriguing to passersby and inviting for the students of all ages who come to drop-in, weekly and year-long visual arts classes. The street-level gallery is visible from the sidewalk, as are hints of the second-floor studios, where artworks face outward from windows. 

Inside are bright classrooms filled with art books, easels, plaster busts, animal skulls and one life-sized horse skeleton, plus multiple hang-out zones and student and teacher art hung through the hallways.

You’ll also find a few charming relics from the old space, including a wall-mounted green porcelain drinking fountain, which apparently has appeared in many student paintings over the years.

Amazon named the building re:Invent, which seems like a happy coincidence for an art school. Especially as paired with Gage’s optimistic motto: “Artists are made, not born.”

Seattle offers multitudinous places to spice up your fall with an art class, so consider: painting, pottery and drawing classes at Seattle Artists League in Georgetown; poetry, memoir and fiction workshops at Hugo House; and acting, playwriting and stage combat (no prerequisites!) at Freehold Theatre Lab, to name a few.

You can also do some DIY arts education by engaging in the wealth of artist talks, workshops and readings happening year-round. This weekend is especially flush, thanks to the ongoing and inaugural Art & Culture Week festivities (which I wrote about in last week’s newsletter).

With special events happening every day through Saturday (Sept. 14), you still have time to catch the action, including:

< A “Micro Art Walk” in Ballard from window gallery Das Schaufenster to Vestibule Gallery (just around the corner), including a “micro-talk” by featured artist and Port of Seattle public art manager Tommy Gregory (Sept. 12, 7 - 9 p.m.)

< Seattle Opera’s Black Excellence in Music program, with singers Sarah Joyce Cooper, Darren Drone, Yusef Seevers and Porscha Shaw at Black & Tan Hall (Sept. 12, 7:30 - 9:30)

< As Above/So Below, a sonic and music performance at Wa Na Wari, featuring Sandu Ndu and India Sky as part of their national tour (Sept. 13, 6 - 8 p.m.)

< A talk about bird migration with renowned Northwest bird sculptor/painter/illustrator Tony Angell in anticipation of his October exhibit at Foster/White Gallery (Sept. 14, 2 - 4 p.m.)

< And Doll Party, an invitational at Beacon Hill’s Fresh Mochi that showcases 25 local artists’ takes on dolls, from funny to retro to dream-haunting. (Sept. 14, 6 - 9 p.m.)

There’s one more event in the Art & Culture Week lineup that I highly recommend: a talk about trash by Seattle artists Margie Livingston and Kalina Winska (at Mutuus Studio in Georgetown on Sept. 14, open 1 - 5 p.m.; talk at 2 p.m.).

Called Gleanings, the short-run show features work the two artists made as residents in the Recology King County Artist in Residence program. In short: It’s art made from trash and it’s terrific.

The AiR program (which I profiled in 2019) places Northwest artists knee-deep in towering piles of trash — items that have traveled from our blue recycling bins all the way to the churning, rumbling sorting facility. (The next public tour of the facility is Oct. 17. Also recommended!)

It’s a little smelly, yes, but for artists that stench is overtaken by the thrill of seeing so many potential art supplies. Every past participant I’ve spoken with has said it’s their favorite residency. 

I visited Livingston and Winska as they were hanging the show, and both told me they found their four months at the facility inspiring — each had created far more pieces than there was room to display. The sheer amount of stuff awaiting recycling is overwhelming, so like many artists before them, they focused on one or two materials. 

Livingston kept an eye out for fabric, and also metallic food trays, like those used for airline meals. She reworked the shiny gold pieces into jewel-like accents in large wall tapestries and quilts that she painted and stitched. 

“Surprise is something I treasure,” Livingston noted about her creation process. And it happened again and again, as when she found items like a plaid shirt and tackle box that reminded her of her father (and provided lures to hang from the tapestry). 

For Winska, it was gridlike wire objects (electric fan covers, closet shelving, dishwasher baskets) — many of which had been flattened into wavy forms that looked like frozen ripples. These she collected, painted white and combined into cloudlike assemblages that climb the wall “like a ghost or vapor, suspended and dissipating,” she said. 

She also found several huge chunks of Styrofoam, which she spray-painted iridescent colors and carved into topographic otherworldly landscapes.

Winska says the residency caused her to rethink the relationship between humans and things. “There’s so much history, story, layering that is carried in these materials — coming from so many homes — it’s like memorabilia.” 

Lastly, a few more ways to get the season started: 

< The Seattle Symphony kicks off with Ludovic Morlot conducting a centennial celebration of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (Sept. 14).

< On the Boards revs up with the West Coast premiere of Things Hidden Since the Founding of the World (Sept. 12 - 14), an exploration of an unsolved murder and internet rabbit holes by the Javaad Alipoor Company.

< Taproot Theatre gets things going with My Lord, What a Night (Sept. 18 - Oct. 19), about the real-world friendship between Albert Einstein and singer Marian Anderson.

< And the Puget Sound Puppetry Festival (socksonmyhands.org) returns with four days of puppetry programming (Sept. 11 - 14) in Columbia City, including a puppet slam, a giant puppet workshop and the reportedly naughty 21-and-over “beer and puppet theater.”