ArtSEA: Amid shifting national tides, NW art brings perspective

But we turn to art in times of uncertainty — not for platitudes but for perspective. What might start as a desire for “distraction” often sparks deeper thinking. 

One excellent source of artful perspective in this tumultuous week is Tidelands, a new cultural hub near the foot of the Harbor Steps downtown. Open since late September, the Indigenous-owned space showcases Native American art, storytelling and artisanal goods with a gallery, media studio and boutique. 

It’s the brainchild of Northwest photographer Matika Wilbur (Swinomish and Tulalip), who spent the past 10 years traveling the country to document contemporary Native communities in more than 500 tribal nations — both those with federal recognition and those still fighting for it.

Called Project 562, the captivating collection includes 80 new photographs currently on view (through Jan. 5, 2025) in large format at the many-windowed gallery. 

Among the striking portraits is one of Orlando Begay (Diné), a graphic designer and powwow dancer wearing traditional garments while standing within the stacks of a library. The photos reveal elders and youth in places of personal importance, some sporting day-to-day clothing, others decked out in attire for cultural festivals. Sometimes it’s a sartorial mix.

In another memorable shot, Coast Salish tribal members in shorts, T-shirts and cedar bark hats power a dugout canoe past the Seattle waterfront during the annual Paddle to Seattle event, a celebration of long-held customs surrounding the Salish Sea.

Tidelands is just getting started. The plan is to host rotating shows of Indigenous art, as well as poetry readings and music performances. For now, spend some time with the faces in the photos, and note another warming touch in the gallery: driftwood sculptor Jayson Fann’s “spirit nests.” One of these doubles as a bench for contemplation, perhaps about communities of resilience. 

During the heightened days just before the election we learned of the loss of music giant Quincy Delight Jones, who died on Nov. 3 at 91. In addition to having an enormous impact in the music industry over his 70-year career, Jones left a lasting legacy in the Northwest. 

When Jones was 10, in 1943, his family moved from Chicago to Bremerton. His father worked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard during the war effort, and at Bremerton’s Coontz Junior High, young Quincy picked up the trumpet that would change his life and influence so many others’ forever. 

In 1947, the Joneses moved to Seattle, where Quincy attended Garfield High School and joined his first swing band: the Bumps Blackwell Junior Band, named for a local band leader. It was through this band that he began to make influential connections with the thriving Seattle jazz scene (including Ray Charles and Ernestine Anderson).

Perhaps Jones also gleaned a few band management skills in this early combo — because what struck me when watching the recent Netflix documentary The Greatest Night in Pop (chronicling his one-night recording of “We Are the World”) was how startlingly adept Jones was at corralling a chaotic room full of gigantic egos and disparate singing styles. I highly recommend the doc as a way to honor this man of so many musical talents.

There are more musical interludes to experience in the coming days — many with titles that seem suddenly apt. The topic of KEXP’s next on-air event (planned long ago) is “Music Heals: Grief” (Nov. 14), a day of music “honoring the crushing pain of loss and the bittersweet joy of remembering.”

And there’s perhaps new meaning in the annual “Freakout Festival” (Nov. 7 - 10), featuring 100+ bands across eight venues in Ballard and Fremont. Even The Music of Led Zeppelin (The Royal Room, Nov. 20) seems newly weighted. 

Sharing more music to soothe unsettled souls, here’s Cascade PBS copy chief — and seasoned classical music writer — Gavin Borchert:

Forget the polls: If you want to foretell the future, just ask whoever is in charge of the Seattle Symphony’s programming. In a coincidence that still seems a bit eerie all these years later, the first concert after 9/11 — planned months in advance, of course — included two startlingly apropos pieces: Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait and Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story, each of which movingly evoked the two cities attacked, Washington, D.C. and New York City. 

So what is the SSO playing this weekend? One title stands out, in light of current events: Lili Boulanger’s 1918 wartime pastoral “D’un soir triste” (“Of a Sad Evening”), again, programmed months in advance. It’s one of the final works composed by Boulanger, who had she not died at 24 might today be acknowledged as the greatest woman composer of all time. 

Also on the symphony’s mixed bill (Nov. 7 - 9), more French music: Olivier Messiaen’s “Les offrandes oubliées” (“Forgotten Offerings”) from 1930, by turns shimmering and furious, and Claude Debussy’s surging marine portrait “La mer” (“The Sea”).

If it’s cleansing you seek, perhaps no music is more profoundly grounding than the “deep listening” aesthetic of Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016), who coined the term in the 1980s as something of a pun after recording an album in an empty cistern in Port Townsend. Emerald City Music — known for innovative chamber-music presentations — is pushing the experimental envelope with an evening of her work. 

Curated by cellist Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir (formerly of UW and now of the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati), Pauline Oliveros: Sound Meditations (Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. in South Lake Union; Nov. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Olympia) includes guided audience-participation meditations intended to open the listener to experiencing music in all ways: viscerally and spiritually as well as aurally. — G.B.

More stuff that sounds pretty good right about now. 

Light the Forest (Nov. 9 - 10): This second annual event at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood features neon sculpture installations all across the woodsy campus. I went last year and loved the glowy mystery of the self-guided nighttime walking tour. This year’s featured artists include Pilchuck alums Megan Stelljes and KCJ Szwedzinski.

Speaking of dark evenings spent seeking out art … it’s the First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square (Nov. 7, tonight!). Consider: Seattle sculptor Mark Calderon’s There’s Always Glimmer (Greg Kucera Gallery, Nov. 7 - Dec. 21), featuring all manner of apologies writ in glass beads; Jai Sallay-Carrington’s Reasoning with Demons, in this case the personal sort (Method Gallery, through Dec. 14); and closing soon, Proof Through the Night (J. Rinehart Gallery, through Nov. 9), a provocative group show that includes artists from Texas and Washington responding to the current political landscape. 

SIFF Selects: This month (Nov. 9 - 30) a new partnership between Cascade PBS and the Seattle International Film Festival features a mix of recent independent movies rarely seen elsewhere. It kicks off this weekend with Punderneath it All, a documentary about the cutthroat world of pun competitions, and includes I Am DB Cooper, about a guy who swears he’s the real deal. (Films premiere Fridays on the Cascade PBS app and air on broadcast Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.)