After 16 months of tearing down merch racks and building out art walls, the Downtown space formerly known as Bed Bath & Beyond has assumed its new form as Cannonball Arts. And it’s aiming to make a big splash.
A partnership of New Rising Sun (the Seattle arts group that has produced Bumbershoot since 2023) and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, the extreme makeover happened with help from local companies SHED Architecture and Sellen Construction. The challenge: how to turn a sprawling department store into an arts space showcasing work from Indigenous carving to contemporary painting to a virtual reality ride?
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Greg Lundgren, creative director of New Rising Sun (and founder of the Museum of Museums, among other arts spaces), calls it “a bit of a Frankenstein space,” part art gallery, amusement park, tourist attraction and nightclub.
When I visited back in June, the two-floor, 66,000-square-foot space was largely empty, but still held a few remnants of the old department store — a display rack here and there, all-purpose mountable wall slats, and, near the escalators, several large black-and-white squares depicting toast, a kitchen timer, a coffee cup and a kettle (perhaps signifiers of the mysterious “Beyond”).
At the ribbon-cutting event today, those squares had been obscured with colorful abstract swoops painted by Barry Johnson. Now any references to BB&B are deliberate, with sections such as the Electronics Department (including a wall full of TV screens showing video art by local creators) and the Shoe Department (with highly creative and largely unwearable shoes, including crocheted glass sandals by Carol Milne).
Long rows of vestigial light tubes hang above the entire second floor, and converge perfectly into “We’ve All Had Too Much Sorrow,” Ben Zamora’s rectilinear cloud of fluorescent light bars that floats above the escalators — visible and inviting from the Fourth Avenue windows.
Despite freestanding white walls and a salon-style entrance gallery, the space still feels raw and freshly overtaken by guerrilla artists — a vibe that is likely to linger. Part of the appeal, after all, is showing what Northwest artists can bring to the city, when invited to enliven and uplift the dead spaces. As Lundgren says, the artists among us are “our greatest natural resource.”
Fresh off a bruising primary election, Mayor Bruce Harrell made opening remarks at the Cannonball ribbon-cutting, calling it “another gem in our cultural crown” that is “symbolic of what we’re trying to do as a city.” (He also joked about stopping by the Lucy van Pelt-style “Free Advice” booth standing empty near the entrance.)
Donny Stevenson, tribal councilman for the Muckleshoot tribe, spoke about his community’s excitement regarding the partnership, in particular the 30-foot-long, 5,000-pound cedar log that’s been placed near the storefront windows along Third Avenue. Muckleshoot carvers will be onsite in the coming months, transforming the log into a functional dugout canoe and answering visitor questions.
“We think of it as an opportunity to share our artistic culture with the region,” Stevenson said. “Our carvers are looking forward to engaging with people coming through… and acting as representatives of Indigenous and Muckleshoot culture.”
Among my favorite sections is Virginia Park, a 2,200-square-foot “indoor sculpture park” made of artificial flora and populated with sculpture that doesn’t “belong on a white pedestal in a white room.” Constructed by set designer Montana Tippett, the green space includes an eerie blue neon portal by Kelsey Fernkopf and telescoping wooden benches by W. Scott Trimble.
The second floor also includes a space for extra-large work — a much-needed resource since the closure of MadArt Gallery. For the first six months, the space will be occupied by “Leviathan,” an enormous yet ethereal kinetic sculpture by Casey Curran. Inspired by the natural phenomenon of a whalefall (in which a dead whale sustains countless other creatures; like a nurse log of the sea), the diaphanous white skeleton gently quivers as if underwater.
Much of the downstairs area is devoted to an event space/concert venue, with towering high-tech speakers already in place. Add to that several murals (including an abstract pink beauty by Ilana Zweschi), 24 gender-neutral bathrooms and one interactive sculpture that is destined to get a ton of action on social media: Toxic Beauty, a hot-pink human-scale replica of a nudibranch, created by Stephanie Metz. This sensational sea slug is affixed to a mechanical bull, so climb on and giddyup.
Like a department store, the idea is to offer a wide assortment — from high-concept art to accessible (even rideable) installations.
“Seattle has 40 million visitors a year,” Lundgren told me in June. “We want a percentage of those people to go home and say ‘Seattle is thriving! There’s so much more culture here than I thought!’”
Tickets to the Opening Party on Aug. 15 are sold out, but you don’t have to wait much longer for Cannonball’s regular hours, starting Aug. 20 (admission runs $23.75 - $29.50; children under 12 free).
We might be in for a rainy spell this weekend, but the summer festival train shows no signs of slowing.
< The Seattle Design Festival celebrates 15 years this weekend with its free Block Party (Aug. 16-17) in Lake Union Park. A kind of science fair for architecture and urban-design nerds, the event features large-scale interactive installations that reveal how all kinds of “built environments” impact public spaces and communities.
This year’s theme is “Feedback,” and as usual there’s a huge range of interpretation by the various firms that create the installations — including pavilions in which you can wave a flag by swinging in a hammock; share your emotional state in a large communal “Mood Ring;” or literally shred negative feedback and “dance in the colorful rain of your hater’s tears.”
< For another take on design, the popular Seattle Tattoo Expo returns (Aug. 15-17) with tons of ways to get your ink on, including contests for best, funniest and worst tattoos.
< Photographic Center Northwest is bringing back its Photo Zine and Bookfair (Aug. 17), a proudly analog event celebrating photo-based books, zines, prints and more.
< Hur-ry, hur-ry, step right up … The School of Acrobatics and New Circus Acts (SANCA) presents Sans Solos Deux (Aug. 16), its second annual circus cabaret highlighting ensemble acts — with no solos in sight. Apparently teamwork makes the high-flyin’ dream work.
< The Seattle Floating Homes Association is putting on a free Dock Rock Paddle-Up Reggae Concert (Aug. 15, 6 - 8:15 p.m.), in which self-propelled watercraft can paddle (or oar) up to hear Jamaica-born, Seattle-based Clinton Fearon & Boogie Brown Band on a floating stage in Portage Bay. My only question here is why hasn’t this been happening all summer long?
P.S.: If you missed last week’s launch of Season 2 of our television series Art by Northwest, never fear: You can still watch the premiere episode and read more about Yup’ik mask carver Jennifer Angaiak Wood. Stay tuned for the next episode next week!
Looking for more regional arts coverage? Check out Art by Northwest, a new television series on Cascade PBS featuring artists from all over Washington. Season 2 episodes are releasing weekly from August 7 through October 2.
