Three Bands, Five DJs and John Travolta at Remix
Love Takes SAM by Storm
SAM’s hallways recently echoed with joyous shrieks and laughter. Although perhaps a common occurrence, the aura of joy and excitement was not from a new art piece or an exhibition opening or even a Soundsuit…
It was a marriage proposal! A young man named Storm Bennett proposed to his long-term girlfriend Stephanie in the hall of the Seattle Art Museum in a most creative way… Read More
Beauty Shot Fridays: How Have You Personalized or Reclaimed Your Outdoor Space?
This week’s Beauty Shot Friday highlights our current exhibition Reclaimed, which focuses on contemporary artists and how they find inspiration in nature and question our relationship to it. This week’s question was: How have you personalized and/or reclaimed your outdoor space?
Satisfaction Guaranteed for Thursday at the Park
FINALLY—we’re going to have nice summer weather for this week’s “Thursday at the Park,” an evening of live music, art and food at the Olympic Sculpture Park from 5:30 – 8:00 p.m.
I’m really looking forward to seeing hip-hop duo THEESatisfaction perform. Their energetic beats and tight rhymes are sure to get the crowd dancing.
Tonight’s “Art Hit” tour will feature On-Site artist, Gretchen Bennett, who will discuss her temporary work installed in the Olympic Sculpture Park. Coinciding with the event is the launch of Bennett’s new Publication Studio book, Windfall Alphabet, which showcases recent work by the artist, as well as an essay by New York-based art critic and writer, Jill Conner. The tour meets in the PACCAR Pavilion at 6:30 pm.
After the tour, maybe you’ll be inspired to make your own art. This week’s art activity is creating abstract pendants. Materials are supplied, and all ages are welcome to participate.
Say aloha to Pai’s Food Truck, which will be making its first appearance at the Olympic Sculpture Park this summer. Pai’s serves Thai-Hawaiian dishes, such as lemongrass huli huli chicken. Veraci Pizza, Whidbey Island Ice Cream and our very own TASTE will provide other yummy bites. This week’s doughnut from TASTE pastry chef Lucy Damkoehler is sweet cheese empanada. I had some last week, and while I don’t think they’re anything like an empanada, I would definitely say that they’re delicious.
See you at the Sculpture Park in the sun!
-Madeline Moy, Digital Media Manager
Photos: Robert Wade, Madeline Moy
Top photo: Specter by Gretchen Bennett
Beauty Shot Fridays: Summertime Sun and Fun
In hopes of procuring more sun from the sky this week, we asked people to send us photos of their summertime fun in the sun. Photos did not have to be of Seattle or from this summer but could be of anything sun- and summer-related. I’ve selected a few of our brightest submissions from last week and written some of my thoughts on them… Read More
Latin Jazz, Art Making, and More at Thursday at the Park
At last week’s “Thursday at the Park,” at the Olympic Sculpture Park, I did not intend on making a new friend.
Thursdays at the Park–Rain or Shine!
So the weather isn’t exactly what we were hoping it would be like for the Olympic Sculpture Park’s first Thursday Night at the Park of the summer season. However, this being Seattle, we are fully prepared.
Christopher Martin Hoff to Teach Watercolor Workshop at Olympic Sculpture Park
Usually when I think of painting en plein air, I picture a French Impressionist working at a canvas while seated under a large white umbrella in the middle of a meadow. Painting en plein air evokes a natural and pastoral setting.
Although he carries on the tradition, Christopher Martin Hoff is a different kind of plein air painter. You can see him all over Seattle painting all day, every day. He captures the urban landscape–billboards, bridges, traffic lights swaying over empty intersections, bright green dumpsters scrawled with graffiti. Hoff has also documented several important construction projects across the country and in 2003 was awarded an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant, to create a series of paintings that document construction at the World Trade Center in New York.
Participants in the upcoming SAM Creates workshop “En Plein Air: Watercolor Painting” will get a chance to work with Hoff to explore the unique interplay of art, architecture and landscape present at the Olympic Sculpture Park. This is a three-part workshop, and the first session is Saturday, July 9. Click here to register now.
The SAM Creates workshop series provides a forum for artists to explain the philosophies underlying their work and for participants to delve into the artistic, practical or quirky processes at work in their daily lives. Instruction will include strategies for creating engaging compositions, the use of color to build space, creating work that has a sense of place and general practices for an effective outdoor studio. All materials provided, and all levels are welcome.
-Madeline Moy, Digital Media Manager
Silva Thinks Outside (and Inside) the Box
On-Site, the second summer exhibition at SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park, brings together new sculptures by Gretchen Bennett, Nicholas Nyland, and Carolina Silva.
Silva titled her sculpture Air Below Ground. The wooden platform and frame, as well as a series of actions the artist has composed to take place in, on, around, or underneath the sculpture were conceived specifically for the Olympic Sculpture Park.
Silva, who will create a number of installations in the structure throughout the summer, is interested in the process by which sculpture is defined, engaged with and realized. An evolving work, her activities will engage a variety of materials, including lights, sound, fog, clay, and balloons that will expand viewers’ interaction with a sculptural object, one that is in a constant state of transformation.
A Call to Color
If you haven’t been to the Olympic Sculpture Park lately, you should go. Not only is it summer in the park but Trenton Doyle Hancock’s, A Better Promise—an art installation in the PACCAR Pavilion—is especially mesmerizing and animated when the bright sunshine manages to peek out of the clouds and shine into the pavilion. Ironically, this is partly because of its numerous colorful raindrops but partly it’s because of the giant vitrines full of plastic lids that sit below the installation.
As part of the work, Hancock issues a “call to color” by encouraging visitors to bring their own morsels of color—in the form of plastic bottle caps—to the park and drop them into the work of art. Nine large-scale “earthbound” vitrines have been placed on the floor in front of the hand sculpture. On the face of each of these nine containers, there is a teardrop cut-out where plastic bottle caps can be deposited by color. Visitors are encouraged to bring plastic bottle caps ranging in all shapes and sizes from detergent bottles, to clear water bottles to the black and white caps from drink bottles.
Spend Your Summer with SAM
People in Seattle make the most of the all-too-short summers and so does SAM! We’ve got a diverse array of art exhibitions, events and experiences at all three of our sites this summer. Whether you’re interested in Bollywood, baseball, yoga or landscape painting, we’ve got you covered.
Beauty Shot Fridays!
From the PR Office at SAM comes a new and fun project called “Beauty Shot Fridays.” In order to promote Beauty & Bounty and Reclaimed, we are asking our Facebook Fans to send us photos in response to a weekly question that is based on themes in the exhibitions.
We will update our question on the SAM Facebook page every Monday by 3pm and submissions will be uploaded to the page every Friday by 4pm. If you’d like to send a photo submission (captions are welcome too!), please email beautyshots@seattleartmuseum.org
Our question this is week is: where do you find beauty and bounty in your day?
Get Ready for Artistic Feats at Party in the Park
The day of Party of the Park is finally here, and we couldn’t be more excited! The weather is going to be great, and we have a full line-up of amazing entertainment and experiences.
Guests will enjoy beautiful beats from live bands Hey Marseilles, The Paperboys, Curtains For You and The Lumineers, as well as music curated by Dave Hernandez from the Shins and the DJ beats of DJ Aanshul and DJ ‘G.’ Bountiful eats will be provided by fabulous food trucks Dante’s Inferno Dogs, Maximus/Minimus, Molly Moon Ice Cream, Skillet, Street Treats and Veraci Pizza. And our hosted bar will serve Northewest beer and wine.
If that wasn’t enough, Party in the Park will feature a variety of artist-designed interactive play and experiences.
Win 2 Tickets to Party in the Park!
Party in the Park is just a little over a week away – do you have your ticket yet? If not, here’s a great chance to win a pair of tickets for this fabulous event. All you have to do is describe what you would do in this box.
Confused? Let me explain. As part of the Summer Season at the Olympic Sculpture Park’s art installations, called On-Site, artist Carolina Silva has created a work of art that is meant to be performed in called Air Below Ground, pictured here. Throughout the summer, you have the opportunity to see her perform in this space every week! The very first performance is going to be at Party in the Park, and I hear it involves a fog machine.
Back to the question – if you had the opportunity to perform in Silva’s box, what would you do? The best answer wins a pair of tickets to Party in the Park, where you can see Silva’s first performance. So in the comments section, let us know what you would do, but do it fast. We’ll be announcing a winner on the morning of Monday, June 13. And keep it clean, folks. We’re a family friendly organization.
-Calandra Childers, Associate Manager of Public Relations
Photo: Robert Wade
Party in the Park on June 17
On June 17 from 8 pm to midnight, join us for Party in the Park: a benefit for the Seattle Art Museum!
Celebrate the kick-off of summer with friends knowing you are supporting artistic and outreach programs at the Olympic Sculpture Park and SAM.
Click here now to buy tickets! Cost is $75 and includes food, drink, and exclusive, after-hours access to the Olympic Sculpture Park. Since this is a benefit event, both SAM members and non-members are welcome at the same ticket price. Age 21+ only.
Beautiful Beats
- Live bands featuring Hey Marseilles
- Djs featuring Dave Hernandez from The Shins and DJ Aanshul
Bountiful Eats
Artistic Feats
- Artist-designed interactive play and experiences.
Thanks for supporting SAM and the Olympic Sculpture Park!
Photo credit: Robert Wade
May Highlights for SAM Downtown, Seattle Asian Art Museum and Olympic Sculpture Park
Want to get updates on SAM program and events delivered to your inbox? Click here now to subscribe to SAM’s enewsletter. Here’s a message from SAM Director Derrick Cartwright from our May 2011 enewsletter highlighting some of the best SAM’s three sites have to offer.
Videos from Family Festival: Earth Day for Kids at Olympic Sculpture Park
Family Festival: Earth Day for Kids was an amazing day of activities in celebration of Earth Day at the Olympic Sculpture Park! Everyone enjoyed making green art and fantastic live performances celebrating sustainability. Plus, dancers from Cornish College of the Arts brought Nick Cave’s Soundsuits to life! Thanks again to Target for making this event–and other family-friendly events that are focused on art–possible! Here are two fun videos from the event.
Yoga and drawing at the Olympic Sculpture Park
Can you believe how quickly this summer is zipping by? In June, we kicked off three months jam-packed with art activities at the Olympic Sculpture Park. This Saturday, Aug. 28, will be the final day for yoga and drawing in the park for the summer. If you haven’t made it to a free outdoor yoga class yet, we hope to see you Saturday. (Class runs from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., rain or shine.) Read More
Here it is:
The PARTY IN THE PARK ticket giveaway
Mudhoney’s playing at Party in the Park at the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park next Friday and we’re getting so excited!
I just sweet-talked the party organizers into giving me a pair of tickets to give away (that’s a $200 value, folks), and I’d like to use the opportunity to spread the love to our Twitter followers and Facebook fans.
Olympic Sculpture Park and Kids
Today’s New York Times article by William Yardley highlighted the sculpture park’s no touching of art policy as an example of how Seattle is struggling to become kid-friendly as the population of children here grows. As a mother of two extremely active and curious little girls, I can honestly say that my kids love playing at the Olympic Sculpture Park. I am admittedly a little biased because I work for the museum but the park has a special sense of place that I know kids can sense.