♪♪
-Hi there, and welcome to the show.
I'm Nancy Guppy coming to you
from ArtX Contemporary in Pioneer Square,
where I am standing in the midst of
Tejiendo Historias/ Weaving Stories,
a gorgeous show of painting and sculpture by Fulgencio Lazo.
♪♪
In this new body of work,
Lazo celebrates the textile traditions
of the Zapotec people in Oaxaca
that he learned about as a child from his mother.
Ancestral weaving is a cornerstone of Zapotec culture,
and has been passed down for over 2,000 years
as a way to preserve their stories through textiles.
Lazo pays homage to this heritage
by incorporating symbols of sewing and weaving,
such as spools of thread and spinning wheels,
and intertwining them with the faces of children
who carry these traditions forward.
Tejiendo Historias/ Weaving Stories runs now
through November 16th.
Hours and location are at artxcontemporary.com.
♪♪
We've got a great lineup for you, including --
lighting designer Yuri Kinoshita.
-I'm really inspired by
empty spaces and shrines, breezes.
-Remembering Camille Patha.
-The painting can't give the viewer anything
unless the viewer has something to give the painting
and can emotionally connect.
And if you haven't got anything in your little soul,
you're not going to get anything out of the paintings.
-And music from singer-songwriter
Kevin Charles Murphy.
♪ If you ever really want me gone ♪
♪ I'll sail out on a song ♪
-And we'll begin with Gage Academy of Art's
groovy new digs in the South Lake Union neighborhood.
♪♪
-Our belief at Gage is that artists are made, not born.
What that means to me is that anyone can be an artist,
and we're here to take you on that journey
and to help you with that very first step,
whether it's learning how to hold a paintbrush,
all the way to, you know,
going and pursuing a professional career
as an artist.
♪♪
-The reason I came to Gage is because I felt Gage was unique
in that we were teaching foundational level skills
and making those skills accessible
to anybody who wanted to try them.
♪♪
-Gage was founded 35 years ago
by a husband and wife team, Gary Faigin and Pamela Belyea.
They started from a basement studio in their home
to a couple different locations.
They moved about 20 years ago
into the Saint Nicholas building
next to Saint Mark's Cathedral in North Capitol Hill.
That was a great home for many years.
It was a charming location,
but it also had its challenges as it was nearly 100 years old.
And so Gage knew that they needed a next step.
And we were fortunate to work with Amazon
and be able to custom build this space
specifically for our artists.
♪♪
-The whole process of designing the space
was really iterative between the search committee
and the architects.
It's very sort of designed back and forth as a concept.
What did we need from the space
and how do we best want to have it flow?
-It was really a process of getting to know
the folks at Gage, understanding their program.
What are their ideas about how people learn?
What are their ideas about transparency?
Do you want this to be really visible?
Do you want this to be insular?
They're one of the best clients that we've had
because they were such good communicators
about what they wanted.
-There were definitely moments where the architects
worked very closely with our core faculty,
walked the building, talked about all kinds of details,
from lighting to sinks
to measuring out the spaces for the students.
One of the things I really love about the space
is there's art everywhere,
and the way that it's displayed, too,
shows that it's not just about a final product,
it's not a museum.
It is an active art making space.
So art is propped up against the wall.
We are changing exhibitions.
It feels very active.
♪♪
We're excited that we are part of
this whole South Lake Union campus.
It's a really burgeoning neighborhood
and to make art more accessible in people's daily lives.
And here in South Lake Union,
there are seven bus lines
that practically take you to the front door.
-The opportunity that this building provides us
is to be engaged in a larger, say, tech world,
but also in a much more vibrant,
and I would say diverse world than the one that we have been,
up on Capitol Hill.
I'm looking forward to the interactions
that we're going to be having with people
who work upstairs or across the street.
I feel that that helps us to do one of Gage's core missions,
which is to have the skill sets,
the foundations are necessary and important,
and to make them relevant,
we bring them to modern technology and modern questions,
and that's how we create a new type of thing out of here
that I don't even know what's going to happen.
And that's great. That's the best thing we could have.
-We work with students from
7 years old to 97 years old.
Art becomes a really important part of their personal journey.
We put the screens away.
You're very intentional in what you're doing.
It's a time to slow your thinking down,
and that can be so important to our ability to relieve stress.
I can't tell you how many stories I hear
about people coming to Gage
and finding out that it was more than just
learning how to paint or draw.
It really was about, you know, deep self-actualization.
And that's just really heartening to know
that we can be part of that.
♪♪
-Learn more about Gage Academy of Art,
including their full offering of classes,
at gageacademy.org.
Yuri Kinoshita designs light fixtures,
but the structures that she creates
are more accurately described
as exquisite sculptural installations.
♪♪
-[ Speaking native language ]
♪♪
[ Speaking native language ]
♪♪
[ Speaking native language ]
♪♪
-See more of Yuri's work at yurikinoshita.com.
♪♪
Kevin Charles Murphy, a founding member of the bands
Moondoggies and Small Paul, is also an outstanding solo artist.
So here is Kevin performing "When You're Young"
from the stage at Conor Byrne.
♪♪
♪ When you're young, you think you're better off ♪
♪ Standing down on the sidewalk ♪
♪ Just letting people take you in their arms ♪
♪ 'til you find they won't carry you on ♪
♪ Carry you on ♪
♪ Smoke is burning too slow ♪
♪ The people outside are ready ♪
♪ To go ♪
♪ We'll finish this another time ♪
♪ You got yours and I got mine ♪
♪ Love sleeps deep in a tired ♪
♪ Room ♪
♪ Nestled like a baby in her womb ♪
♪ This burning out feels a lot like love ♪
♪ It keeps you struggling ♪
♪ With the could haves ♪
♪ Hell, I think that you're better off ♪
♪ You got yours and I got mine ♪
♪ When it all was not enough ♪
♪ We'll finish this another time ♪
♪ All that's gone ♪
♪ I've been moving on ♪
♪ From that sad song ♪
♪ And all it's gone ♪
♪ This burning out feels a lot like love ♪
♪ And keeps you struggling ♪
♪ With the could haves ♪
♪ When you're young, you think you're better off ♪
♪ Standing down on the sidewalks ♪
♪ Just letting people take you in their arms ♪
♪ 'Til you find they won't carry you on ♪
♪ Carry you on ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Thank you.
♪♪
-Small Paul plays the Freakout Festival
on November 7th
and at the Clock-Out Lounge on November 30th.
And the Moondoggies play their annual holiday shows
at the Tractor Tavern, December 13th and 14th.
Camille Patha, a renowned Northwest artist,
was a force to be reckoned with.
Her bold and dynamic paintings reflected her equally bold
and dynamic personality.
So here, in loving remembrance,
is "Camille in Color" by filmmaker David Wild.
-It's a need. I have a great need to make art.
I can't explain it.
All I know is, it's a desperate need.
♪♪
A painting can't give the viewer anything
unless the viewer has something to give the painting,
and can emotionally connect with passion
and a kind of sophistication and a depth of knowledge
and hurt and love and passion and longing.
All those things are in each painting.
And if you haven't got anything in your little soul,
you're not going to get anything out of the paintings.
I'm not going to tell them what to think.
The paintings have to stand on their own --
when I'm alive now and when I'm gone.
I make paintings because they're waiting for me.
♪♪
I'm not getting older. [ Laughs ]
I'm the best I've ever been.
I don't want to be a Northwest painter.
I don't want to be known as a Northwest artist.
The purples are fabulous.
And the blues are adequate.
Color has a voice, and it's not an audible voice.
There's no words, but it talks to you.
And it leads me. I follow my nose.
Oh, look at that there. Off I go.
This one is really gorgeous,
but it's really hard to make it work with anything else.
Colorist is a person that is very aware of color,
and color doesn't baffle them.
It intrigues them.
And they -- they hunt it down ruthlessly.
And they seek the relationships. and what it'll do.
A color really isn't a color
until it's next to another color.
Oh, my God, look. [ Gasps ]
This is gorgeous.
God. Look at the orange.
See? Look at that.
These are two complementary colors.
I never wanted to admit I had a favorite
'cause I thought that was pretty mundane.
But I have a favorite.
Oh, this is my favorite of the whole bunch.
Of all the colors in the whole world,
in the whole bloody world, I'm afraid to admit,
that's my favorite one.
That damn magenta.
My favorite machine in the world is a trolley on Capitol Hill,
and it's magenta.
It's a beautiful, smooth, magenta,
sleek, beautiful thing, and it moves down the street.
First time I saw those trolleys.
I stopped in my tracks and said, "Oh my God."
♪♪
Think of me this way.
Every time you see me, think that this is on my face.
Are these fluorescents
or are they just strong color?
-There are some fluorescents there.
-Are there? -There are --
-Hot pink and -- yeah. -Yeah.
-Like a --
All the fluorescents are the bad boys of color.
I love them. I love them, love them.
They're the greasy, the macho men in beautiful clothes.
They are mmm.
-That's, anything that's fluorescent
Is gonna be like that.
-The reason I'm not painting on this video is
because there's nothing they can learn --
about the secrets of my art --
when I'm painting, because all the secrets of my art
are inside.
And you can't see inside of me.
Yes.
Yes, all my pieces are sensual -- not erotic --
but all of them are sensual.
Everything I've ever done.
I trick the eye by visually putting one color
or one space in front of the other space.
And it's a thing I don't mean to do,
but I love it when it happens, and I know when it happens.
And so, you take the space, for example,
you think this space way back here is deep
'cause dark is always for the back.
We know that.
And then you have something lighter,
but then all of a sudden,
it's just a stupid piece of board, you guys.
And all of a sudden, it's not flat.
It's got depth to it.
All of a sudden, you go way back in here
and all of a sudden -- boi-oi-oi-oi-oing!
Bring you right back up, front and center
with that light color --
Pop! There it is.
And then, I can push you over there
to get you way back in there,
I can drag you along.
I can make you come almost forward, but not quite.
And, oh, God, look. It's transparent.
I'm going back into it. Oh, I'm being sucked in!
Oh, no. I'm back.
No, I'm falling back way deep into it again.
And now I've come up forward and oh, I'm out, I'm out, I'm free.
Oh I'm falling through again.
And then you're into the depths and into the black.
And you're in a space.
It's actual visual places in space.
But we all know it's just a stupid board.
Yes, lovely.
Oh my God, I want to make a great big one, you see?
Yeah. Huh. -Nice and huge.
-Yeah.
Two exactly the same size would be great.
Watch the --
The things that you don't know are the most intriguing
because then you can make up what you think it could be,
or there's an unending joy
in finding what it actually means,
or what it could mean,
or what it never did mean and might.
You're getting a lot of information out of me
that I've never verbalized before,
because painters don't have to.
They paint it. They say it that way.
See? Complicated as hell. Have a jellybean.
Quit talking about 'em and have one.
♪♪
Find my pastels?
-Oh, yes. -Good.
Ooh! My flowers.
We need to photograph those two big ones
and the two small -- oh, it's three small ones.
I've always kind of been outspoken.
As a young woman, that's forbidden, you know.
Young man, it's okay.
You can't live in the past
because you're living in the present,
thinking about the past,
then what good is that doing to you?
It is my life, my breathing in and out right now.
That's what it is. It's all about that.
That's all there is.
Now.
I don't want it to stop.
I want it all to be as exhilarating and as exciting
and as colorful and as filthy, chalky, messy as it can be.
Love it.
♪♪
It's remarkable to be alive.
Breathing in and breathing out is remarkable.
♪♪
-And that's a wrap.
Big thanks to ArtX Contemporary for hosting us,
and a reminder that
Tejiendo Historias/ Weaving Stories
runs now through Saturday, November 16th.
And thanks to you for tuning in.
Until next time, we hope that you will get out there,
try something new,
and experience the awesome power of art.
We'll see you soon.
-One more happy, sad song which is, uh,
meant for rooms like this.
Science has proven that sad songs make you happy.
So here's another happy song.
♪♪
♪ If you ever really want me gone ♪
♪ I'll sail off on a song ♪
♪ Hold it close and sing along ♪
♪ Sing along ♪
♪ Guess I'll have to find a way to carry on ♪
♪ Feels so wrong, try to be strong ♪
♪ Try to be strong ♪
♪ These feelings that just come on ♪
♪ It all feels so wrong ♪
♪ That's when the bottom comes along ♪
♪ You know how much I hate goodbyes and seeing you cry ♪
♪ Here I am wondering why I ask a lonely night ♪
♪ I still dream ♪ No.
No, F-ed up this one.
This is a new song, by the way.
-Whoo! [ Clapping ]
♪♪