♪♪
-Hi and welcome to the show. I'm Nancy Guppy,
coming to you from one of Seattle's premiere art venues,
the Century Ballroom, which will be closing for good this spring.
Now, of course, we are sad to lose this beloved institution,
but we are also grateful and want to celebrate all the ways
this gorgeous space has served our community
for the past 28 years.
[ Traffic rumbling, horns honking ]
♪♪
-What makes this space special
is actually something I can't even --
I don't even know how to say it.
It is the soul of this space. It's the people who come here.
It's the energy that is in the space when you walk into it.
-Yes!
♪♪
Our goal was to have the most diverse group of people
coming together to learn dance.
I like to meld the gay and the straight worlds together.
I just want people to come together over dance,
which I think is just -- dance and music brings us together.
When they come into the space, the first thing everybody says,
"Oh, wow." We don't make spaces that are this elaborate,
that are this beautiful.
So it feels like you're kind of walking back in time.
It was built in 1908.
It was an Oddfellows building until probably about 30 years ago.
The thing about this room
that makes it unique is all of the work
that surrounds the balcony.
So there are lion's heads, they're all plaster,
they have light up light bulbs in the lion's mouth.
We still have the original chandeliers.
So you see a lot
of the original Oddfellows building architecture.
♪♪
Clearly the best thing about it is the floor.
It's about a 45 by 45, 45 by 50 dance floor,
plus extra room to be sitting around.
You can see where people have danced.
You can see where the teachers teach in the middle of the room,
where the people surround the teachers,
around the outside of the room, where people's favorite place
to dance is in front of the stage,
just year after year, what has happened to the floor.
So for me, it's history.
♪♪
This type of space is important because it's an art space,
and I think the more that you lose art, you lose your soul.
But in terms of spaces that are for a community,
that it's the people who have walked through this space
over the years, that call it home.
It's been meaningful to people over 28 years
and it brings people together.
And this is a beautiful place to come together.
♪♪
-For the full schedule of century Ballroom's final events,
go to centuryballroom.com.
We've got a great show for you, including --
Seattle Opera's hair, makeup, and wig master.
-As soon as I made this wig, I thought to myself,
I bet the director is going to want her to have
lights in that wig.
And it was like one of the first things he said to me,
"Hey, can you put lights in her wig?"
I was like, "Yes. Yes, I can."
-Remembering Ginny Ruffner --
And music from Whitney Mongé.
♪ And alright, yeah ♪
♪♪
-And we'll begin with the Seattle based artist
and marvelous human being, the one and only Fay Jones.
-When I have a brush in my hand,
I feel as though I'm in the right place somehow.
That it's not that nothing can go wrong
because everything can go wrong.
And that simply doesn't bother me.
I think one of the best things about working as long as I have,
doing sort of the same thing every day,
is that it's -- there are only few moments
when things are totally blessed by the muse.
It's so out of your control.
Oops. I'm actually at my best when things are going wrong.
♪♪
My name is Fay Jones and I'm a painter,
and I have been a painter for a long time.
I've been told that I'm a narrative painter,
and I think that's fairly accurate.
Painting has become my basal metabolism.
It's part of what I need to do.
And I will be 88 in June, and I'm fine with that.
But I also can't quite believe I've reached
that point in my life.
This -- it's just the idea of being my age and feeling
that I'm fading in some way.
Not in a bad way, that you feel invisible.
Guess I'm addressing the issues
of being an almost 88 year old woman.
How's that? [ Laughs ]
This is a photograph of me as a very young child.
It's 1937, so I would have been a year and something.
I'm the oldest of six children.
I've always been able to spend a lot of time by myself.
I think I'm a master of staring into space,
and I feel extremely fortunate that I grew up in a generation
where that was perfectly all right.
If you finished your schoolwork,
you could just look out the window.
I read a lot as a child,
and I also drew a lot as a child from a very young age.
And I wanted to be an artist, but had no idea what that meant.
When I went to art school,
I was 17 and I got into Rhode Island School of Design.
I was able to be completely self-centered for four years.
It was great.
Then I got married at the end of the fourth year
and by the time I graduated, I was pregnant.
We moved to Seattle from Providence, Rhode Island in 1960
with two children and a basil plant. [ Chuckles ]
And my husband had a job teaching
at the University of Washington.
I got out of school in 1957,
and I didn't actually exhibit until 1970.
So I painted very small, because I had four children.
The maximum dimension of my paintings
at that time was probably 15 inches.
I took over the biggest room in our house
and started painting paintings
that were at least six feet tall.
So, everything changed.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
-Well, this is studio e gallery.
Our current exhibition is a collection
of new monoprints by Fay Jones.
Being an inhabitant of the city of Seattle,
there's no way that I would not have known
who Fay Jones is as the artist.
Fay is probably our most important painter in the region.
Her imagery is known by people who don't even know her name.
Fay's work is in the subconscious
of a lot of people in the area.
♪♪
-I think I have a habit of recycling certain images.
That figure, and this was 34 years ago,
the gambler image I'm still working on 34 years later.
Those are probably the first two that I did.
The rabbit for me is a humorous symbol of fecundity.
I love the monkeys. [ Chuckles ]
They're funny and we're related to them.
The donkey is a beast of burden.
And I've always sort of felt with a donkey was, in a way,
sometimes being a woman, it's like being a donkey
or in a way, a beast of burden.
I'm not sure I'm a feminist,
but the alternative is unthinkable.
At some point,
I realized I didn't have to prove anything.
You know, I didn't have to prove that I knew what I was doing
from the beginning to the end of a painting.
I used to feel you had to cover up your history.
♪♪
I realized the history is part of the painting.
-You know, often there's a shadow of
where that arm first was drawn or where that,
you know, angle was.
Or maybe this thing that was masked out.
You can leave that -- she leaves the trail because I think,
in her words, the path is as interesting as the destination.
And you can see it here.
I mean, look how many donkey legs this has. [ Laughs ]
♪♪
-It's really how I process whatever's coming in.
I think I am best suited to
sort of taking it out on a piece of paper.
Ah, good. That's a relief. [ Chuckles ]
It has to come from inside, you know.
That's the hard thing to explain to people.
Better. [ Laughs ]
♪♪
Ten years ago, I painted small watercolors
that were based on still photographs
of Jean Renoir films.
And I always wanted to make a big painting of it.
Unlike a lot of other work that I've done,
I've had someplace to go every day.
I really wanted to paint this painting.
So I gave myself an assignment.
You hear writers say, "I'm not going to write anymore."
Some do and some don't.
It's just possible that one day you'll wake up and say,
"That's it."
Something happens, and there you are.
You're back in the studio and say...
I don't know what I'll take up when I decide I can't do it.
Maybe I'll try knitting again. [ Scoffs ] I don't know.
♪♪
-See more of Fay's work at studio e gallery
in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood,
and online at James Harris Gallery.
♪♪
[ Singing opera ]
-Seattle Opera checks all the boxes.
Exquisite orchestral music,
the incredible beauty and range of the human voice,
and dramatic and epic storylines.
But there is one aspect to this timeless art form
that doesn't always get the attention it deserves.
The artistry that goes into hair, makeup, and wig design.
♪♪
-I'm Ashlee Naegle.
I'm the wigs, hair, and makeup manager and designer
at the Seattle Opera.
My grandfather got me into loving art
and he took me to my first opera.
It was a little theater that he took me,
and I saw "La bohème," and after I saw that,
it just changed my world,
and I started loving opera.
I started in Seattle Opera in 2007 as an intern,
and then I worked my way up to this position,
and this has been my dream position forever.
Since I was a little kid.
I design the wigs and the hair and the makeup for the shows.
I also am in charge of making sure
that I hire all the crews that are needed.
I'm in charge of building the wigs
and just making sure that the overall look
for the hair and makeup
looks cohesive to the rest of the design.
It is really fun at times,
really exhausting at times, because, you know,
this is the entertainment business.
There's a lot of different personalities.
-I am the star. I'm the star!
[ Laughter ]
-Most of the personalities are really sweet, really genuine.
You get to see people at their most vulnerable,
and you get to see people at their best.
[ Singing opera ]
I changed your look a tiny bit,
'cause I wanted to make it a little bit more Nosferatu.
-Yeah. -You'll have the chin,
you'll have a nose, and then you'll have your ears.
Okay.
[ Clicking tongue ]
-Sorry, I'm doing that. [ Ashlee laughs ]
-So this program is called procreate, and in it,
I can put all of the singers faces and digitally put makeup
and build wigs and prosthetics on their faces.
So we have Queen of the night,
and then we have our Tamino, and then we have our Pamina,
and then we have Sarastro.
And everybody in the chorus
is going to look like him at one moment.
[ Singing Opera ]
-So, today we're going to be wrapping your head
in Saran wrap, and then
we're going to draw your hairline and your eyebrows.
And with your wig, you'll have some flecks of gray in it.
Yeah, just let me know
if you get a little claustrophobic.
Being that intimate with somebody,
we are in their face all the time.
You really get to know people. So it's really nice.
You kind of act like a psychiatrist. [ Laughs ]
Do you prefer beards over the ear or above?
Yeah. -Why not?
-Yeah. -And here, glue.
-Yeah, and then glue. Let me see.
When it comes to hair and makeup,
if it's good, you don't even notice it.
If it's bad, it's the first thing you see.
You don't want something to look wiggy.
You don't want them to say, "Oh, I know that he's got
a prosthetic there, prosthetic there.
He's got this."
You want it to look as clean and natural as possible.
♪♪
A lot of times, whenever you put a wig on a performer,
you automatically see their face and their expression
and even their body language change into that character.
It's so fascinating because it's --
it's like you're putting their armor on
and they're becoming that persona,
as soon as they see the wig all done,
even before the makeup is on.
I've had people break down in the chair
because they just felt so beautiful.
And, um, those are always the best moments.
One of the wigs that I am fond of
was actually on the cover of Opera America.
It was for "Das Rheingold," and as soon as I made this wig,
it had a big old cage.
And she walked out and I thought to myself,
"I bet the director is going to want her to have
lights in that wig."
And it was like one of the first things he said to me,
"Hey, can you put lights in her wig?"
I was like, "Yes. yes, I can."
So then the next day I put some lights in there
and then she walked out on stage and she lit up.
And then she was on the cover of Opera America.
It still brings me joy every day.
Sometimes exhaustion, sometimes I'm super stressed.
But I still love it.
I still love that it's ever changing.
This is something that I wanted to be
when I was very, very young.
And the fact that I'm here is huge.
♪♪
-See Ashlee's spectacular creations
in Seattle Opera's production of "The Magic Flute,"
opening Saturday, February 22nd.
Ticket information is at seattleopera.org.
♪♪
Washington native Whitney Mongé,
a talented singer songwriter,
moved to Nashville in 2020, where her career has taken off
with live performances and brand new recordings.
So, to celebrate Whitney's ongoing success,
here she is from 2019 performing "Be Mine."
♪♪
♪ One, two, three and alright yeah ♪
♪ Do you wanna get high ♪
♪ Do you wanna get low ♪
♪ Do you want some, some something to fill that hole ♪
♪ You're lookin' for lovin' ♪
♪ Well, I got you ♪
♪ You're lookin' for some, some, some, something to do ♪
♪ You can call upon me baby ♪
♪ Yeah just about anytime ♪
♪ So maybe, maybe, maybe maybe you'll say that you'll be mine ♪
♪♪
♪ I got sugar in my body ♪
♪ I got sugar in my soul ♪
♪ But the first I'd ever saw ya Was the first I'd ever known ♪
♪ That it was love Ah yes it was ♪
♪ You know it's true ♪
♪ Can't stop thinkin' 'bout you ♪
♪ You can call upon me baby ♪
♪ Yeah just about anytime so maybe, maybe, maybe ♪
♪ Maybe you'll say that you'll be mine ♪
♪ Talk to me now ♪
♪♪
♪ My fever is burning ♪
♪ It's burning me down to the core ♪
♪ Tonight is the night I say what I never said before ♪
♪ I think I love you I think I do ♪
♪ I think I love, love, love, love, love you ♪
♪ I think I love you I think I do ♪
♪ I think I love, love, love, love, love you ♪
♪ I think I love you I think I do ♪
♪ I think I'm so, so, so in love with you ♪
♪ And I think I love you I think I do ♪
♪ I think I'm so, so, so in love with you ♪
♪ Wow And ah, yeah ♪
♪ And alright ♪
♪ And oh, yeah yeah yeah yeah ♪
♪ Do you want to get high ♪
♪ Do you want to get low ♪
♪ Do you want some, some something to fill that hole ♪
♪ You lookin' for lovin' Well, I got you ♪
♪ You lookin' for some, some, some, something to do ♪
♪ Well, you can call upon me baby ♪
♪ Yeah, just about any time ♪
♪ So maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe you'll say that you'll be mine ♪
[ Applause ]
-Alright!
Thank you.
-Follow Whitney's performance schedule
and download her latest recordings
at whitneymonge.com.
♪♪
We want to take a moment to remember Ginny Ruffner,
a dynamic and delightful artist who died January 20th, 2025,
at the age of 72.
♪♪
Ginny was known for her glass and metal sculptures,
big and small.
That gigantic flower pot at Seventh and Union
in downtown Seattle is her creation and
her work is in numerous private collections and museums.
Jenny's curious and inquisitive mind led her
to embrace cutting edge technology
that resulted in an exhibit
at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
and to "Project Aurora,"
a permanent installation at Seattle's National Nordic Museum.
Ginny's art, zest for life, and fabulous head of curly hair
made her a singular figure in Seattle's artistic community.
We miss her deeply and will love her always.
♪♪
And that's a wrap!
A heartfelt thanks to Century Ballroom for hosting us,
and to the wonderful owner, Hallie Kuperman
for 28 glorious years.
And thanks to you for tuning in.
Until next time, we hope you get out there,
try something new,
and experience the awesome power of art.
We'll see you soon!
[ Raul del Moral Redondo's "Dentro Del Ama" plays ]
♪♪