Best Bets for the 2015 - 2016 Cultural Arts Season

Maybe it’s because of the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, but art is part of the air we breathe. Although the Seattle Art Fair was a contributor, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more exciting year for art in this area. Have you ever noticed the tremendous number of neighborhoods, for example, with art walks? Not just places with a few galleries, but, increasingly, you’ll see a neighborhood sponsor an art walk by placing art on the walls of businesses in the area and then publicizing their “art walk.” Type www.seattleartblog.com in your browser to see all the art walks posted each Monday, and you’ll see what I mean.

You can see some fabulous museums in New York, London and Paris, but our museums in the Pacific Northwest hold their own. Standouts in our area are the Seattle Art Museum and the Tacoma Art Museum, but each of our smaller museums makes a big contribution in their own particular fields. If you want to understand the diversity of the people and cultures here, you really need to see them all! Listed below is a sample of upcoming exhibits of special interest in the next few months.

The Seattle Art Museum puts on several exhibitions each year, so you should look them up on the web to get a full list. On view from October 1 through January 10, 2016 is Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art (from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC). The collection is considered to be the jewels of one of the finest collections of French Impressionism in the world.

SAM has a substantial permanent collection also. For example, Europe Imagines the East, an ongoing exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, deals with the relatively recent history of the ballooning trade with the Orient in the 17th and 18th centuries. The impact that trade had is very much with us today in art, furniture, fabrics and much more.

If your interest is in Chinese, then you must visit the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park. The exceptional Chinese collection was started by Dr. Richard Fuller, the founding director of the Seattle Art Museum, in the early 1900s.

The only museum in the area to concentrate on arts and crafts is the Bellevue Arts Museum. Camp Fires: The Queer Baroque of Léopold L. Foulem, Paul Mathieu and Richard Milette, on view from November 6 through February 14, explores the concept of “Camp” as manifested in the works of three important francophone Canadian ceramic artists: Léopold L. Foulem, Paul Mathieu, and Richard Milette.

Running through January 31, 2016 at the Frye Art Museum, located at 704 Terry Avenue in Seattle, is Favorites: The Frye Founding Collection. The Frye is Seattle’s only free museum in Seattle thanks to the largesse of museum founders Charles and Emma Frye.

The Nordic Heritage Museum, 3014 NW 67 Street in Ballard, is the only museum in the United States dedicated to legacy from the five Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland. Showing through November 8, is Keep Clam and Carry On: The Ivar Haglund Story.

The Henry Art Gallery, on the University of Washington campus, is devoted to contemporary art, boldly showcasing the new and different. Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, also located on the University of Washington Campus at the north entrance, features the fifth largest collection of Northwest Coast Native Art in the United States.

The Museum of History & Industry, located at 860 Terry Avenue N. at the south end of Lake Union, is definitely the place to discover both old and new Seattle.

For Dale Chihuly fans, Chihuly Garden and Glass is open to the public at the Seattle Center. It is here that you can see how Chihuly’s work evolved over his long career. Chihuly, like no one else, has succeeded in putting glass from our region on the world map. The Tacoma Art Museum has a permanent exhibit of his work.

Painted Journeys: The Art of John Mix Stanley, a leading 19th century American artist, will be on view from January 1 through May 30, 2016 at the Tacoma Art Museum. Running through November 2015 is the inaugural exhibition of the Haub Family Collection of Western American Art. The Haub collection is among the top 12 in the United States in this genre. Tacoma Art Museum is the only museum in the region featuring a Western American art collection of this caliber. Works from the collection span more than 200 years, from Gilbert Stuart’s Portrait of George Washington, circa 1797, through today, including work by contemporary and Native American artists.

Showing at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma from September 13 through May 15, 2016 is Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace: Every Soil Bears Not Everything. The collaborative team of Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora C. Mace are also pioneers of early contemporary glass and were close colleagues of Chihuly and Morris, often trading skills to develop signature works. This exhibition highlights the bodies of their work.

Museum of Northwest Art, located north of Seattle in the picturesque town of La Conner, is possibly the only museum in the state devoted exclusively to Pacific Northwest artists. Their growing collection includes over 2,500 contemporary art objects from the early 1900s to the present day. Museum admission is free.

Just south of the Canadian border, Bellingham is home to the Whatcom Museum and more Pacific Northwest art as well as American art from the middle of the 19th century to the present.

For a complete list of all galleries in Western Washington, check out www.artguidenw.com on the web or look for the hard copy in a museum or gallery. For daily art information, log onto www.seattleartblog.com or on Twitter at @ seattleartblog where I post current openings along with pictures and a blurb about the shows. I hope you enjoy visiting the museums and galleries in Washington. Trust me when I tell you they will be glad to see you. Enjoy!

“The Hot Sheet” – Selected Theater and Musical Events

This is only a sampling of upcoming cultural events in the Seattle area from September 2015 through March 2016, provided by VisitSeattle. com, Seattle’s official visitor center, www.visitseattle.org

• Marymoor Park Summer Concert Series, through September 19, www.marymoorconcerts.com
• Summer Theatre Festival, INTIMAN Theatre, through September 27, www.intiman.org
• Matilda The Musical, The 5th Avenue Theatre, August 18-September 6, www.5thavenue.org
• Bloomsday, ACT Theatre, September 11-October 11, www.acttheatre.org
• Annie, The Paramount Theatre, September 20-26, www. stgpresents.org
• See the Music, Pacific Northwest Ballet, September 25-October 4, www.pnb.org
• A View from the Bridge, Seattle Repertory Theatre, September 25-October 18, www.seattlerep. org
• Waterfall: The Musical, The 5th Avenue Theatre, October 1-25, www.5thavenue.org
• Earshot Jazz Festival, October 9-November 14, www.earshot.org
• Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue, Seattle Symphony, October 16-18, www.seattlesymphony.org

Mr. Burns, a post-electric play, ACT Theatre, October 16-November 15, www. acttheatre.org

The Pearl Fishers, Seattle Opera, October 17-31, www. seattleopera.org

Hallows in the Cathedral: Spirits Rising, Seattle Women’s Chorus, St Mark’s Cathedral, October 23-31, www. flyinghouse.org

Buyer & Cellar, Seattle Repertory Theatre, October 23-November 22, www.seattlerep.org

If/Then, The Paramount Theatre, November 3-8, www. stgpresents.org, http://seattle. broadway.com/

Emergence, Pacific Northwest Ballet, November 6-15, www. pnb.org

Come from Away, Seattle Repertory Theatre, November 13-December 13, www. seattlerep.org

The Sound of Music, The 5th Avenue Theatre, November 24-January 3, 2016, www.5thavenue.org

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™, Pacific Northwest Ballet, November 27-December 28, www.pnb.org

A Christmas Carol, ACT Theatre, November 27-December 30, www.acttheatre.org

Home for the Holidays, Seattle Men’s Chorus, Benaroya Hall, November 28-December 21, www.flyinghouse.org

Emma, Book-It Repertory Theatre, December 2-January 3, www. book-it.org

Disney’s Beauty & the Beast, The Paramount Theatre, December 11-13, www.stgpresents.org

The Book of Mormon, The Paramount Theatre, December 29-January 10, www.stgpresents. org

Disgraced, Seattle Repertory Theatre, January 8-31, www. seattlerep.org

The Marriage of Figaro, Seattle Opera, January 16-30, www. seattleopera.org

Mozart & Hayden, Seattle Symphony, January 21-23, www. seattlesymphony.org

Constellations, Seattle Repertory Theatre, January 22-February 21, www.seattlerep.org

Bullets Over Broadway, The Paramount Theatre, February 2-7, www.stgpresents.org, http:// seattle.broadway.com/

Romeo et Juliette, Pacific Northwest Ballet, February 5-14, www.pnb. org

Mary Stuart, Seattle Opera, February 27-March 12, www. seattleopera.org