The young musicians of Seattle JazzED’s Girls Ellington Project are inviting community members to an evening of improv and live music on Tuesday, March 15, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the Royal Room in Columbia City.
The free event is geared at empowering “women and nonbinary people within the wider jazz community to be seen and heard,” the group said in a press release. “Femme instrumentalists and vocalists that wish to jam will be welcome on stage” to join the all-girl high-school jazz band and other Seattle musicians.
This year, Seattle Asian American Film Festival (SAAFF) celebrates its 10th anniversary with virtual features as well as select in-person screenings at the Stonehouse Café and Northwest Film Forum. As their second year online, SAAFF will feature over 100 short- and feature-length films, documentaries, animated films, drive-through, and in-person movie screenings. The festival is running March 3–13.
Christina Reed began her art journey in the 1960s when she started weaving and making textural pieces of art. After having children, she attended the University of Washington School of Art and earned a B.F.A. in painting. There she studied alongside artists Jacob Lawrence and Michael Spafford, who significantly impacted her understanding of art and activism. Decades later, those themes are deeply present in her current exhibit at Seattle Central College. “Reckoning” dives into the interconnection of racism and whiteness and calls for audience members to undermine it.
Pongo Poetry Project’s mission is to engage youth in writing poetry to inspire healing and growth. For over 20 years, Pongo has mentored poetry with children at the Child Study and Treatment Center (CSTC), the only state-run psychiatric hospital for youth in Washington State. Many CSTC youth are coping with severe emotional, behavioral, and mental health challenges. Approximately 40% of youth arrive at CSTC having been court ordered to get treatment; however, by the end of their stay, most youth residents become voluntary participants.
Pongo believes there is power in creative expression and articulating one’s pain to an empathetic audience. Through this special monthly column in partnership with the South Seattle Emerald, Pongo invites readers to bear witness to the pain, resilience, and creative capacity of youth whose voices and perspectives are too often relegated to the periphery. To partner with Pongo in inspiring healing and relief among youth coping with mental and emotional turmoil, register for Healing Verses, its National Poetry Month celebration!
THE BOWL OF WORRIES
By a young person, age 14
Discharge I’m nervous Because of Covid I don’t want to get Covid after I’m discharged the first week of December
Entering into a new world is to be reborn, become brand new, fresh. One can be content in their own world, unwilling to take on new experiences, while others enter new atmospheres effortlessly.
Music has the ability to assist you on your healing voyage, and South End singer-songwriter Unapologetically Jason’s new album To New Worlds does just that. It was like landing on a planet that I’d never encountered, yet it still seemed so familiar. It felt almost oxymoronic.
Stage left: A towering three-story glass window frames a humble apartment. With dark grille lines that form a grid within, the window slopes inward and lets in iridescent rays of orange, yellow, and blue from the outside. Inside, we are in the attic apartment of four roommates: visual artist Marcello, poet Rodolfo, philosopher Colline, and musician Schaunard. Their apartment is sparse, with accouterments of art — music stand, easel, books — and of survival: a fire. Art and fire interact when we first meet Marcello and Rodolfo, who lament over the incessant cold and burn some of Rodolfo’s writing to keep warm.
The article that was previously published at this link titled, “Muralist Henry Luke Brings Community Stories into Public Art,” has been removed at the request of the subject.
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Thirty years ago, a poet from California moved to Seattle and sought out a group of fellow African American writers. Randee Eddins, a poet, had been a part of similar writing groups elsewhere but couldn’t find an established group here, so she decided to bring one together herself. In February 1992, the group, Seattle’s African American Writers’ Alliance (AAWA), held their first annual reading at Elliott Bay Book Company’s previous Pioneer Square location.
Lamarr Thompson began making his own clothing back in 2006 when he was in high school. He says that at the time it wasn’t super fruitful, but by 2015 he started his own brand: “Quickstrike.”
During the pandemic, Thompson, Toebyas Wilson of the clothing brand “requiem,” and other creatives, sought a physical location to centralize their brands, which they had been operating remotely up to that point. Their brainchild, AISLE 4OUR, a collective that has their own retail and creative space and photo studio located on Rainier Avenue, will celebrate its grand opening this Friday. Feb. 25, to Sunday, Feb. 27.
The annual Washington State Zine Contest is open for submissions to be postmarked from Feb. 25. The contest is sponsored by the Washington Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress and a partnership of the Washington State Library and The Seattle Public Library. Zines are short-run, self-published magazine collections of writing and art. Submissions can be authored by anyone who lives in Washington and can be about any topic.
