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News & ArtsFriday, March 19, 2010
Visual Art Currently Hanging: The Wonderful World of Mr. Washington's House (A Photo Essay)
Posted by Jen Graves on Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 11:04 AM
Last night I visited the most amazing museum in Seattle you've never heard of.
Come in...
- This is the house where James and Janie Washington lived for decades. It's less a house and more a maze-like campus. He was an artist, mostly a stone carver. She was a nurse. He made art and worked against racism all his life.
- The living room has been converted into a museum display.
The museum's always free and open by appointment (web site with full info), but there's a special occasion this weekend: It's free and open today and tomorrow noon to 7 pm.
- During Washington's life (1909-2000), this 1904 lithograph depicting a slave auction—the selling of an older gentleman dressed in the suit of a butler—hung in the artist's studio next to the proud African art he collected. Now it hangs the same way in the living room.
Not everything is so organized. You run across things like this everywhere.
- Found in the basement on top of a stack of boxes.
- This dilapidated cart is chained to a gnarled tree in the yard.
- As they restore the place, the Washington Foundation workers are discovering little, unfinished sculptures everywhere—like this one. Just digging them up.
- In the backyard are piles of granite Washington intended to carve.
- The Foundation hosts artists in residence, and these are by the current artist, Charles Parrish.
- This ain't no New England artist colony: The artists in residence work in Washington's former studio, an unheated shed/garage full of antique tools.
- Nature is growing into the studio!
- Tim Detweiler is the Foundation's first full-time, permanent director. He's standing in the basement, showing a newly installed slide cabinet showing Washington's work.
- Another part of the basement in the main house is an incredible library of books about black life, politics, and history.
- Archives include Washington's unpublished autobiography.
- The Foundation needs money, which is part of why it's open this weekend: There's a sale going on, of locally made (and totally affordable) art. This piece (I wish I'd written down the artist's name), a print on a map of Green Lake, is for sale with lots others like it. Half the proceeds go to the artists and half to the Foundation.
GO! The place is just full of cool.
3
Jen,
That sounds totally cool. I'll check that out. Meanwhile, I was recently in my hometown of Chicago and came across these two jewels of that grand city rarely visited. The city's oldest library, the T. B. Blackstone Memorial and the statue "The Republic" by Daniel Chester French featured at the World's Fair or Columbian Exposition in 1893.
That sounds totally cool. I'll check that out. Meanwhile, I was recently in my hometown of Chicago and came across these two jewels of that grand city rarely visited. The city's oldest library, the T. B. Blackstone Memorial and the statue "The Republic" by Daniel Chester French featured at the World's Fair or Columbian Exposition in 1893.
5
Exemplary of a life well lived. I'm my opinion not given nearly the amount of recognition truly deserving for a man of his caliber.
7
Not impressed...
Is it great art because the art stands on it's own merit or is it art because the artist was black and fought racism? If you're basing it on the magazine covers and unfinished doo-dads, and prints (of other artists work) laying around then I can say, no, I'm not impressed. If this is a great art museum then any old house could be called a great art museum...
You want to see a artists house that IS a museum (as it should be) go visit the house of Antonio Gaudi in Parc Guell... Barcelona, Spain.
http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/e…
Is it great art because the art stands on it's own merit or is it art because the artist was black and fought racism? If you're basing it on the magazine covers and unfinished doo-dads, and prints (of other artists work) laying around then I can say, no, I'm not impressed. If this is a great art museum then any old house could be called a great art museum...
You want to see a artists house that IS a museum (as it should be) go visit the house of Antonio Gaudi in Parc Guell... Barcelona, Spain.
http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/e…
8
@7: You would probably not be saying this if you had ever held one of his pieces in your hands. They are incredibly beautiful and gratifying to handle. It feels like you found a small wounded animal. But dismiss away, I guess.
9
Do credit artist Tim Fowler, he's the genuine article: http://bit.ly/aF9hU4
And check out his fence--it's Seattle's answer to Gaudi's cathedral.
And check out his fence--it's Seattle's answer to Gaudi's cathedral.
10
@7: Mr. Washington's artwork does stand on it's own merits and is in collections ranging from the SAM to the Smithsonian. He was also an important figure in Seattle's civil rights movement. The foundation and house are there to celebrate and preserve both legacies.
The house is also full of very cool "doo-dads". Tim Fowler's print is "laying around" there because it is part of the sale mentioned in the caption. I encourage you to check it out. Perhaps Mr. Washington's art is not to your tastes but maybe you can gain a better understanding of what the foundation is about.
The house is also full of very cool "doo-dads". Tim Fowler's print is "laying around" there because it is part of the sale mentioned in the caption. I encourage you to check it out. Perhaps Mr. Washington's art is not to your tastes but maybe you can gain a better understanding of what the foundation is about.
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