A Wonderful Exhibition Celebrating Seattle’s Living Artist Community

What does it mean to be an artist? The ability to draw and paint? Simply having the desire to make art? Whatever your definition of being an artist, you may or may not include the criteria that they need to be alive. That’s understandable—the masters are the masters for a reason, and you don’t need to stop appreciating your favorite Monet or Van Gogh painting. But, as the Living Artists Collective’s founding inspiration asserts, we should “support artists while they are alive; the dead ones don’t need your money.” Here, at Magnuson Park Gallery, we want to see Seattle’s very present art community grow and thrive.

This past two months, the Magnuson Park Gallery has had the pleasure of collaborating with the Living Artist Collective (LAC) in presenting 23 pieces by 21 different local visual artists in the exhibit: “Support Artists While They Are Alive”. Pieces were drawn with graphite and colored pencil, assembled with tin pieces, sculpted with epoxy clay and resin, and painted in acrylic, watercolor, and oil (just to name a few mediums utilized by these artists). The variety of mediums is closely tied to the variety of subject matter covered, which ranges from “the mystery of human emotion and behavior” (Joselyn Narvaez) to “the conflict between the joy of creation and the often painful experience of trying to make art into a career” (Jess Ray) to “the ideas of dying and legacy” (Moon Pelton).

In a time where the world can feel less and less connected, it is the candid, vulnerable connection from art that we need the most. While our “Support Artists While They Are Alive” exhibition has since closed, if you find that you want to support LAC and experience some of the art featured in this exhibition, you can purchase The ‘Big Pond’ LAC Interview Zine, available on the livingartistscollective.com website! It has interviews with 11 amazing local Seattle artists. Or if getting a zine doesn’t interest you, you can check the website out for a comprehensive digital catalog.

Click below to listen to an interview with Alaina Stocker, the Executive Director of Living Artists Collective on our podcast, The Magnuson Park Gallery Exchange.

The gallery will be closed from October 19 - November 1 to prepare for our next exhibition, Small Works by the Artists of Building 30 West, opening November 2. Please join us for an opening reception on November 18 from 2-5 PM and our Building 30 West Open Art Studios event on December 2 from 12-4 PM.

Blog post contributed by Chantelle Ma, Gallery Intern

Video provided by Tatyana Kurepina