The Washington Foundation - New & Information

DR. JAMES W. W ASHINGTON JR. & MRS. JANIE ROGELLA W ASHINGTON FOUNDATION CULTURAL ARTS

O O O

COMMUNITY & CREATIVITY

NEWS & INFORMATION FROM THE FOUNDATION BOARD

Volume 3

P

Issue No. 1

P January/February 2021

The Washington Foundation wishes you a Very Happy New Year 2021 holds great promise for the Foundation. A promise of new energy, exceptional opportunities for collaborations, resuming programs and activities and some expansion of programs and activities; all exciting and energizing experiences. The Washington Foundation is ready to resume our ONE Carousel of an adventure. We invite you to ride with us and to invite your friends to join us. We envision everyday as a day to celebrate what James and Janie entrusted to us to care for, to share, and to grow and we want you to be a part of the celebration.

First, however, on behalf of The Foundation, thanks so much for your continuing support, financially and otherwise, during 2020; a year of challenges beyond our belief. Due to the rapid spread of the Coronavirus , all activities and programs for the most part were discontinued. There was almost no activity at the house for the entire year. Thanks to your thoughtfulness, you continuing support and donations kept our maintenance and utilities working. In addition, an unsolicited grant from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, we were able to keep our Artist(s)-in-Residence Program alive. We engaged five artists, working individually and collaborative using the theme, Revisioning - What color is COLOR. Their work is complete and now in the process of being digitally documented with January/February 2021 as the debut date. The grant also allowed us to do some interior improvements.. We thank the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.

My 2021 Director’s theme is again simply ONE. The goal is outreach to ONE Million individuals with response from ONE Million: dollars, friends, in-kind, and etc. We begin 2021 by asking each of you to contribute a minimum of $1.00 or more and to invite your circle of friends to contribute $1.00 each or more. This may seem ambitious; but we believe it is achievable. We are ready to resume our ONE Campaign..

Thank you Rev. Dr. Linda M. Smith, Pastor, SKY Ministries, Renton for being the first to give in 2019 . Help us make this happen. How will we use ONE Million Dollars? The Washington house was 100 years old August 2018 and there is lots of work that needs to be done: Interior and exterior improvements, upgrading, restoration, including the detached studio and storage shed, the landscaping and greenhouse.

Call us . . . . . 206-709-4241 Washington House . . . . Thanks so very much Rev. Dr. LaVerne C. Hall, Executive Director To the Friends of the Dr. James W. Washington Jr. & Mrs. Janie Rogella Washington Foundation (The Washington Foundation) e invite you to join us our 2021 Journey. You are welcome and encouraged to work with us as we move forward into our goal of ONE MILLION: Dollars, in-kind, time or a combination of all three. We invite you to become a Member of our DIRECTOR’S ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN. With your help, here’s how we begin: outreach to One million people, each giving $1.00 or more and asking each of your friends to give $1.00. This can be done. Each of our board members have given their $1.00 and more and are now asking their friends to “Please give $1.00 to the Washington Foundation. You may even give $1.00 per month or more, whatever you wish. We are just asking for the minimum of $1.00. Let’s unite as ONE and make this happen for Dr. James W. Washington Jr. & Mrs. Janie Rogella Washington.

OUR WASHINGTON FOUNDATION THEME CONTINUES INTO 2021 AS ONE . . .

W

Mrs. Elma Horton Board Chair

BOARD MEMBERS - Jessie Attri, Monette Hearn, Carmen Jones, Edwin Morris, Henry Smith, Jim Yearby Rosemary Young, Glen Youngblood Page 1

JAMES W. WASHINGTON, JR. Artist, Sculptor, Poet, Seeker of Truth 1909 - 2000

V

isionary artist James Winston Washington, Jr. is one of the most celebrated sculptors from the Northwest. He received much acclaim for his sculptures during his long life and now his early paintings are being rediscovered after his death. Washington’s close friends remember him as an orator, an educator, a poet, and an artist who tried to make visible the connection between spirituality and creativity.

Washington migrated to Bremerton, Washington in 1944. Although the state of Washington now claims him, the Mississippi-born artist was actually part of a larger migration of southern blacks seeking war industry work on the West Coast. Once here he set roots in the state working in a variety of government jobs while continuing his artistic pursuits in the evenings and weekends.

Washington’s motivation and confidence is evident in his visit to the Little Gallery in Seattle in 1945 where he met the gallery owner and asked for a show. Impressed with the small painting he brought with him, the owner agreed to show his work and introduced Washington to one of Seattle’s artistic luminaries - Mark Tobey. The older artist, also spiritual in orientation, forged a life-long bond with Washington. Through Tobey, Washington was befriended by many other artists. With Mark Tobey’s encouragement and Washington’s self-confidence led to a successful life in art.

Although he had no formal training in art, Washington appears to have been practicing his craft for a life time. In a 1952 Seattle Times article Washington recalls being in grade school in the south and seeing another boy draw a cowboy. Washington remembers he spent months trying to draw the same picture and from then on his passion was art. Most of his life Washington worked a nine-to-five job to support himself and his wife Janie. His free time was spent doing art.

ONE OF THE IMPERATIVES FROM THE LAST WILL & TESTAMENT OF Dr. James W. Washington Jr. & Mrs. Janie Rogella Washington

! We leave you a mandate to encourage others to explore their creativity.

AUGUST 2020 The Dr. James W. Washington Jr & Mrs. Janie Rogella Wasington Foundation Board is excited and pleased to accept with much thanks, funding from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture for funding The Foundation’s 2020 Artist-inresidence Program.

We are equally pleased to announce the 2020 participating artists. They will render new work, individually and collaboratively, relative to the theme . . . . . ReVisioning - What color IS color.

Due to the challenges associated with the Coronavirus into our communities, locally and nationally, display and celebration of the artists and their creativity will be determined at a later date.

Rev. Dr. LaVerne C. Hall, Director # Mrs. Elma Horton, President Board Members Jessie Attri, Monette Hearn, Carmen Jones, Edwin Morris, Henry Smith, Jim Yearby Rose Mary Young, Glen Youngblood

# #

SPIRIT

#

STONE EARTH

PAGE 2

ESTHER ERVIN has a BS in biology, with credits from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon and an MFA in Medical Illustration. She evolved into a mixed-media artist with works covering a range of materials and subjects, including jewelry and works for exhibition and installation.

She acted as the director of the James Washington Foundation for four years, implementing capital improvements; hosting artists-in-residence, youth programs and tours. For these accomplishments, she was selected to receive the “Living Legacy of Phenomenal People” award by the Central Area Chamber of Commerce. She was awarded an Artist-in-Residency at Pratt Fine Arts Center and at the James and Janie Washington Foundation, where she focused on broadening her artistic skills and knowledge.

Esther has been in numerous group exhibitions in California, Oregon and Washington and has had five solo shows. All of her pieces are one-of-a- kind and completely hand-crafted. Two such works were juried into the 2017 Beijing International Jewelry Exhibition and shown in Vilnius and Palanga, Lithuania and later in Legnica and Gdansk, Poland. She has 18 3-D pieces installed at the Liberty Bank Building on 24th Avenue and Union Street.

These are 4 etched glass canopy panels, 11 concrete and tile benches and 3 bronze salmon sculptures in a water feature. She was also project coordinator and financial manager for the entire artistic project. While consistently generating and exhibiting her art-jewelry and mixed- media works, Esther has curated over 50 exhibitions and been on local selection panels and juries in and out-of-state.

CHRISTINA REED is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptual work explores social, political and cultural issues. Grounded in historical research and through her own background of social justice engagement, Reed draws source material from American history, documentary and her own photography, and the media to address issues of race and oppression.

Reed’s work aims to prompt a discussion on race by engaging the viewer in social justice reflection and conversation that leads to understanding and creating sustainable pathways to racial equity. She believes that art can be the bridge between conversation and action; the catalyst for empathy, engagement and change.

Reed received a BFA in painting from University of Washington School of Art, studying with seminal teachers, Jacob Lawrence and Michael Spafford. And has studied and collected research at New York City’s Arts Students League, Seattle’s Pratt Fine Arts Center, NYCs Schomburg Center for Research and Seattle’s James W. and Janie Washington Foundation.

Reed has been recognized for her mixed media prints and installations, with grants from King County 4culture, Seattle Print Arts and Pratt Fine Arts Center, and is a recipient of the 2018 Larry Sommers Fellowship. She exhibits in Solo, Invitational and Juried regional and national exhibitions. Her next Solo exhibition, whose working title is, Inside/Out: Decentering Whiteness will be held at Seattle Central College’s M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery in April 2021.

EVE SANFORD is a multi-discipline artist and arts educator. A transplant from Chicago where she has worked over the past 19 years teaching art for Chicago public and charter schools and various community centers, museums, and programs throughout the city.

Eve’s educational philosophy moves her to facilitate creative experiences that engage students in the exploration of self, community, and purpose. As an artist, often her work takes form in jewelry, photographs, paintings, and installations.

She explores identity, vacancy, and healing through a primarily autobiographical lens. Eve is an alumna The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in Arts Education and an MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University. She currently serves as the Director of Programs for Pratt Fine Arts Center.

Page 3

ERIN SHIGAKI was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, where she recently returned after many years on the east coast, studying and working in design and art education.

Her homecoming has paved a path for public art commissions and grants to create work that is community based and focused on the experiences of communities of color, often the World War II incarceration of her community.

Erin is passionate about highlighting similarities between that history, the inhumane detention and family separation immigrants face today, and other systemic injustices black and brown people continue to face. She is keen to explore intergenerational trauma and the emergence of beauty and intimacy despite harsh circumstances.

Erin’s work also examines the act of reclamation: of land, language and culture. She believes that using art to tell stories about these moments can educate, redress wrongs, and incrementally heal. Erin is also a community activist, and helps run an annual pilgrimage to Minidoka, the American concentration camp where her family was incarcerated. She is also a part of Tsuru for Solidarity, a nonviolent, direct action project of Japanese American social justice advocates working to end detention sites and support front-line immigrant and refugee communities that are being targeted by racist immigration policies.

CAROL WILLIAMS Born in Topeka, Kansas, she grew up on a military base and went to German schools until she was 11 ½. At which time she and her mother settled in Tacoma, Washington. Carol graduated from Mount Tahoma High School, went to the Evergreen State College, was an Upward Bound student of 4 years. After graduating from college Carol was accepted as a Vista-Americorps for one year in Seattle’s White Center neighborhood working with young single mothers of Head Start students get jobs and get into school. Carol had her first group exhibit at the Seattle Central Community College Gallery in 1990 when she attended Seattle Central College, it was a community college. Her second group exhibit was in 1996 at the Evergreen State College; her work was acquired and catalogued into The Evergreen State College’s (TESC) video art library and showcased into the TESC student anthology book. A Seattle-based, interdisciplinary artist, her work engages audiences in conversations about social, environmental and racial justice. Throughout her practice, she contends that the only way to shift race relations and understand climate change is through collective imaginings and re-imaginings of equitable relationships to the land, animals and resources. Williams’ aesthetic forms fall, swim, fly, drip and grow through various layers of reality, spirituality and data analysis. Her narrative installations reject the tidy, toxic logic of scarcity models, suggesting powerful alternatives in collective storytelling, collective ownership, collective re-valuing of biospecies and collective commitments to sustainable environmental practices over time.

While in residence at Seattle University Williams created 2 dynamic art installations that included prints, paintings and sculptures made of primarily recycled or reused materials. - Seattle University, Hedreen Gallery 2019. Carol earned a 4Culture Conductive Garboil Award (2018), an Artist Residency AADK Spain (2018), a 4Culture Artist Community Grant Award (2017) and was accepted to Seattle Office of Arts & Culture’s Public Art Boot Camp (2018). She is the owner of K-Love 4 Art, co-founder of both Race & Climate Justice Art Collective and ARTifACTS, and the Co-Executive Director at Community Arts Create. She was recently accepted in the Environmental Leadership Program, a year-long national fellowship to support emerging leaders in environmental justice.

Page 4

A SPECIAL INVITATION . . . Please join our 2021 ONE Million Dollar Charter Contributors. Yes, your contributions are tax deductible. They will allow the Washington Foundation to broaden community outreach and collaborations . . . they will help us continue our Washington Young Laureates Program, restoration of the Fountain of Triumph, expansion of the Artist in Residence Program to include writers, begin planning for the Washington Teen Consortium and rotating exhibit schedule at the Washington House, restoration of the backyard greenhouse and front and back landscaping, and more.

Just give us a call at 206-709-4241 for more information.

We resume our ONE List and encourage you to let us add your name . . .

Rev. Dr. LaVerne C. Hall, Exec, Dir. Mrs. Elma Horton, Board Chair Jessie Attri ! Monette Hearn ! Carmen Jones ! Edwin Morris ! Jim Yearby Rosemary Young ! Glen Youngblood Mr. Anon Patricia & Jerome Butler

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE paypal.me/jwwjrw1816 Check/Money Order The Washington Foundation PO Box 22952 Seattle WA 98122

2018/2019 activities included Washington Young Laureates in collaboration with the Seattle NAACP-ACTSO Program, our Washington Annual Garden Party in May; expansion of the Artist in Residence Program by including two writers, Henry Smith and Tamika Moseley, The Path of Sculptors at the Frye Museum in collaboration with author Nancy Penrose; student tours, the Little Free Library located in front of the historical 100 year old home of the Washingtons; building community with the Bellevue Youth Symphony, Wing Luke Museum, and other community organizations; Neighborhood historical tours; and a celebration in November remembering Dr. Washington on the anniversary of his 110th birthday.

2021, we will continue with the 2018/2019 activities and programming, fund raising, Artists in Residence new exhibit, the renovation of the Washington Estate, the making of a Cornerstone Memorial and working on the ONE Campaign.

Yes, we have lots to do and welcome your participation in any way that you would like to contribute.

We are ONE . . . . We invite you to join us.

Page 7

The Washington Foundation • PO Box 22952 • Seattle WA 98122

James Washington with friend Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Circa late 1950s California

.

VISION OF THE WASHINGTONS’ Through the art, philosophy, and life stories of Dr. and Mrs. Washington, the Foundation endeavors to illuminate the bond between creativity and spirituality by emphasizing the universal wholeness seeking expression through everything. This wholeness, synonymous with what we mean when we say God, has the power to bring stone to life. # # #

Depository for his collections - art and books A setting [the home, studio, and gardens] where one can grow beyond the book, spiritually and artistically A desire to share his legacy with the public

For Information, questions, comments, and contributions contact Dr. James W. Washington Jr & Mrs. Janie Rogella Washington Foundation (The Washington Foundation) 1816 26th Avenue P PO Box 22952 P Seattle WA 98122 206 P 709-4241 P jwwfoundation@gmail.com P www.jameswashingtonculturalcenter.org Facebook P James and Janie Washington Cultural Center

OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER ! KEITH W ILLIAMS, FLYRIGHT PRODUCTIONS