This month, we are off and running with so much more to discover - I hope that you all are taking in the budding branches and new angle of the sun as the unstoppable force of new life we get to look forward to each day.

Sending up a shout-out to our sponsor Formula Brewing, an undeniably perfect hang out spot in these early spring days. The outdoor, no-frills beer garden has plenty of shade seating when you need it, food to keep the littles happy, and space for the dogs. All this and some of the best beer you’re going to find!

Tip: We’re working on making this newsletter short enough to not be clipped in your email. Thanks for your patience. In the meantime, try clicking the “Read Online” link in the top right corner to make sure you don’t miss the good stuff towards the end.

Special Announcement: Calling all Teaching Artists!

Do you teach music or art in King County?

For an upcoming newsletter feature, we’re gathering information on teaching artist pay and are seeking input on the range and types of compensation available around the region.

Our goal is to bring some daylight to the options, and show the pros and cons of different types of pay models. Your feedback can be entirely anonymous. This survey is open through the month of April.

Take the five minute survey here.

Special Announcement: Art Class Giveaway at the new Issaquah Spring Thing!

Coming to Gilman Village April 24-26 is the Issaquah Spring Thing, a choose-your-own-adventure, self-styled weekend of fun for the whole family. This festival includes creative workshops, restaurant and retail adventures, swag bags, and a whole lot of festivity.

And for the folks looking to learn something new from an amazing teaching artist, we are happy to be giving away two free workshop tickets ($250 value)!

Happy Time’s own Blayne Fox (alcohol markers) and William Cook (linocut printmaking) are offering classes, as well as other talented local artists Adia Mei Jun Bobo (wire jewelry), CD Lucas (nano ariums), and Liz St. Andre (cyanotype).

All paid subscribers to the Open Studio Newsletter will be automatically entered into a drawing. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, but have been thinking about it, now’s your chance! You will also receive access to discounts at ongoing Happy Time workshops as well as the full audio interviews we publish each month for behind the scenes looks at the local artists in our midst.

Upgrade to a paid subscription by 11:59pm on April 12th to be entered into the Spring Thing drawing.

Artist Feature: Working Artists Raising Kids

For some of you, this piece is going to hit really close to home. If you fall into this subset of artists who are also raising kids, the sense of isolation can be a heavy weight, piled on top of the ordinary crush of being a parent. Ask me how I know.

For everybody though, if you are looking for some inspiration on how to work through what feels like impossible constraints, these are your people. It is life’s toughest challenges that are also the source of our strength, and humor.

Audio Interview: Sarah Miller, Creator of Show Your Art

Here’s a short clip about this month’s audio interview:

To hear the full interview, become a paid subscriber for $5-6/month.

General FAQ:

WORKING ARTISTS RAISING KIDS:

A CONVERSATION WITH LAMECCA BOSTWICK, ROSE MCMAHILL, AND WILLIAM COOK

By Katie Clary

Parenthood is messy. Creative work is messy. How do you attempt to do both - and survive?

We spoke with three local artists about their experiences raising children and continuing—or discovering!—their art as mothers and fathers.

William Cook: On the Early Years

For 15 years, Cook was a working musician and songwriter who sang and played the double bass in Spoonshine, the Anacortes-based alt-bluegrass band. “Music was the center of my universe. Everything else revolved around that,” he says. 

When the band needed artwork for an album cover in 2012, they hired local printmaker Drew Christie, and Cook found himself hooked on this visual art form. 

“Ali’s best friend from college is also a printmaker, and she recognized kind of the strange passion for that weird niche of art making. So she encouraged it and helped me figure out how to get started.”

(Full disclosure: Yes, the Ali sending you this newsletter is the same one who is married to Cook.)

Soon, he was checking out shelves of library books and watching YouTube videos on linocut techniques, as well as figuring out how to sell his prints. 

He says the switch from music to visual art happened naturally. After their first child was born in 2015, he took a pause from touring: “Once my son was born, it made it super easy to be like, ‘You know, I'm not going to book anything for a while.’ And that turned into forever.”

As a stay-at-home parent, he learned early on to lean into naptime for creative work. “I had a good two, maybe three hours a day, divided in the morning and in the afternoon.”

In a more advanced technique, he perfected the art of bouncing his children with his foot in a BabyBjörn rocker chair while carving a linoleum block with his hands. “My foot moves naturally all the time to the beat.”

Now that their kids are older, Cook says it’s been rewarding to see creativity take root as a family value. “They don’t think twice about spending an entire day working on an art project or a Lego project.”

In recent years he discovered a new and challenging passion: oil painting. For Cook, the intense learning curve, the materiality and process, all relate closely to printmaking. But even with the kids in elementary school, the clock is still ticking over his shoulder.

“I’m aware that I need to be at the bus stop still at a certain time,” he says, of balancing the artmaking process with the domestic litany of groceries, laundry, dishes. “I think a lot of it comes down to discipline and motivation. You have to really want to do it because, if you want to do it, you’ll figure out a way. Even if it’s spending 10 minutes a day or half an hour a week,” he says. 

Though he concedes with gallery work, having a spouse or co-parent in your corner is a big help. “Going to art shows or having an art show or going out to make connections and network requires you to be there in person,” he says. “And that can be really challenging when you’re raising kids and you have bedtimes.” 

Over time, he’s learning to trust the journey. 

“I’m better at the concept of accepting that I get the time that I get and to try to be thankful for that and to have faith that I’m on my own path artistically.”

Learn more about Cook’s work at www.williamcookprints.com

Note: “TO RETURN,” William Cook’s solo exhibit of prints and oil paintings at Happy Time Studio, is on view now through April 26. Come by for a visit or join in at the Artist Reception on Friday, April 24 during the Issaquah Wine & ArtWalk.

Rose McMahill: On the Formative Years

McMahill remembers driving with her parents in the car as a kid, listening to the Oldies radio station from the back seat. “So now I know all the ’60s and ’70s hits and that feels very valuable to me.”  

She hopes one day music by Ozzy Osbourne and Megadeth will give her son that same nostalgic glow. “I wanted him to have that same experience where he had some grounding in the classic metal years.” 

So far that isn’t panning out. “He likes video game music, but I think he’ll come back around.”

As the rhythm guitarist in Girls N’ Roses, an all-female Guns N’ Roses tribute band, McMahill has scheduled music into her working life. She practices nearly daily, rehearses with bandmates weekly, and performs monthly. 

She joined her first band in her early 20s, and has continued as a musician into motherhood. 

“I made a point of keeping it in my life, and it especially became important after having my son,” she says. “I really like having that structure in my life, so that’s been a huge plus for me.”  

She calls it socially lucrative, “in the sense that you have these scheduled get-togethers that you know you’re going to be able to go and hang out with your friends and do something productive and really get something out of it and then go play these shows once in a while.”

At first she worried that she would be the one cancelling band rehearsals, but that hasn’t been the case. Her daytime job as a paraprofessional in the Issaquah School District means her evenings are usually free for music, while her bandmates without children often work as servers or bartenders, or are juggling unpredictable music gigs.

Her strategy has been to build a system—and when she starts rebelling against her system, she knows it means she’s bored. 

“I do get derailed and it’s usually when I am just tired of working on specific things,” she says. “Throwing something new in there will get me going again.”

Her husband is a percussionist in a brass band, so they support each other and take turns. Her parents also live close by, which is useful when he wants to attend one of her shows—typically after bedtime for their 4th grader. 

“It’s important to me that my son sees me practicing,” she says, of the 30-plus minutes she tries to log each day. “I want him to see that it takes work.”

He plays drums, like dad. 

Learn more and listen to Girls N’ Roses at www.girlsnroses.com

Note: See Girls N’ Roses live at Bar 211 in Bellingham on April 25 and Southgate Roller Rink on May 1.

LaMecca Bostwick: On the Later Years

As the oldest daughter of six children growing up in Philadelphia, Bostwick was caring for kids long before she became a mother herself. “My sisters always sketched and drew, so I would buy them supplies. My kids are artistic. I would just encourage everyone else, and then to myself, I was like, ‘Well, I’m not the talent, I’m the director.’”

But in 2021, an art supply store in Edmonds held a watercolor postcard challenge that caught Bostwick’s eye. The postcards reminded her of the years she served in the Coast Guard in her early 20s, when on three-month and six-month deployments she and others would swap postcards from different ports of call. Her tour even took her to the Arctic and Antarctic. 

“I’d been wanting to dive into art again as an adult,” she says. “So I started there and I’ve experimented with everything, so, acrylics and oils and mixing those medias and collage.”

The year before, she’d had a hysterectomy, followed by a broken ankle—followed by a global pandemic that put the orthodontic office where she worked on pause, giving her time and nervous energy to burn.

She had always been a photographer, and watercolor gave her a new way to express that creativity. As the world opened back up, keeping a Winston & Newton travel set in her glovebox meant she could paint in whatever gaps of time she found between her career and raising two teenagers, then in high school. 

Three years ago, she enrolled in Shoreline Community College’s fine arts program the same year as her youngest child, and they tiptoed around each other, until one day she found a forgotten snack in the car. 

Smucker’s Uncrustable in hand, she stood at the classroom door, and her kid was delighted to see her.

After that she stopped worrying. They were classmates, and their art degrees gave them a shared vocabulary for meaningful conversations. 

“We ended up taking some classes together and it was one of the most beautiful, fulfilling things,” she says. “We were able to critique each other. Our art styles are different. We were two different entities. We loved our instructors. Our instructors loved having us in classes together.”

Last year, she committed to art more seriously. After being accepted into the flagship cohort of artists-in-residence at the BelRed Arts Studio, she signed a six-month lease to continue in her space. At 50, she is working as a full-time artist. 

“I’m immersed in art and there’s no concept of time.” Her studio has become her happy place. 

“My kids respect and they know where I am. Thankfully the train is right outside,” she says. “I feel like they like me more—I’m not going to lie.” 

As an empty nester, she says her schedule is more open for painting, but she also made time for art when her days were jammed. The secret, she says, is having a small project to keep your hands moving. Keep the creativity flowing, so when you do have larger blocks of time, you’re not starting from zero. 

“Absolutely any person at any point in their life can immerse in their creativity, whether they have an immensely packed schedule with family or with work. I’ve done homework assignments on my lunch break with joy,” she says. “Treat it like candy at the end of the day.”

See what Bostwick is working on over at Instagram: @lamecca.rose

Note: Meet LaMecca Bostwick on April 24th at Happy Time Studio, where she’ll be hosting a live painting demo during the Issaquah Art & WineWalk.

ATTEND A LOCAL EVENT

WORTH A ROAD TRIP

In this issue’s interview, Sarah Miller shares her observations about trends in the art space that she has gleaned from several years of thorough “Show Your Art” community outreach. One of the takeaways she noted is that venues in Tacoma were less interested in participating than she expected. Sarah thinks maybe it has to do with the idea of including Tacoma as part of the “greater Seattle area.”

We’re not going to enter the “Seattle versus Tacoma” debate, nor are we going to try to compare them. At all. Truly, they are simply two different cities. Near enough to impose a choice, certainly, but who are we to judge?

OK, we’ll judge a little…if only just to say this: Get Thee to Tacoma!

Plan your trip for May 1 and 2, during Tacoma Wayzgoose, a printmaking, letterpress, and book arts gathering at the main library branch in Tacoma. This is a singular opportunity to meet other folks working in these mediums, make your own works, experience new tools and techniques, and simply revel in the love of all things paper and printing.

If you want to keep the flow going, visit the Tacoma Art Museum for exhibits like “The Abiqueños and the Artist,” exploring indigenous and non-indigenous relationships to the incredible land of Abiquiú, New Mexico, best known as the home of Georgia O’Keeffe, and “Finding Home: The Chinese American West,” honoring lesser-known stories of immigrants in pursuit of the American Dream. You’ll also find artist talks and workshops that are free or pay-what-you-can, such as "Button Making” and “Art Alternatives to Doomscrolling.”

One of Tacoma’s greatest marvels, the 100-year-old coffee pot that contains a bar and music venue, is most certainly worth a visit. Known as Bob’s Java Jive, this venue is, well, a sight to behold. Live music and bar food, it’s surely one-of-a-kind. Well, it’s a little bit like the “Big Duck” of Long Island, if you were to walk into the duck and find a music venue.

Like similarly-sized Boise or Spokane, Tacoma is a city rich in history, and full of places to discover. Getting around is easier, costs are lower, and there is so much more to do than you can cover in just one day. Luckily, it is very close by!

LOCAL SPONSOR HIGHLIGHT

ASK A GRANT EXPERT

Dear Grant Expert,

How do I know if I need to hire a grantwriter? When is it worth the investment?

-If I Had $1,000,000

In my experience, artists tend to be susceptible to the lure of DIY culture. And we all know - from living through it - that it brings us some of life’s greatest and most wonderful surprises.

Mostly, though, it comes from a sense of necessity; we’re often working alone and with little to no resources. But in the grip of an idea, we cannot resist the urge, no matter how far-fetched or impractical it may seem.

This is the predictable brew of imagination, obligation, and ego that propels us all along on our creative journeys. It’s hard to know where to draw the line.

And this is how you end up on the hamster wheel of grant applications for art projects. If only it were as predictable as a hamster wheel, though. It’s more like a game of whack-a-mole, on a rollercoaster, in the dark. It’s opaque drudgery. It has a way of helping you clarify your ideas that you don’t necessarily want to admit. It feels patronizing in that way.

The truth is that there are decent opportunities everywhere for artist grants, for individuals, community projects, nonprofits, and for-profits. We live in an area of immense wealth, and our civic agencies, despite their flaws, provide a lot of support to the arts community.

It’s always a bit of a maze to review eligibility and fit for each possible grant. And more and more, social media algorithms are blithely distorting the landscape. If you click or even pause scrolling on funding opportunities, your feeds will start showcasing posts and prospects that are un-vetted and seemingly everywhere. Beware.

Artists and DIY-ers chronically undervalue their time, which ironically, is usually their biggest resource. If you go at it without some organization and due diligence, you’re just flushing your precious time down the toilet.

So how do you choose the right opportunities? How do you leverage the little time you have toward your worthy goals?

The answer is simple: you can get organized yourself, or you can pay someone to organize for you. Two to five hours of help from an experienced grantwriter in your field of work would be more than enough to set you up with an 18-month sketch of grantwriting plans and timeline ideas. It’s up to you to consider if that’s worth it to you, and at what cost.

When it comes to writing a grant, you can write it without gathering input from a trusted source, or you can gather input from a trusted source. Your trusted source could be someone you pay, or it could just be someone who is invested in your success and has the skill set to give feedback. This would be another two to three hours of work. If you hire someone to write an entire grant, and if they do it right, it is more like a six to ten hour project, depending on the details.

A grantwriter who is experienced in arts grants will offer you all these things. Be wary of someone without expertise raising money for smaller arts projects, and be wary of someone who offers a flat package deal without learning the particulars of your situation. You may be spending more than the help is worth in those circumstances.

Let’s review some of the imagery sprinkled throughout this piece: lure, grip, ego, drudgery, patronizing, maze, toilet. All this is to say, don’t go into grantwriting blind, or you’ll come out gasping for air. Focus on your work, what you aim to accomplish, and what you want to invest in order to achieve those goals.

Oh, and ask for help when you need it. Easier said than done?

In Solidarity,

Ali

Have a question about fundraising? Submit it here.

ARTIST LISTINGS:

Did you know?

There are hard-working artists and makers all over the place who are trying to get your attention. We’re going to show you some.

Please visit our website to learn more about how to be included in this section!

MAKE MORE ART!

THERE ARE A LOT OF PUBLIC GRANTS OUT THERE

WANT TO SHOW YOUR ART?

Show Your Art is a unique and amazing resource for emerging artists. You won’t regret taking the time to explore their offerings, which now includes 200 artist-friendly venues in the second edition and also a brand new interactive map!

GET DISCOUNTS TO ART AND MUSIC CLASSES

We can now offer a 20% discount off of up to three classes per year at Happy Time Studio!

To be eligible, all you need to do is become a paid subscriber to the Open Studio Newsletter. The discount can be used at any in-house art class, and for the deposit for the 12-week music classes.

You may use this perk once per calendar year, or, if you subscribe for a full year, you can use it up to three times in a calendar year.

Upcoming classes where you could use the discount:

LOOKING FOR MORE EVENT CALENDARS?

BelRed Arts District - The ONLY arts-focused calendar for the Eastside! Take a look and add your events!

Visit Issaquah - Issaquah’s most comprehensive collection of goings-ons, arts and otherwise.

King County Libraries - So many types of free arts events all around the county! Our libraries are amazing.

LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES?

Upasana Dance Academy - Seeking visual artists, set designers, and prop builders for “Bhishma, The Eternal Vow,” a large-scale multicultural theatre production based on the Mahabharata.

The Original Theatre Black Dog - A professional quality nonprofit theatre company, performing on the Eastside and in Seattle for 40 years, the Original Theatre Black Dog is seeking volunteer Board members with skills in fundraising, marketing, accounting, bookkeeping, grant managing, writing and operations.

Want to post here? Email [email protected].

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: