Exciting exhibitions are coming to both Seattle and Tacoma this summer. I will begin with the Frye Art Museum and “Black Refractions: Highlights from the Studio Museum in Harlem.” (May 22–August 15). The Studio Museum has long been a nationally recognized anchor of culture of the African diaspora, led by a succession of dynamic curators and directors. Their permanent collection features benchmark artists from the last fifty years including people such as Faith Ringgold and Alma Thomas (a pioneering abstract artist from DC). The eighty artists in the exhibition are a who’s who of artists of African descent. Kenyan American Wangechi Mutu, one of the artists in the Studio Museum/Frye exhibition, created the larger-than-life bronze sculpture “The Seated IV” for a Metropolitan Museum of Art commission to temporarily fill empty niches on the façade. Amazingly it now stands on the UW campus in front of the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health on Stevens Way just east of 15th Ave. Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, Born Nairobi 1972), The NewOnes, will free Us: The Seated IV, 2019, Bronze 80 ½, x 33 3/8 x 36 ¾, (detail) in front of the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health on Stevens Way just east of 15th ave. Collection University of Washington, Gift of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Photograph: Susan Platt The queenly figure clothed in coils sits regally on a base. The large disc on her forehead, inspired by the lip plates worn by elite women of the Mursi tribe of Ethiopia, reflects and receives light and energy from the sun. SAM Curator Pam McCluskey called it “a perfect monument to the African DNA of our species on the planet, and how we need to balance our human instincts with celestial insights...” In its original setting, in the neoclassical niches on the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mutu redefined the burdened caryatid that held up a building. Now these women (we got one of four) are independent and in the world on their own terms. The Wing Luke Museum features Gerard Tsutakawa’s sculpture “Stories Shaped in Bronze,” starting on June 11. (He is the son of George Tsutakawa). We see many of Gerard’s public art works in Seattle. My personal favorite is Urban Peace Circle Memorial, 1994 in the I-90 lid park that I wrote about last spring. It is dedicated to children killed by gun violence. The Wing also takes on the impact of Covid-19 on the Asian community in “Community Spread How We Faced a Pandemic.” With anti-Asian violence escalating every day, this timely exhibition looks back at the roots of the disturbing wave of anger since the beginning of the pandemic. The just-released graphic novel We Hereby Refuse, by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura, illustrated by Ross Ishikawa partners with a new permanent exhibition at the Washington State Historical Society Museum in Tacoma “Remembrance, the Legacy of Executive Order 1066 in Washington State,” that opens on June 17. It explores the “intergenerational impacts and legacy of the incarceration of people of Japanese ethnicity during WWII as a result of Executive Order 9066.” Washington State Historical Society Museum also has initiated an exhibition on a groundbreaking topic! “Crossing Boundaries, Portraits of a Transgender West,” (May 29–December 12) explores the idea of moving west to free oneself from prior identities. While the term “transgender” did not exist until recently, curator Peter Boag author of Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past, explores the ways in which people freed themselves from gender norms as they went West. The exhibition explores the narratives of people who came into the public eye in newspapers between 1860 and 1940 with the themes “visibility, identity, acceptance, and history.” Peter Boag will give an online presentation on June 10. Perfect for the summer, the Seattle Art Museum exhibition “Monet at Ètretat” (July 1–October 17), features eleven paintings by Monet built around the museum’s only Monet Fishing Boats at Ètretat. Monet is a seductive painter, no question about that, and his Ètretat paintings featuring the famous chalk cliffs draw us in with their magic. The show also includes work by his contemporaries, videos, postcards and more. I wish I had more space to write about Seattle’s exciting creative events in literature, poetry, dance, opera, and film (for example the opera Flight filmed at the Museum of Flight!!). Pay attention to an edgy series of events called “Murmurations: A Seattle-Wide Arts Collaboration,” going on all summer. Some are already online, such as the radical trans everything Sadiqua Imam’s moving interpretation in the Frye Exhibition of Anastacia-Reneé’s (Don’t be Absurd) Alice in Parts. Anastacia-Reneé is Seattle’s current Civic Poet—you can also see her performing online. An upside of the pandemic has been the online interviews with individual performers that supplemented streamed performances. Now we know them as people, not just as distant musical geniuses. I particularly like the chamber music group Byron Schenkman and Friends for that reason. Finally, it was a thrill to go to Pike Place Market last Sunday and see real people having fun, poets performing (we heard Raven Saint Reeves), and Rick Williams, Eagle Son, an eighth generation descendent of the famous Williams Family, carving totems. I bought a small totem, and he gave me a bag of cedar carvings. Take a look at their excellent website at Williams Family Carvers (https://williamsfamilycarvers.com) to learn more and buy your very own artwork. ~Susan Platt, Ph.D. www.artandpoliticsnow.com

Katherine Keleher “Kate” Barber passed away in her sleep on May 10 at home with her husband, John, and rescued dogs, Oscar and Jax, beside her. She was life-partner to John since their wedding on April 29, 1967, dog-mother to many lovely pets, watercolor painter, urban sketcher, gardener, traveler, spinner and knitter, bicycle commuter, iPad painter, Electric Slider, information retrieval specialist/librarian, and inspiration to many friends. Kate was born on August 26, 1940, in Norfolk, Virginia. The family soon moved to the Beverly neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from Morgan Park High School, Knox College, and the University of Chicago. After finishing her master’s degree in library science in Chicago, she worked as a librarian for the American Library Association and the American Medical Association. In Seattle, she was librarian for the King County Medical Society for 35 years. As a watercolor painter her works were shown in exhibitions of the Northwest Watercolor Association, the National Watercolor Association, and the American Watercolor Association. She taught in Palo Alto at the Mobile Digital Arts Creative Summit. In her later years, she took to heart urban sketching, keeping many journals and attending international conferences. Samples of her paintings and sketches are in several textbooks, and on her Facebook page. A memorial service will be announced later. Donations in her honor are encouraged to Old Dog Haven, P.O. Box 1409, Oak Harbor, WA 98277-1409.

The Forest Service calls it poaching! Darrell Howe, Frink Park steward, tells us that someone dug up a trillium plant and stole it! One could see the marks of a spade but no trace of the missing plant. We are asking for donations to the Frink Park fund to purchase more trillium; make your check out to Leschi CC and put Frink Trillium in the memo line. It is hard for me to write about this kind of theft, having been brought up NOT to take flowers from anyone’s yard even if Mother’s Day was looming and Frink Park is the “yard” of all the citizens. We should all have the privilege of walking through the park and coming across one of these rare flowers in an unexpected spot. So, the thief has stolen from all of us! The following information from the Forest Service is in a category called “Ethics.” This is probably a lesson that our thief has never absorbed but it’s never too late to learn. “Unfortunately, the Forest Service is experiencing increased poaching of native wildflowers; even some that are listed as endangered species. Many people desire species that are not available commercially because these plants are difficult to grow or take too many years to reach maturity; and some people desire the rarest of the rare bringing those precious jewels ever closer to extinction. Consequently, some people are illegally removing wildflowers and other native plants from their natural habitats. In some cases, entire populations of a species have been stolen. There are four main consequences to this illegal activity: All living organisms need to reproduce. Digging up wildflowers, picking wildflowers, or collecting their seed will reduce a plant’s ability to reproduce and will adversely affect its long-term survival in that location; Removing wildflowers from the wild can adversely affect pollinators and other animals that depend on that species for food and cover; Removing wildflowers from our national forests and grasslands prevents other visitors from enjoying our natural heritage; and, Most wildflowers when dug from their natural habitat do not survive being transplanted. There are legal ways to collect native plants from national forests and grasslands that will allow their use but still sustain them for future generations. Remember, respect and protect wildflowers and their habitats, leave only footprints, and take only memories and photos so that future generations may enjoy our precious natural heritage.” ~Diane Snell

WaNaWari wins a headline again with five provocative installations. Carletta Carrington Wilson’s “Night of the Stereotypes,” in the kitchen, includes assemblages and a zine you can take home for $30. The artist summarizes the zine: “mammy and pickaninny embark, with a host of other stereotypical caricatures prevalent in the 19th and 20th centuries, on a journey to confront the image-makers and, especially, to demand a role in the portrayal of their likeness on the silver screen.” Watermelon-themed fabric hangs from the ceiling and over some of the windows. Wilson’s hand-made textiles and assemblages reframe the rampant stereotypes of slaves that pervaded products, cartoons, language, and above all, film. My favorite was “You ever think about owning your own home” a four-sided assemblage with references to the food served (heavy meals), songs, and slave caricature-kitsch embedded in small piles of cotton that fill the house. Carletta states: “Stripped of the ability to make themselves known as, not only historical but human beings, the African body, under enslavement became a surface upon which images, representation meanings and definitions were ascribed and imposed upon by their captors: Through the use of paper, pen, film, cloth and other materials countless objects populated a world of caricatures traveling further, wider a longer through and over time.” Filling the living and dining room and focusing on the black body in an entirely different way, dancer-photographer Shoccara Marcus created “Choreographing my Past.” Her extraordinary dance positions intersect and somehow remain isolated from the members of her family in her childhood home. Although she created the series in 2014, it perfectly speaks to today, as so many people have returned to their parents’ home to wait out the pandemic. Another nostalgic work upstairs by Mia Imani Harrison Good Mourning: A Collective Calls to Miss Annie, combines audio and video recollections of an exceptionally beloved black hairdresser, Miss Annie. It includes a handout with homages to black beauty products, poems by the artist and the narrative of the audio. This work generously shares a very private aspect of the lives of African American women. Also upstairs is the work of Lisa Myers Bulrush, just selected by the Northwest African American Museum to represent Seattle in a docuseries “The Story of Art in America”! Her exhibit at WaNaWari “Holding Patterns: The Memory Palace” includes altered books and collages that explore what the artist calls “Afro Futurist fantasy” that feature “Black people fleeing racism on earth.” Her intricate work has layers of references that take time to explore. The last installation by Kyle Yearwood, is also full of fantasy. Manipulated photography paired with animation creates compelling magic realism. Short videos suggest a dream world. In “Fueled by Love” hearts pour out at us, but the showstopper is “I heard the Black Girls in Baltimore can Fly” (until July 18, Thursdays and Fridays, open by appointment only. Saturdays and Sundays, drop-ins 10am–5pm 911 24th Ave). Galleries of Note Be sure to also visit our wonderful local galleries, often no appointment is required. Here is a selection: ArtXchange, one of my favorites, currently features a major retrospective of the work of Donald Cole “Precision and Freedom.” Now 90 years old, Cole’s work spans six decades from New York City in 1970s SOHO to the present. His work is mostly abstract, ranging from geometry to swirling colors. He also cuts up old work, as in this year’s glowing red painting Realaction. You can see more of his work online on the ArtXchange website and meet the artist Saturday, May 15th from 12–4pm. (512 First Ave South, Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–5:30pm, until May 22) I was fortunate to see the work of Gaylen Hansen this month at Linda Hodges, another stalwart gallery. Gaylen is now almost 100 years old! He lives on Whidbey Island, a stark contrast to his many years on the Palouse of Eastern Washington. His paintings now feature dense woods: his familiar alter ego “The Kernel” is barely visible among the trees. Traver Gallery (opposite the Seattle Art Museum 110 Union Street) had a deeply moving Preston Singletary exhibition, “Lifting Up from the River,” an homage to his father who died in November at the age of 80. In varied formats of blown and sand-carved glass, a poetic narrative began with a portrait of his father and continued through evocations of his life of fishing and his gradual transition to death. I explored the minimalist neon installation by Kelsey Fernkopf at METHOD gallery on the last day. Their upcoming installation by Hugo Moro will be just the opposite, “a dystopian greenhouse, inhabited by glistening and surreal, vines, ferns, and flowers.” (Fri–Sat, Noon–4pm, by appointment, 106 3rd Avenue South). More good news: the Asian Art Museum opens to the public on May 28. Tickets will be released every Thursday at 10am and everyone must get tickets online in advance of their visit. ~Susan Platt, Ph.D. www.artandpoliticsnow.com

As we have reported recently, Friends of Street Ends (FOSE) is making real changes daily here in our neighborhood. A volunteer group under the leadership of Daniel Collins, opened the water’s edge of Lake Washington at the East end of S. Massachusetts St. With parking for a few vehicles, low bank access, a gentle curving path leading to the water, this little hidden gem offers a breathtaking view of Mt. Rainier, a quiet refuge, and a place to access the lake with a kayak. When thinking about the use of this space, Karen Daubert and her team could not help but think about the best ways to set up the “new” park for public use. Could we incorporate a spot for people to gather? Should we keep the site natural and soft with a simple grassy slope? Would a bench or table be a good idea? How would we design and install a bench (or benches) that would be safe, useful, attractive, and dry? We need your help. Included below is some information, photos, considerations, and ideas: Constraints: The bench or furniture must meet the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA). This applies to indoors and outdoors benches. Minimum size: 42” long, 20” deep, 18” back; height 17–19”; strength: 250 lbs. support in any direction. Permits: Usually these benches are mounted in concrete and this requires shoreline permits. Location and orientation: Where? How close to water? Angle to sun and view? Configuration: More than one bench? Is a table a good idea? Materials and design: Design is important for usefulness, comfort, and maintenance. Constructed of metals and/or wood? Aesthetic? Funding: What is our budget. Can we raise some funds to install? Recognition: We are planning to recognize Steve Shulman with this bench. So here is what you can do to help us. As you visit public spaces, look for best-in-class ideas for benches and table in small parks. What do you like? What do you want us to avoid? We need your help, insight, and advice. Please contact Daniel Collins, Project Manager at FOSE (dmcollins1962@gmail.com), or me at The Leschi Street Beat danielvbyrne@gmail.com. ~Daniel V. Byrne, PE

Two Native Americans are memorialized in our community. The Dreamcatcher at the intersections of and 32nd Avenue and East Yesler Way is a tribute to Bernie Whitebear and his sister Luana Reyes. In building this tribute, Lawney Reyes, their brother, and well known artist wanted to capture something of their spirit—“ a lot of people thought Bernie was a dreamer—and he was. But he and Luana also lived to see many of their dreams fulfilled.” (interview Seattle Times, Sept 23, 2002) (Dreamcatcher Sculpture at 32nd and Yesler, near the Leschi Elementary School.) During a lifetime devoted to advocacy for Indian Civil Rights and the preservation of Indian Culture, Bernie Whitebear was well known throughout the region and the nation. For 30 years he was the executive director of United Indians of All Tribes Foundation. He led the invasion of Fort Lawton in 1970 which resulted in land being set aside for an Indian Cultural Center and the building of the Daybreak Star Center at Discovery Park. He received numerous honors including Citizen of the Decade from Governor Gary Locke and Seattle’s Distinguished Citizen Award. Bernie died on July 16, 2000 in Seattle. As Executive Director of the Seattle Indian Health Board in Seattle and later as Director of Headquarters Operations at the Indian Health Service in Rockville, Maryland, Luana Reyes was a tireless advocate for Indian health and all who had limited access to health care. She received numerous awards for her service including the 2011 Presidential Rank Meritorious Award, presented by President Bush to top federal managers for exceptional performance. Luana died on November 5, 2001. On March 6, 2002, after a very moving presentation made to the Leschi Community Council by Lawney Reyes, Jill Marsden and Ros Bond the Council voted to support their proposal to build the “Dreamcatcher at Yesler and 32nd Avenue to replace the deteriorating Native American representative of a Thunderbird, that existed on that site." When Leschi Community Council launched a fund raising campaign, Bernie and Luana’s reputation as community leaders was evident as contributions, large and small poured in from the local Indian Tribes, current and former politicians, family and friends. Aided by a Seattle Neighborhood grant of $5000.00 it didn’t take long for the Whitebear/Reyes Memorial fund to reach the goal of $40,000.00. The names of those who helped to make the Dreamcatcher a reality are listed on the plaque at the base of the memorial. The small garden of plants and flowers at the base of the Dreamcatcher proved to be a bit more challenging. Lawney and a landscaper designed the original plan including stones from the Colville Reservation in Eastern Washington, local plants and flowers. Despite the neighboring caretaker’s attempts to keep the garden going many plants were lost. With direct light and heat from sun up to sun down it was apparent these plants and the succeeding second planting could not survive. Finally drought resistance plants purchased here and those Lawney added from the dry soil of the Reservation proved to be what was needed to complete the memorial. On July 19, 2003, just a year and a half after the project began, a traditional Native American dedication ceremony took place. Laura Wong-Whitebear, Bernie and Luana’s sister opened the celebration. Lawney explained the meaning of the Dreamcatcher, followed by a County Proclamation read by Councilman Larry Gossett. Margaret Pageler represented the city council and additional remarks were given on Bernie and Luana’s work by former Governor Mike Lowry. A family made cedar ribbon was cut by Luana’s daughter. The Sitting Horse Drum Group accompanied singers and Native Dancers in full regalia. The ceremony was closed with a special prayer by Alexandra Tu, in the language of her Aleutian Tribe. In addition to recognition as an artist, Lawney Reyes is also the author of three books that include not only Bernie’s story but the history of this amazing family. Reyes' 2002 memoir White Grizzly Bear's Legacy: Learning to be Indian combines his own memories and research with notes from library and field research (including taped interviews) done by his mother before her death in a traffic accident in May 1978.[21] His second book—Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian's Quest for Justice (2006)—is a biography of his brother Bernie Whitebear (1937–2000), Reyes' third book, B Street: A Gathering of Saints and Sinners, about the Grand Coulee area between 1933 and 1941, during the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, was published in 2008 by the University of Washington Press.[ For details of the life and work of Bernie Whitebear see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Whitebear For details of the life and work of Luana Reyes see her obituary in the Seattle Times. In Native American culture, a dreamcatcher (or dream catcher; Lakota: iháŋbla gmunka, Ojibwe: asabikeshiinh, the inanimate form of the word for "spider"[1][2] or Ojibwe: bawaajige nagwaagan meaning "dream snare"[2]) is a handmade object based on a willow hoop, on which is woven a loose net or web. The dreamcatcher is then decorated with personal and sacred items such as feathers and beads. The Ojibwa believe that a dreamcatcher changes a person's dreams. According to Konrad J. Kaweczynski, "Only good dreams would be allowed to filter through… Bad dreams would stay in the net, disappearing with the light of day."[4] Good dreams would pass through and slide down the feathers to the sleeper. Another explanation of Lakota origin, "Nightmares pass through the holes and out of the window. The good dreams are trapped in the web, and then slide down the feathers to the sleeping person."[4] These conflicting accounts about how a dreamcatcher works may be proof of its antiquity. While this traditional symbol has survived, its original meaning has been lost and subsequently reinterpreted in many different ways. ~Joan Singler

This magnificent building was once located in Leschi Park; it was a dance pavilion/casino and a popular weekend destination for city dwellers seeking recreation. It was built in 1890 and lasted 40 years. The casino was free to enter, and it had the largest dance floor in Seattle at that time. A dance did cost three cents! It was far more expensive to enter the theater: 25 cents, but it could hold 4,000 people. There were vaudeville shows and concerts. Information is limited about the activities, but it was common to build an interesting destination point at the end of a cable car or streetcar line to encourage residential development along the way. Maintenance costs were high, and the city wanted to tear it down, but it remained long past its prime due to its popularity. One memorable event was the appearance of Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French actor, at the Pavilion. Her performance was diverted to the Pavilion when the downtown theater she was supposed to perform in was undergoing some renovations. (The limited information here was taken from Wade Vaughn’s Seattle–Leschi Diary and an article on “comfort station” in Leschi Park from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods on historical sites.)

Bainbridge Island Museum Art urging us to think about our disrupted world is everywhere this spring. “Breathe” the current group show (until May 30) at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (free, open daily!) addresses civil rights issues in every work by twenty-one artists. Humaira Abid created a hand carved wooden chain for the title “Breathe.” It suggests both entrapment and escape here, but how many other references are contained in that one word! In Linda Wolf’s black and white photographs, Caravan Asylum we see people surviving the huge challenges and risks of travel to the US in hopes of a better life (a belief that has surged since Biden came into office). Nearby “Field Notes,” mixed media fiber collages by Carletta Carrington Wilson, quote from formerly enslaved persons in the subtitles, such as “I was plowin’ long and a thinkin’.” Embedded in the textiles is an “x,” honoring the fact that ninety percent of slaves were illiterate. Throughout the exhibition selections from the extraordinary book art collection of Cynthia Sears address potent issues: Native American displacement (Fred Hagstrom); writing and art by prisoners (Beth Thielen); anti-Semitism (Diane Jacobs); white supremacism in a Klan car rally in 1965 that led to the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzza (Tyler Starr); gay marriage (Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry). Each artist brilliantly concentrates a huge topic in an experimental book format. Roger Shimomura and Michelle Kumata address Japanese Internment. Kumata’s Song for Generations, 2019 hangs in the multistoried window of the museum. At the top are two farmers, one holds strawberries, the other a house in flames, below are two adults with painful barbed wire in their mouths, and children in the lower left born in internment (as was Kumata’s mother). Shimomura’s poignant portrait of an American Alien and the anxiety of waiting in Nightwatch continues his life-long exploration of the theme of internment. Given the upsurge in hate crimes against Asians, these works remind us the long history of Asian abuse in the US. Also on display is Paul Rucker’s “Forever” homage to Civil Rights martyrs in the form of “forever” stamps for the post office with biographies of people such as Medgar Evers and Edwin Pratt. In large scale are the four young girls killed in the church bombing in Birmingham Alabama in 1963. More artists books appear in a separate show “Water” and upstairs are Kimberly Trowbridge’s landscapes based on her residency at the Bloedel Reserve. In short, you can see an astonishing breadth of issues and styles at the Bainbridge Museum of Art, many from the museum’s collection. Bainbridge Island Museum 550 Winslow Way E, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 206-842-4451, 10am–5pm daily https://www.biartmuseum.org/ At the Henry The Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington also challenges us with difficult topics. In the lobby “Hostile Terrain, HT94),” from the Undocumented Migration Project, outlines a border in Arizona with hundreds of tags hanging on it—volunteers documented each person who died crossing the inhospitable desert with the condition of the body and location. That act means that participants feel these deaths directly as do we. Nearby, a project by La Resistencia gives us access through QR codes to appalling stories of the detainees in the Northwest Detention Center. “Illustrating Injustice: The Power of Print” curated by Nina Bozicnik and Ann Poulson provocatively pairs Danny Lyons’ prison photographs (Conversations with the Dead (1971) with prints by Honoré Daumier lambasting the legal system of 19th century France. The show also includes moving prison newsletters from the Washington Prison History Project. Commissioned by the Henry “We Own Our Words” is a contemporary zine project with deeply expressive essays and poems by women in the Washington Corrections Center for Women (you can pick it up at the front desk). By the same dynamic curators “Plural Possibilities and the Female Body” explores the female body beyond the reductive binaries of gender and fixed ideas of beauty. The breathtaking selection of artists ranges from Ana Mendieta and Kiki Smith to Zanele Muholi and Mickelene Thomas. Presiding over the gallery is a lush painting by Dominican Republic artist Firelei Báez The Right to Opacity that fuses Saartjie Baartman (the so-called “Hottentot Venus”) with ciguapas, a mythical fearless woman of the forest. For those who like the bizarre, don’t miss “Bambitchell: Bugs and Beasts Before the Law.” A video highlights animal trials in medieval and early modern Europe based on a 1906 book Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. I watched the trial of a cock who laid an egg and was tried for sodomy. Perhaps the larger context could be that because of climate change we are putting animals to death all the time without any trial. And finally, “Viewpoint” a single gallery exhibition juxtaposes Jean Francois Millet’s images of women working (at home) in the 19th century to a video of a woman’s head being covered with cake frosting by Jeanne Dunning! Go see it to understand it. So, something for everyone! The Henry exhibitions end on May 17. It is FREE until the end of June although limited hours Saturday and Sunday 10am–5pm with a reservation. Henry Art Gallery 15th Ave NE & UW, NE 41st St, Seattle, WA 98195 206-543-5340, Sat & Sun, 10am–5pm https://henryart.org/ ~Susan N. Platt, Ph.D. www.artandpoliticsnow.com

LCC elections usually happen in May at our annual meeting but with the pandemic and the inability to have in person meetings, we were hoping to wait out the restrictions. But this year, all offices need to be filled and rather than wait another year, we have decided to try a vote-by-mail effort. The open offices are President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer. The current Secretary and Treasurer have reached their term limits, but the President and Vice-President can run again, should they choose to do so. Section 1. President. The President shall: preside over all meetings of the Council and of the Executive Board; appoint committee chairpersons; and be an ex-officio member of all committees except the Nominating Committee. Section 2. Vice-President. The Vice-President shall: assist the president as needed; perform the duties of president in the president’s absence; and act as chairperson of the Nominating Committee. Section 3. Treasurer. The Treasurer shall: collect dues; maintain a list of all paid members; receive funds; pay bills; keep records of all transactions; balance all funds; and prepare monthly financial reports for Council meetings. Section 4. Secretary. The Secretary shall prepare meeting agendas, record minutes of all general and executive board meetings and provide a copy to the newsletter editor; provide all officers with copies of relevant documents; maintain copies of all outgoing correspondence; retrieve mail from the post office; channel correspondence to appropriate persons; maintain lists of meeting attendance and council members; and maintain all records, reports and documents of the Council. This is an opportunity to guide the council in their work: “the Council has been and shall continue to be organized and operated exclusively for charitable, educational and literary purposes. Its goal is to initiate and/or support beneficial public interest projects and programs, to create a neighborhood awareness of community issues so that residents of Leschi may make informed and effective decisions in matters concerning them, and to support and promote artistic and cultural activities that are consistent with the Council’s purposes.” (from our constitution) Both the Constitution and Bylaws are on our website; select Our Council and then select documents from the drop-down menu. Website: Leschi News or Leschi Community Council. If you have any questions about the election or the offices, you may send your question to leschinews@comcast.net or contact the officer in the position in which you are interested. This information will be reprinted in the May issue and we will include directions on how to vote if we can’t get together by June. ~Diane Snell

Seattle Art Museum opens March 5 Following our catastrophic Capitol riot, what could be more timely than Jacob Lawrence’s series on Struggle. Ironically, the art works remind us that those insurrectionist “Minutemen” mimic the militias of the early days of the American revolution and are also trying to overturn a government. I don’t have space here to expand on this comparison which can be another essay. Jacob Lawrence’s “Struggle...from the History of the American People” (1954–56) is a 30-panel series on exhibit through May 23. The Seattle Art Museum is reopening starting on Friday March 5 (Fridays through Sundays, 10am–5pm), purchase a timed ticket online: https://secure.seattleartmuseum.org/events . The artist began this historical series in the same year as the Brown vs Board of Education 1954 desegregation ruling. Although it ends with a reference to the movement West (focusing on overburdened oxen, certainly as a metaphor), he planned to create twice as many works. Jacob Lawrence and Gwen Knight spent the last thirty years of their lives here; they are part of the history of our city. They moved to Seattle, Washington in 1971 where he was an influential professor at the University of Washington. They lived in a small house near the University with a studio upstairs, a location that only two years earlier had been declared legal for African Americans. His most prominent work in his early years in Seattle is the stupendous Kingdome mural Games of 1978 that hangs in the Convention Center. Comprised of ten connected steel panels it celebrates huge-limbed sports players of many racial mixes in the foreground and their cheering fans surrounding them. Lawrence uses scale to highlight the drama while also subtly foregrounding integration in sports as another milestone of change. The Games mural builds on many representations of games in Lawrence’s career. In contrast to Games, the earlier Struggle . . . from the History of the American People is on the same small scale as his well-known Migration Series from 1940–41. The title is crucial, it is not a Black history but an American history. Also striking is the emphasis on compressed space, sharply angular figures that reinforce the idea of conflict, as well as a subtle, but dramatic use of color. Most important, though is the emphasis on the impact of history on the ordinary person. For example, in the famous subject of “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” we see the soldiers in small boats that accompanied the “great man” and quotes from a letter by Washington’s slave Tench Tilghman “We crossed the River at McKonkey’s Ferry 9 miles above Trenton…the night was excessively severe … which the men bore without the least murmur.” In the Battle of New Orleans, fought by Andrew Jackson after the peace treaty was signed with the British in 1815, Lawrence features piles of dead on both sides, emphasizing the meaninglessness of war. Each one of these images is a radical imagining of what Lawrence describes as “the struggles of a people to create a nation and their attempt to build a democracy.” Although he did not continue with the series, he continued with the topic. Ten years later, Struggle II, Man on Horseback, 1965, depicts a brutal attack during the Civil Rights movement: a baton-wielding police officer rides on a horse with bloody feet that stomps on protestors. The electric energy of the black and white line highlighted with red dramatizes the violence. Confrontation at the Bridge, 1975, depicts Civil Rights marchers from Selma to Birmingham, led by Martin Luther King, brutally turned back by the police. We are all particularly familiar with this event now, as John Lewis was at the forefront of the march with King. Lawrence has created many series based on American history including Toussaint L’Ouverture,1938, Frederick Douglass, 1939, Harriet Tubman, 1940, and John Brown 1941. His fifth and most famous series, The Migration of the Negro, 1941 concisely represented the economic and social forces that led thousands of ordinary people to migrate from South to North in the early twentieth century. Soon after his arrival in Seattle he was invited to create a new historical series on the story of George Washington Bush, African American pioneer. The five panels (originally intended to be larger works) detail the pioneering trek West by the wealthy Missouri farmer who funded six wagons on the Oregon Trail. The dominant image conveys the swirling river waters of the Continental Divide. An entirely new subject for Lawrence, the energy and complexity of the panels is an example of his willingness to transform his style in response to the demands of the subject. Throughout his life Jacob Lawrence constantly embraced new subjects, new challenges, and new circumstances. He elevated the excruciating struggles of African Americans to heroism and highlighted the stories of resistance and sacrifice by all the people under the yoke of the large forces of oppression in American history. In addition to the Jacob Lawrence series this exhibition also includes new work by Derrick Adams, Bethany Collins, and Hank Willis Thomas that “reinforce the timeliness of Struggle by engaging themes such as democracy, justice, truth, and the politics of inclusion.” Leave enough time to see Barbara Earl Thomas’s stunning installation “The Geography of Innocence.” Last, the Ray Troll show “Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline” has opened at the Burke. Easy to get a reservation. ~Susan Noyes Platt www.artandpoliticsnow.com

In my years in our neighborhood, I’ve been curious how it came to be named after Leschi, a leader among Indians of the upper Nisqually River Valley. The perimeter of Lake Washington was inhabited by the indigenous Hachoo-absch (People of the Large Lake), known to the white settlers as Lake Indians. They were considered to be a band of Duwamish. The area around the future Leschi Park was known to the Lake Indians in the local Lushootseed language as hw-QWEE-yhaqw-eye-ahqs, translated as Saw-Grass Point. Here they gathered bulrushes for household mats. It was probably an area where Indians coming across Lake Washington to the future Seattle encamped en route to Elliott Bay, but it is not known as having been a village site. (See Site 25 on the Burke Museum map referenced at bottom.) Leschi never lived in what is now Seattle, and he may or may not have ever set foot in it. But he was widely known in the region and east of the mountains, where his mother, a Yakama Indian, was from. He has been celebrated as an influential orator, respected among Indians as well as by numerous whites with whom he had good relations. As I mentioned in a previous column, Leschi’s name was bestowed on the park in about 1891 by Frederick Grant, president of the private cable car company that developed and owned the park. (It became a city park in 1903.) Grant believed that Leschi was innocent of murder charges stemming from fighting in Pierce County, for which he was hung in 1858. Neighborhood historian Wade Vaughn surmised that “strong feeling against the Indians, resulting from the Indian war, had moderated by this time.” In the late 19th century, there was a certain nostalgia on the part of old settlers who published wistful accounts of the pioneer days of life alongside the Indians­—a triumphalism of survival and pioneer grit. Historian Lisa Blee observes that “Leschi Park shows how Seattleites built an urban identity untroubled by the violence of settler colonialism by driving Native inhabitants from their homelands and replacing them with symbols lament¬ing Indians’ unjust treatment.” The Indian-settler battles of the mid-1850s were provoked by the efforts of Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens to force the Native people into unlivable reservations and enable settlers to obtain title to Indian lands. Treaties such as Medicine Creek (December 1854), which covered the Nisqually and other south-Sound tribal territories, were foisted upon the Indians. Leschi, who by some accounts refused to sign, or signed under protest, or whose mark was forged, communicated to the whites that Indians were willing to give up land but only in exchange for enough space to live as accustomed. Histories written by whites often refer to Leschi as a chief. But it should be noted here that “chief” and “tribe” were settler concepts imposed upon the native inhabitants. The invaders wanted to establish entities and individuals with whom they could negotiate treaties. Defined tribes, tribal leadership, and land ownership were mostly alien concepts to the native population. As characterized in “The Bitter Wars of Medicine Creek,” Governor Stevens made his case against the Indians “in deep denial of his contribution to the hostilities. Stevens … became an out-of-control avenger … awash with distortions,” who “had allowed his pride, wounded by his own misjudgments, to turn him delusional, bordering on the pathological.” He was described by the U.S. Army regional commander as “anxious for a long and expensive war … to exterminate the Indians.” Sound familiar? As Eduardo Galeano said, “History never really says goodbye. History says, see you later.” Stevens had vowed to the territorial legislature that all hostile Indians would be done away with. Part of the Indigenous response was seen in the arrival of hundreds of warriors on the shore of Lake Duwamish (now Lake Washington), where they camped on their way to attack the tiny Elliott Bay village that was Seattle in late January 1856. The staging ground, somewhere in the vicinity of the present Leschi Park, came to be known as Leschi’s Camp. While Leschi may have been involved in planning the attack, known as the “Battle of Seattle,” he denied that he participated, though various historians have dismissed his denial. Most of the histories I have read say his presence (or absence) cannot be established with certainty. The one exception is found in the book “Ka-Mi-Akin” (1917). The author, a settler who claimed to have long-standing good relations with the Indians and to have interviewed numerous witnesses to the battles of the 1850s, provides details on Leschi’s presence, referencing settler manuscripts that may have been unpublished and are thus difficult to get hold of to evaluate for accuracy. The attack on Seattle did not do much damage, though it left psychological and economic effects on the settlement for some years. After the one-day battle, with a break for lunch by both sides, the attackers slipped away and vanished. The battle was the peak of Indian resistance in the Seattle area. ~Roger Lippman Special thanks to Alexandra Harmon for her guidance. For further reading Some useful and interesting references, all available from the Seattle Public Library: Lisa Blee, “Framing Chief Leschi,” 2014 Richard Kluger, “The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek,” 2011 Coll Thrush, “Native Seattle—Histories from the Crossing-Over Place,” 2007 (In-library use only, or listen to the library’s podcast.) Alexandra Harmon, “Indians in the Making,” 2000 Della Gould Emmons, “Leschi of the Nisquallies,” 1965 (historical fiction) A.J. Splawn, “Ka-Mi-Akin, Last Hero of the Yakimas,” 1917 (revised 1944) Ezra Meeker, “Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound—The Tragedy of Leschi,” 1905 https://www.burkemuseum.org/static/waterlines/images/maps-and-images/waterlines_map_medium.pdf

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought many other issues to the forefront, particularly “Racial Equity” and its corollary, White Privilege. Leschi is a model community in many respects with a diverse history and unsurpassed “lakeside village” ambience. But it also demonstrates how hard it will be to meet the Founding Fathers’ aspiration to achieve an “ever-more perfect union.” The online real estate site Zillow currently shows only a handful of homes for sale in Leschi. I thought I’d found a bargain at $500,000—but that was an empty lot. The principal culprit? SF5000. Leschi, along with its neighbors Madrona and Mt Baker, is largely zoned SF5000-Single Family homes on a lot of at least 5,000 sq ft. The new Accessory Dwelling Unit regulations ease this constraint marginally, but the minimum lot size is unchanged—and your new “backyard cottage” may well cost you around $250,000 by the time you’ve met all the code requirements. Covid-19 plays a role too: As part of the Federal Covid-19 Relief efforts, interest rates have been driven down to historic lows—and folks are spending much more time at home. If they work for Amazon, Microsoft or any of the other local tech companies who have seen their share prices climb rapidly, then there may also be big (share option) bucks to spend. So, after a brief pause, Seattle home prices are on the rise again. Which brings us back to half a million dollars—a lot for a Lot. A million dollars and up for a family home in a nice neighborhood is a lot too. There may be lots of folks (many newly arrived) in Seattle who can get a million-dollar mortgage, but they’ll often come from a different background—racial, financial and educational. That may be good for some models of diversity, but as Ira Gershwin wrote for brother George’s opera Porgy & Bess, “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” So, if you’re interested in your “Privilege Profile” here’s a simple test: How long have you lived in Leschi? How much more is your home worth than when you bought it? Who do you see when you look in the bathroom mirror? What do you see when you look out the window? (nice yard? lake view?) Which vehicle are you and your neighbors more likely to own: A Tesla or a truck? (if you own both—maybe a Prius too?—ignore the other questions!) If you’d like to share your privilege, “affordable housing” is a good place to start. But that inevitably means SF5000 must go. “Preserving the character of the neighborhood” is a worthy objective—but if it effectively means excluding folks of modest means, then we need to figure how to make this objective less obstructive. ~Malcolm Harker (local resident for almost 30 years and mostly a cyclist—though Sarah sometimes lets me borrow her Mini if it’s raining)