Esther Ervin: Sculptor, Jeweler, Curator

Esther Ervin was born in a small town in New Jersey, but moved to California at the age of 16. Her house was near the Irvine Ranch where she actually saw cowboys herding cattle. Now the Ranch has been developed into housing. She went to Palestine and Israel as an undergraduate. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and went into the Peace Corps for three years from 1977 to 1980. She was assigned to Columbia where she worked with boys living on the street. She gave them language training and education in both art and science. From there she went on to work at a Catholic school and then moved to Bogota. Finally, she handled the economics for the families of a community that grew coffee, canned food, and created mats from fique (a type of grass).

In 1980, she returned to California and went to Graduate School at California State University, Long Beach where she studied art and science medical illustration. In 1994, she came to Seattle where she pursued another career in insurance and securities. She attended the Festival Sundiata where she saw an art show and began meeting artists in the late 1990s. She first met Al Doggett in 1997. Meanwhile, she began making jewelry. She went to a Native American workshop where they used gourds to make art and was inspired to make her own gourd art. Her father was raised on a Cree reservation.

A major turning point in her career was receiving a residency at the Pratt Fine Arts Center where she learned jewelry making, metalsmithing, and welding. Another important honor was a residency at the Dr. James W. Washington, Jr. & Janie Rogella Washington Foundation where she made sculpture from materials found in the house. Ervin was also Acting Director of the Washington House 2013-2018.

Salmon in courtyard of Liberty Bank Building, 2016

Skylights depicting red lining 2016 (visible on Union Street)

In 2016, she collaborated with Doggett on the extensive Liberty Bank Building artist project. On Union Street near 24th Avenue, Ervin created drum shaped seats with a tiled basketweave pattern and above them transparent window designs of the redlined area of the Central District. In the central courtyard of the building are several bronze salmon struggling to go upstream. There is a sporadic flow of water that does not support them, a metaphor for the struggles of African Americans to succeed.

Sculpture in Wayfarer complex 23rd and Yesler. "The works speak to the deforestation of the CD." Photo by Greg Bell. (Glass and semi precious beads, potatopearls, bronze chain, steel support structure, laser etched wood trees)

Ervin has created other public art works in the neighborhood, most visibly at Jackson and 23rd Street, where an abstract design based on cowrie shells is displayed. At Boren and Yesler, in the Wayfarer complex, she has another piece. As Ervin explains, “the Wayfarer building works are large jewelry art pieces with one having a cedar tree and the other having a Douglass fir tree. The works speak to the deforestation of the CD. They are made of glass and semi-precious beads, potato pearls, bronze chain, steel support structure, laser etched wood trees.”

As Ervin creates more public art, she also works as a curator with Black Arts West Alumnae Association and the Garfield Super Block. Additionally, she continues to create exquisite art in many media, ceramics, jewelry, metal, and sculpture. Her work is imbued with a sense of history. One of her missions is to celebrate the work of lesser known Black artists and history.

~Susan Platt