Celebrating Black History Month with Work by Black Artists in Shoreline Portable Works Art Collection

Responding to the need for permanently-owned, indoor artworks to share with the community at City Hall, Shoreline’s Public Art Program created a portable works collection in 2018. Since then the collection has grown to include some 15 pieces, with representation across a variety of media and backgrounds. For Black History Month during the Covid19-era when exhibitions could not be held, we offer a spotlight on artworks by African Americans in the collection:

1. Weldon Butler (1941 – 2019), “Saddle,” 2005; dress pattern, fabric, string, ink, paper bag on paper. 1% for Art, purchased in 2018.

“Weldon Butler is an African-American printmaker and sculptor who has an extensive background of gallery and museum shows but who, like many minority artists, has not received the recognition he deserves. … Born in Philadelphia, Butler joined his brother in Tacoma in 1968 where he went on to attend Green River College and studied printmaking and sculpture. While making his art, Butler worked as a Boeing toolmaker, a mapmaker, an auto shop repairman and a commercial silkscreen technician, all of which had an impact on the look of his art. Declaring, “When I need color, I go to Home Depot. I have a vocabulary of shapes, not a palette of colors, like a painter.” Butler’s…works on paper … reflect the look of two-dimensional art made by sculptors: diagrammatic, linear, spatial and using rough, street- found or hardware-store materials.” (Matthew Kangas, 2018) https://www.ggibsonprojects.com/butler- knowles-visual-art-source/; More info:https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/kirkland-arts- centers-new-exhibition-weldon-butler-visual-abstractions-spans-a-range-of-his-work/

2. Kemba Opio, “Sunday Living,” 2018. Acrylic on canvas based on Edwin Pratt Archival image. 1% for Art, purchased 2019

Edwin Pratt Archives, Black Heritage Society of Washington State In 2018, Shoreline Public Art partnered with arts-consulting firm Visual Cognetics, Black Heritage Society of Washington State, and Northwest African American Museum to curate an exhibition of artworks centered around the archives of former Urban League Director and Shoreline resident Edwin C. Pratt (“Living the Dream, Dreaming the Life”). (http://bit.ly/pratt-art-call-source-material). One image, of Pratt relaxing in his backyard, struck a chord with the artists: both Opio and Lisa Myers Bulmash (see below) created artworks based on Pratt’s reclining figure. Opio’s “Sunday Living” references Pratt’s enjoyment of reading the newspaper while seemingly living the American dream despite ongoing redlining in Shoreline, where racially restrictive covenants persisted for decades after Pratt’s tragic murder in 1969.

“Kemba Opio is a contemporary studio portrait painter originally from rural Georgia. She uses traditional techniques in acrylic paint while exploring new applications to achieve her own unique style reminiscent of Pop Art. She received her B.F.A in fashion design and minor in painting from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007. Relocating to Seattle, WA in 2009, she exhibited her paintings in both solo and group shows throughout the country (at Hammond Museum in Atlanta, 103 Gallery, Venice Arts Center in Los Angeles, Shoreline City Hall, Center on Contemporary Art and Tashiro Kaplan Gallery to name a few). In 2016, Kemba was commissioned by the Office of Arts & Culture of Seattle to create a temporary installation of public art. Her artwork has graced the surfaces of backdrops for fashion shows, album covers, logo designs and staging for properties in New York City as well as being in private collections at Shoreline City Hall in Washington. Getting back to her southern roots, she moved to North Austin, Texas in 2019. In 2020, Kemba designed her first large-scale permanent site-specific public artwork commissioned by Community House Mental Health Agency, in downtown Seattle. Currently, she is pursuing more public art projects.” https://artistregistry.bigmedium.org/artworks/wild-domestic

3. Lisa Myers Bulmash, “Relatively Progressive,” 2019, collage on paper.

Behind Pratt, a sheet of typed paper hangs suspended, a page of one of his essays on desegregation (image 13 at http://bit.ly/pratt-art-call-source-material), referencing “silent treatment” and “fence building” as white tactics against black families moving into neighborhoods, quite possibly based on Pratt’s own experience in what would become Shoreline (but was then unincorporated King County). The newspaper clipping references “A New Thrust,” the last speech that Pratt made. In the forest background, connected to Pratt with graphic lines, looms the house itself. As Bulmash wrote in her blog:

“As slippery as it is, the American Dream of owning a home — and by extension, the feeling of belonging here — has shaped much of my identity. So when I found out about the city of Shoreline’s upcoming art exhibit, it almost felt necessary to submit some of my work. I’ve contributed this collage and two other pieces to the “Living the Dream, Dreaming the Life” exhibit. These, and works by 15 other artists, are inspired by civil rights martyr Edwin T. Pratt, who led the Seattle Urban League. He and his family also integrated an all-white neighborhood in what’s now Shoreline. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Pratt’s assassination at his front door. Pratt’s family photos are now held by the Black Heritage Society of Washington state. Their partnership with 4Culture allowed us artists to experiment with these images, just like I usually do with my own family archive.”

Bulmash’s title refers to Pratt’s progressivism: in contrast (or comparison) to other figures of the day, like his contemporary Martin Luther King Jr., Pratt advocated for a fairly mainstream approach to racial issues of the day, especially compared to MLK and, further to the left, Malcolm X. Pratt’s progressivism is thus “relative” to the time in which he lived and the public position of leadership he held in working with other civic bureaucracies. And yet, as the archive clarifies, Pratt struggled with his role, often expressing frustration with the limits of a society embedded in white supremacy. Handwritten notes such the following on a yellow ledger sheet (a draft of an essay on authority) testify to his inner struggle:

Boss, I Am To Hell with channels Assistant to The Assistant to the Assistant

(frame 21 in the archive sample, http://bit.ly/pratt-art-call-source-material)

More info: http://www.lisamb.com/blog/artwork-purchase-and-the-new-owner-is532019; https://www.lisamb.com/

Visual Cognetics; Black Heritage Society of Washington State: Edwin Pratt Archives; http://bit.ly/pratt-art-call-source-material, frame 21

4. Vincent Keele, “A Brighter Tomorrow,” acrylic on canvas panel, 2018

Vincent Keele with Shoreline resident Sarah Haycox, who spearheaded the movement to name the Shoreline School District’s new Early Childhood Education Center after Edwin Pratt, at the opening of “Living the Dream,” Shoreline City Hall, Jan. 26, 2019. Haycox appears in the painting below the window where Pratt gazes out into the future. (Photo courtesy Vincent Keele). https://vincentkeele.com/

5. Group exhibitions at Shoreline City Hall focusing on work by and about African Americans:

• Aftermash (2016), https://www.shorelinewa.gov/home/showdocument?id=32005

• Living the Dream, Dreaming the Life, (2019) https://www.shorelinewa.gov/home/showpublisheddocument?id=43826