Art and Sustainable Cities: A Dialogue

I'm currently working on the third in our series of Art and Environment Dialogues. It's sure to be a great event! Please spread the word and attend if you can.

Art and Sustainable Cities: A Dialogue

August 27, 2009

11:30 am–1 pm

Olympic Sculpture Park, PACCAR Pavilion

SAM and the Cascade Land Conservancy present the next panel discussion exploring the intersection of art, culture and the environment. Can steps be taken to ensure that revitalization and increased density are beneficial for both the arts and artists? How can we avoid artists being pushed out of our cities by rising prices? What roles do diversity and equity play in building vibrant, sustainable cities? Join us as we consider these and other questions.

Featuring:

Michael Kinsley, American political journalist (moderator)

Randy Engstrom, Founding Director, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center

D.K. Pan and NKO, Founders, Free Sheep Foundation

Buster Simpson, Northwest Artist

Beth Takekawa, Executive Director, Wing Luke Asian Museum

“Art and Sustainable Cities: A Dialogue” is part of SAM’s Pivotal Perspectives series. Bringing together some of the most compelling thinkers on a given cultural subject, Pivotal Perspectives is a timely and innovative forum that addresses pressing issues in art and society.

Free and open to the public. To reserve your space, please email boxoffice@seattleartmuseum.org or call the SAM Box Office at 206.654.3121.

Presented with support from the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs

Our car-free trip to the Sounders game

Last night Fiance-with-the-mostest and I went to the Sounders vs. Barcelona game with 66,000 of our closest friends. In addition to celebrating the arrival of the amazing Barcelona team, we were honoring my little brother's birthday. Thanks for picking such an awesome activity, bro!

We knew that traffic and parking would be intense given the crowds, so we decided that FWTM would spend a day on the Low Car Diet, too. It went something like this:
- FWTM drives in to work and Jackie buses to work, as usual.
- Jackie hangs out at work after she's off, taking the opportunity to go for a triathlon training run.
- FWTM uses a convenient free ride ticket to bus from his office in Issaquah to downtown Seattle.
- We enjoy the game!

Can't you tell we're having fun? And I love the scarf!

- Following the flow of the crowd, we head to the International District station in the tunnel and catch the bus home. We just barely got on that bus. A group of 4 behind us were the last allowed on, and we were packed in tight. Others had to wait for the next bus, at least 30 minutes away (sad). I don't say this to scare people away - we just need more support for bus services!
- We walked home from the transit center (1/2 a mile, my usual commute).
- This morning FWTM left early and put his bike on a bus from Kirkland to Redmond. From Redmond it is easy to ride around Lake Sammamish to Issaquah. Unfortunately there is a big hill to get out of Kirkland and the roads aren't very nice, and it would take 3 buses to take public transit all the way to his office.
- Jackie bused to work as usual.
- FWTM reports that he had no problem loading his bike, thanks to clear instructions just for newbies like him. He did experience a bit of rubbing from one of his brakes, and didn't have a multi tool to make repairs. Something must have shifted since our ride on Sunday. He will drive home with his bike loaded on the car tonight.

Altogether I'd call that a successful experience! We got home as quickly as we could have in a car (maybe even faster), and we saved parking money. FWTM also eliminated a full day's worth of commute miles. Woo hoo!

Long time no blog

This week has been CRAZY! There have been good things (highlight: we picked a wedding venue) and not so good things, with more events to come later this week. Friday is World Environment Day, and we will have about 600 people (mostly school kids) at the Olympic Sculpture Park. Saturday I am organizing Celebrating Wildflowers (see my blog about the event) - join us if you can!

I'll resume blogging next week. Until then, enjoy some beautiful pictures of native plants at the park taken by fiance-with-the mostest*:

*All photos taken by dpwilson

Red flowering currant

Meadows and PACCAR Pavilion

California poppy

Lupine

Volunteer with Sustainable Kirkland and get a free pass to Kirkland Uncorked!

Calling all volunteers!

Sustainable Kirkland, the community group I talked about in this blog and this blog, is partnering with the organizers of Kirkland Uncorked to help "green" this year's festival, July 17-19 on the downtown Kirkland waterfront (Marina Park).

Remember those awesome volunteers at Seattle Green Festival who sorted your compost, recycling, and trash before you could even prove that you knew how to recycle determine which bin was which? Well, Sustainable Kirkland will play a similar role, educating visitors about recycling and minimizing the volume of non-reusable (landfill bound) waste produced by the festival.

We need you! Sustainable Kirkland needs help covering all the shifts of the festival, July 17 - 19. The best part of volunteering? You get a free pass to Kirkland Uncorked! The festival features art, wine, food, and jazz music - what more could you want for a good time on the shore of Lake Washington?

To sign up, e-mail info@sustainablekirkland.org.