Free Parking on the First Thursday Art Walk

UPDATE! First Thursday in July has been moved to July 11th due to the Fourth of July holiday! Free parking will be available at Frye Garage only. Check individual gallery schedules.

Free First Thursday Parking has been extended through June 2014!

One more garage has been added to the list of places you can park for free! Welcome to Butler Garage, on 2nd Ave & James St.

NEW Participating Garages Include:

Butler Parking Garage - 114 James Street
Frye Parking Garage – 117 3rd Ave S
Pioneer Square Garage – 74 S Jackson Street
Merrill Place Garage – 72 S King Street

Rainbow P = FREE. Blue P = Regular parking lot.
Visit DowntownSeattleParking.com for more parking options.

Visit the First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square and park for free!* Select Pioneer Square garages will offer free parking between the hours of 5:00-10:00 PM.  Simply visit a restaurant, gallery, store or Milepost 31 in Pioneer Square to receive a voucher and hand it to the parking attendant when exiting the garage. Here's the list of where you can get a free parking voucher:

1. 1000 Museums
2. 4Culture
3. Agate Designs
4. ArtForte
5. Arts Collective at the OK Hotel
6. ArtXchange
7. Azuma
8. Core Gallery
9. Corridor Gallery
10. Cuttysark
11. Davidson Galleries
12. Delicatus
13. Design Commision Gallery
14. Distant Lands
15. Edd Cox Fine Art
16. Flury & Co.Fireworks
17. Foster/White Gallery
18. G. Gibson Gallery
19. Gaba Sushi
20. Gallery 110
21. Gallery IMA
22. Glasshouse Studio
23. Greg Kucera Gallery
24. Grover/Thurston Gallery
25. Hanson Scott Gallery
26. Heart: The Gallery
27. Juan Alonso Studio
28. Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
29. Laguna Vintage Pottery
30. Linda Hodges Gallery
31. Milepost 31
32. Mornin Noonan Night Studios
33. Olson Kundig [storefront]
34. Ragazzi’s Flying Shuttle
35. Room 104
36. Sake Nomi
37. Sanctuary Screenprinting/CMD*P
38. SOIL
39. Stonington Gallery
40. Studio 107
41. The Belfry
42. The Clothing Company
43. Vintage & Moore
44. Zeitgeist Coffee
45. Trabant Coffee & Chai
46. Bar Sajor
47. Rain Shadow Meats
48. The Lodge
49. E. Smith Mercantile
50. Roq La Rue Gallery

*Free Parking from 5:00 – 10:00 PM on the following First Thursdays: June 6, July 11, August 1, September 5, October 3, November 7, and December 5 in 2013; and January 2, February 6, March 6, April, 3, May 1, and June 5 in 2014. Free parking is available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Parking facility participation may vary.

Video Art Meets Wheels - Interstitial Theatre Debuts on First Thursday

Interstitial Theatre takes their gallery on the road to visit 8 neighborhoods across Seattle. Their first stop is in Pioneer Square, during the First Thursday art walk on April 4! Check-out the schedule and support the Mobile Screen //VIDEO ART// Tour through Kickstarter.

The tour is a six-month long event (April-September 2013) providing free public access to contemporary video art within eight different neighborhoods across Seattle via Interstitial Theatre’s Mobile Screen.

Check out the tour stops:

• Pioneer Square | April 4 | TK Building 5-8pm

• Capitol Hill | April 11 | Vermillion 5-8pm

• PhinneyWood | May 10 | Urban Light Studios 6-9pm 

• West Seattle | June 13 | ArtsWest 6-9pm 

• *Gasworks Park Special Family 4th | July 4th (pending)

• Georgetown | July 13 | Brass Tacks (pending) 6-9pm

• Ballard | July 14 | Tractor Tavern (pending) 6-9pm

• International District | September 5 | Prole Drift (pending)

• Columbia City | September 20 | Columbia City Gallery 4-8pm “Park(ing) Day”

Call for Artists - ARTSparks 2013 - Occidental Square Park

Green Squared in Occidental Park, 2012

Artists! Help activate Occidental Park in Pioneer Square this summer! Be seen on the First Thursday art walk! Details below and attached here (PDF).


Call for Artists
ARTSparks—a partnership between Seattle Parks and Recreation and the Office of Arts and
Cultural Affairs—is seeking proposals for arts projects for Occidental Square Park within the timeframe
of June through September 2013. Any and all arts disciplines are welcome.
Individuals and organizations are asked to submit one to three distinct proposals for how they
would implement a specific project in this unsecured public space. Collaborations or simultaneous
projects are welcome. Final negotiations and scheduling of projects will be determined after
proposals are chosen.

Background
Part of the City of Seattle’s Center City Initiative, ARTSparks contributes to making our downtown
parks attractive, safe, and welcoming public spaces. The goal of the program is to help bring a
lively and creative atmosphere to our downtown parks, converting them into showcases for the
imagination where, simply by entering the park, people are encouraged to experience, question,
interact with, investigate, and respond to art – for free and as a natural part of daily downtown life.

Project Specifics
Projects must activate the park for a least one week in duration and may extend to several weeks.
With the basic goal of creating continuing artistic interest in the park for approximately 15 weeks,
ARTSparks welcomes proposals for a full range of project sizes and budgets—from long-lasting,
larger-budget projects to projects of shorter duration and smaller budgets.
A map and a one-page introduction to Occidental Square Park are attached. Please note the
boundaries to the park. Applicants are strongly encouraged to visit and familiarize themselves with
the park before designing or submitting their ideas.

The art project should:
· activate the space and engage pedestrians passing through.
· as much as possible, address the space as a whole and encourage use of the park.
· accommodate daily park maintenance work and community activities scheduled for the
park. For a current schedule, please contact Victoria Schoenburg (see attached).

The artwork may (but is not required to):
· be two- or three-dimensional, allowing for movement through the space.
· offer participatory or interactive experiences for visitors to the site.
· allow for a short- or long-term experience.
· include projection, light or sound.
· include performance components.

See more here (PDF).

A Corpse Will Travel Express at Command Print

CMD+P (Command Print) is a former Storefront Seattle space turned permanent fixture on the Pioneer Square First Thursday art walk. The t-shirt company behind this storefront space is Sanctuary Screenprinting, a non-profit entity that helps homeless and street-involved youth gain skills in design and screenprinting. What's not to love about that? Check out their exhibition for this month's art walk by Jordan Spade and Samuel Wildman: "A Corpse Will Travel Express".

I Want All of This - The next installation at Olson Kundig [storefront]

Coming to the Olson Kundig Architects [storefront] space on March 7th - I Want All of This, the newest installation on Pioneer Square's First Thursday art walk.

406 Occidental Avenue South, Seattle, Washington 98104
http://www.olsonkundigarchitects.com/

The Free Book Incident

RECEPTION

Thursday 1/10
5:30 – 8:30 pm

ON VIEW
1/10 – 2/15/2013

HOURS
Monday – Friday
11:30 am – 1:30pm

ADDRESS
406 Occidental Ave. S.
Seattle, WA 98104


Olson Kundig Architects has partnered with Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers, Inc. for its next [storefront] installation, The Free Book Incident. Inspired by a long-running book exchange, “The Book Thing” in Baltimore, MD, The Incident explores what can happen when books are made available for free.
Describing the idea behind The Free Book Incident, Wessel & Lieberman state, “It is not a book store (there is nothing for sale); it is not a library (there is nothing to return). The Incident is a place for exploration, engagement, ideas, activity, conversation—and ultimately, alchemy—all of it generated by the decommidification of books.”

The Free Book Incident celebrates the organic experiences that occur when one searches for a new book. With Olson Kundig Architects providing its [storefront] space and Wessel & Lieberman providing the inventory, this installation is designed for all to enjoy.

“Books are more than pages and binding; they are a catalyst for an experience. The reader finds a book on a shelf, takes that book into his hands and home, and its words into his head,” says intern architect and installation co-curator Adam Monkaba of Olson Kundig Architects. “For the space itself, we designed a kinetic book shelf that pivots, offering a variety of settings in which visitors can explore books. Our goal was to create an engaging environment that promotes access to books and allows visitors to interact with them in surprising ways.”

A series of events from readings and bookmaking classes to writing workshops and book clubs will take place during the months of January and February. In addition to special events, [storefront] will be open Monday through Friday, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm during which time visitors can browse for books.

The opening reception for The Free Book Incident is scheduled for January 10, 5:30 – 8:30 pm. Food, drink, and nearly 2,000 free books, will be provided.

[storefront] Olson Kundig Architects and Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers, Inc. will accept book donations during the installation on the ground floor of 159 S. Jackson Street, Seattle, WA 98104, M–F 8 am – 5 pm.
Follow the Free Book Incident on Facebook to learn about other events announced throughout the month.
The Free Book Incident is designed and coordinated by principal architect, Kirsten Murray, and intern architects Adam Monkaba, Sarah Kia, Adam Garrett, Colin Ostman, Katherine Ranieri, and Ryan Tretow of Olson Kundig Architects and Mark Wessel, Michael Lieberman, and Elizabeth Scribner of Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers, Inc.

First Thursdays of 2013

We are often asked whether there will be an art walk on a particular First Thursday - understandable since some First Thursdays fall on or a near a holiday. But here's a little secret: the First Thursday art walk always happens on First Thursdays unless all the art venues decide not to. (Check the list of dates below!)

Most folks may not realize that the First Thursday art walk in Pioneer Square started out as, and continues to be, a very grassroots operation. There is no central organization that controls when, where, or how First Thursday will happen. It just kind of...happens. Galleries and artist studios in Pioneer Square plan events for First Thursdays just as they've been doing since the '60s. That's why the art walk always happens on First Thursdays no matter what - all the independent artists and galleries just do it whether or not someone says to do it. The only way the First Thursday art walk won't happen is if these galleries and artists decided they didn't want to participate anymore. In that case the art walk would just die out, and we would all be very sad Keanu Reeves indeed.

Ok, so the Alliance for Pioneer Square is the organization that does promotions for the event (hence this website, and the free parking and whatnot). But the Alliance does not actively organize the event itself. It's simply running on its own magic.

***UPDATE*** The galleries have spoken. It looks like there will be no First Thursday art walk on July 4th. According to one Facebook commenter: "The majority of art galleries in the Pioneer Square district, including the Tashiro Kaplan building and the SADA dealers, will host the July art walk on the SECOND Thursday of the month, July 11th." Check your favorite galleries for alternative opening reception dates.

1. January 3, 2013
2. February 7, 2013
3. March 7, 2013
4. April 4, 2013
5. May 2, 2013
6. June 6, 2013
7. July 4, 2013* Cancelled! Many venues are opening for art walk on July 11. Check individual gallery schedules.
8. August 1, 2013
9. September 5, 2013
10. October 3, 2013
11. November 7, 2013
12. December 5, 2013