Arts
Best Bookstore: Beguiled Books
This Pioneer Square darling is easy to spot: pink doors and candy-striped details mark its home near Occidental Square. Beguiled Books started in 2024 as a mobile bookstore, making its way from table to tent to trailer, and finally to its current brick-and-mortar space. Labelling itself as “Seattle’s Original Romance Bookstore,” Beguiled specializes in just…
Best Music Venue: Showbox
Duke Ellington, Muddy Waters, the Ramones, Pearl Jam, Prince, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, and the Foo Fighters have all taken the stage at the Showbox. Open since 1939, the ballroom across from Pike Place Market has lived through nearly every chapter of Seattle music, while welcoming generations of touring acts along the way. More than 85…
Best Vintage Store: Fremont Vintage Mall
Walk down the stairs and you’re entering a Seattle treasure hunt. The multi-vendor shop winds through individually curated spaces packed with vintage clothing, records, furniture, art, jewelry, memorabilia, knickknacks, and collectibles—the kind of place best visited with someone else, because you’re going to need a person to show things to every 30 seconds. There are…
Best Art Gallery: Foster/White Gallery
A pillar in Pioneer Square’s arts ecosystem, Foster/White Gallery opened in 1966 (then called Richard White Gallery) as the first space of its kind in the neighborhood. It soon gained notoriety for showing preeminent Northwest artists such as Morris Graves, William Morris, George Tsutakawa, and Dale Chihuly. In the decades after founding the gallery, its…
Best Museum: Seattle Art Museum
A vote for Seattle Art Museum is really a vote for three different art outings. The downtown museum pairs ambitious exhibitions with a global collection; the Seattle Asian Art Museum occupies SAM’s original 1933 Art Deco home amid the 43 acres of Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park; and the Olympic Sculpture Park puts art out in…
Studio Sessions: June T. Sanders
Part of the Rituals in Resistance show at Railspur, June T. Sanders reflects on the power of creating art, crafting things with her hands, and the moments that spark creativity.
There’s a bare authenticity to artist June T. Sanders’ work. Whether it’s a series of black-and-white photographs taken close-up of friends and acquaintances or a suite of rough-hewn wooden objects, each piece feels relatable and grounded in daily life. It’s the kind of work that reminds us that everything doesn’t have to be so abstract…
Table 17 Serves Up an Authentic Look at Love
If you love a rom-com, see this play ASAP.
Most of us have been there at least once: Your phone lights up, you look down, and your ex’s name pops up on the screen. Maybe you haven’t heard from them in a while—weeks, months, or even years. If things ended badly, you might be annoyed at this sudden intrusion. If there were lingering doubts,…
How Art Stays Afloat in Iceland
Public funding, creative freedom, and a landscape that refuses to stay in the background have made this Nordic nation an extraordinary place for crafting culture.
“If you don’t have art and theaters—and free speech—it’s no good to live there.” The man telling me this, Guðmundur Kristjánsson, isn’t a curator or painter. He’s the CEO of a seafood company, Brim, and our conversation occurred at Reykjavík’s harbor on Fisherman’s Day. I had just toured one of Brim’s vessels, where framed art…
New Murals Make Their Mark on Capitol Hill
Five works by local artists celebrate the neighborhood’s creative history.
More than 30 years after he first started painting graffiti in Capitol Hill, artist Sam Sneke is back, this time with a much bigger canvas. His work is among five new murals that have appeared across the neighborhood, bringing together generations of Seattle artists whose connections to the area stretch back decades. The murals are…
Photo Essay: Behind the Seams
A single thread can be beautiful on its own. Delicate and capable of stretching. Left alone long enough, the world slowly wears it down. But then we learn to weave. Threads intersect—over and under, until they become something greater than themselves. Behind the seams, a story carried across skin and across culture becomes a fashionable…
Seattle’s Dancing Zombies Return This Saturday for 20th Annual Thrill the World
No brains required, just a little rhythm. Performers head to Woodinville for a Halloween dance synchronized across eight countries.
Maybe you’ve had the pleasure of stumbling upon a group of zombies dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” somewhere around Seattle. With their tattered clothes and sunken faces, they’re just the sort of wonderfully strange encounter I think we’re all secretly hoping for when we leave the house in October. These flash-mob-style performances can seem to…
SENSORIUM Takes on Our Screen Addiction
Dance, drag, and immersive art collide in an eight-week exploration of our phone-obsessed lives, with a few surprises along the way.
What do drag queens, smartphone addiction, art installations, and an old luggage shop have in common? According to longtime Seattle choreographer Alana O’Farrell Rogers, a lot. “There’s no dead time anymore,” says Rogers, explaining how the proliferation of smartphones fills the empty spaces that once served as time for rest or connection. Where we snuggled…
Salt-N-Pepa on Breaking Barriers and Staying Power
Ahead of their performance at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture gala, the hip-hop pioneers talk about creative ownership, connecting with new generations, and the songs that still resonate.
The Museum of Pop Culture (MOPOP) will host its annual ICONS of Pop Culture Gala in Seattle on October 22, honoring five artists and institutions whose work has helped shape entertainment and culture. This year’s honorees are martial arts and film legend Bruce Lee, fashion designer Jeremy Scott, the video game franchise Halo, hip-hop pioneers…
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