Art/Entertainment

Providence Mount St. Vincent's outdoor concert series ended with people eating barbecue, tapping toes, clapping hands, and even dancing in the outdoor aisles Friday night, Aug. 27.

The Haggis Brothers‘ performed bluegrass and at times seemed to evoke Johnny Cash.

Residents joined family, staff, and volunteers while a magician, sketch artist and professional dancers entertained.

CLICK ON PHOTO FOR SLIDE SHOW.

All photos by Steve Shay

Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata launched Seattle Art Walks, a website designed to highlight the Ballard Art Walk as well the the dozen other neighborhood art walks, Aug. 26.

Seattle Art Walks includes a neighborhood map of Seattle surrounded with the names of areas hosting art walks. Users can click the name of each neighborhood for details.

Licata said he believes art walks are important to the city's neighborhoods.

"They inspire visitors and residents to appreciate creativity within themselves and throughout their community," he said in an email. "They offer opportunities for residents and visitors to socialize and network. And, they generate revenue for creative professionals and businesses."

Licata said the high number of art walks in Seattle represents the city's high overall creative vitality rating. A 2007 Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs report ranks Seattle's overall creative vitality at roughly six times the national average, he said.

For neighborhood residents ready for a break from the crowded, noisy summer street festival scene, the Ballard Art in the Garden Festival is here to help.

The annual festival at the Ballard P-Patch returns for its 10th year Aug. 21. Event Chair Kelly Ryan said he credits Art in the Garden's longevity to the venue.

"The whole concept of music and food and art in a garden is so relaxing," Ryan said. "There's something pretty special about walking around and smelling that food and hearing that music."

The nature of gardening itself has also helped keep the festival going for a decade, he said.

"Gardening is a thing that once you get it in your system, it doesn't go away," Ryan said. "It's a lifestyle."

Ryan, who is also a gardener at the Ballard P-Patch, said the festival is a way for gardeners to showoff and give the community a taste of what can be done with the soil.

Now is a fitting time to do that, with long waiting lists for P-patches and parents starting to teach their children to garden again, he said.

Whitman Middle School teacher Christopher King won the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary Contest award for best screenplay July 24 for his script "Jade."

King said it felt wonderful to win the screenplay category with "Jade," a humorous action-adventure piece centered around the illegal trafficking of ancient antiquities.

"Short of getting a screenplay produced, receiving positive recognistion for one's writing is the most satisfying thing that can happen for a writer," he said. "It means that your story worked – that someone 'got it.'"

"Jade" is set in Mexico and Pamplona, Spain, and tells the story of two strong male leads who can't stand each other teaming up with a beautiful, duplicitous daughter of a respected archaeologist to deliver a precious Olmec jade frieze to a private collector.

When "American "Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert played Seattle in July, Ballard resident Mark Saltzman's friend was desperate to meet him, and Saltzman knew just how to do it. Make a puppet.

When Adam Lambert the singer took the stage, Adam Lambert the puppet, complete with top hat, makeup and rippling felt abs, was in the front row performing along.

Afterward, Puppet Adam Lambert made it back stage and was played with by Lambert's brother and signed by Lambert himself. Mission accomplished.

Saltzman is the founder of Kiwuppet Studios, currently being run out of his East Ballard garage. He has made more than 75 puppets and is working to expand and share his love of the art form with children and adults alike.

As an actor in the early 2000s, was a human actor alongside puppet costars in "Bear in the Big Blue House". Watching expert puppeteers every night rekindled a childhood love of puppets.

Providence Mt. St. Vincent 4831 35th Ave SW (between SW Hudson & SW Edmunds in West Seattle is featuring Maia Santell & House Blend
tonight at 6 pm. Dinner which starts at 5 pm is Jambalaya, burgers, and hot dogs.

The music will start at 6 pm.

There will be a Bouncy House, face painter, caricature artist.

Food is available for purchase and a beer and wine garden for those over 21. Fun activities for kids.

The Five Angels Benefit Concert, featuring performances by Ian McFeron, Kris Orlowski, Massy Ferguson and Big Sur, in support of the surviving victims of the fatal June 12 fire in Fremont will take place Aug. 10 at the Showbox SoDo.

The apartment fire, which was started by a foam mattress leaning against a light bulb, claimed five young lives. The victims of the fire were siblings Yaseen Shamam (5), Nisreen Shamam (6) and Joseph Gebregiorgis (13), as well as cousin Nyella Smith (7) and aunt Eyerusalem Gebregiorgis (22).

It was the most deadly fire in Seattle since 1971, according to a press release for the benefit concert.

The victims are remembered by family members who lost not only their loved ones, but also their home and most of their belongings, according to the press release.

To provide support to the family, a portion of the profits from the benefit concert will be provided to the surviving mothers to fund the family’s immediate needs with the remaining profits being placed in a college trust fund for the one surviving child of the family, Samarah Smith, according to the press release.

As his 17-foot-tall bronze welcome figure settled onto its pedestal at the Salmon Bay Natural Area July 14, artist Marvin Oliver turned to his family and helpers and beamed.

The statue – meant to celebrate Puget Sound salmon and local indigenous cultures as well as draw attention to the natural area located near the Ballard Locks at the street end of 34th Avenue Northwest – was first announced June 2009. Since that time, the project suffered a number of fits and starts.

Groundswell NW, the nonprofit that partnered with the city to bring the welcome figure to Ballard, originally planned to have it installed in fall 2009. The installation was then postponed to early June 2010 before being moved to this week.

"I don't consider them delays," said Oliver, an artist of Quinault heritage and a curator at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. "For me, it's right on time."

Due to its popularity, Greenwood's Taproot Theatre is bringing Drama with Your Mama, a theater class for toddlers, back for a summer run.

Drama with Your mama launched last spring and provides parents and caregivers a fun and enriching way to bond with their children while encouraging social and self-awareness in the toddlers.

Taproot Theatre Education Director Sara Willy told the Ballrad News-Tribune in May that children get a lot out of the class. Future actors are learning skills that will serve them in that pursuit, while other children learn how to use their voices, bodies and space while being aware of others, she said.

She said the goal is to build confidence in children. For example, when asked to show what a tree looks like, young children will often look to adults to show them first. Drama With Your Mama will give them the confidence and ability to make their own choices and show what a tree looks like to them, Willy said.

The class, for children ages 1 to 3, takes place on Mondays from July 12 through Aug. 16 at Timberlake Church, located at 1460 N.W. 73rd St. The six-week session is $75 or $15 on a drop-in basis.