As events are canceled and organizations close to help slow the spread of coronavirus, we know that artists are suffering deeply and are in need of assistance. Below is a collection of resources our team has found to help artists in need during this time.

We will continue to update this list as we find more resources.

Individual Artists

Seattle Artist Relief Fund – Up to $1,000
Support for artists who have lost income due to cancellations and work stoppage due to the COVID-19 pandemic Ongoing.

Integrity: Arts & Culture Association – $250
Grants for individual artists of all disciplines for creative endeavors. Deadline: 5/1/2020.

Visionary Initiatives in Art (VIA) Art Fund – $25,000-100,000
To support creation of original artwork to be exhibited in the public realm. Deadline: 7/6/2020.

Open 4Culture – Up to $1,500
Funding for artists working in Heritage and Preservation in King County. Ongoing.

Foundation for Contemporary Arts – $1,000
Support for experimental artists impacted by COVID-19. Ongoing.

Rauschenberg Emergency Grants – Up to $5,000
One-time grants for visual and media artists and choreographers for medical emergencies. Ongoing.

Visual Artists

Harpo Foundation – Up to $10,000
Support for underrecognized visual artists. Deadline: 4/15/2020.

Performing Artists

Jazz Road – $5,000-15,000
Supports small tours for emerging-mid-career level Jazz artists. Deadline: 4/21/2020.

Sweet Relief Musicians Fund – Unspecified amount
Financial assistance for musicians impacted by COVID-19. Ongoing.

Equal Sound – Up to $500 per gig.
Support for musicians that have lost work due to COVID-19 related cancellations. Ongoing.

MusiCares – Up to $1,000
Relief for musicians impacted by COVID-19. Ongoing.

Hey, it’s Jesse Ziebart, BIMA’s Cultural Programs Manager and producer of Mojo Rhythm & Blues Festival. Each week, I’ll be coming at ya with my top 5 blues songs of the week to get you through this mess! Check out each week’s picks below and come on back every Wednesday at 4pm for more tunes!

Check out the full playlist here! Stay tuned as we’ll be adding new songs to the playlist each week to keep your Mojo workin’!

Week 4

1. Ural Thomas – Pain is the Name of the Game
2. Mississippi John Hurt – Will the Circle Be Unbroken
3. Dolly Parton – Mule Skinner
4. Muddy Waters – I Just Want to Make Love to You
5. Clarence Carter – Slip Away

Week 3

1. Koko Taylor – I’m a Woman
2. Otis Redding – Cigarettes and Coffee
3. Bo Diddley – Oh, Baby
4. Albert King – I’ll Play the Blues for You
5. Little Richard – Send me Some Lovin’

Week 2

1. Fats Domino – When My Dreamboat Comes Home
2. Jimmy Reed – Shame, Shame, Shame
3. Wanda Jackson – Kansas City
4. Joe Tex – I Gotcha
5. Ann Peebles – Trouble Heartaches and Sadness

Week 1

1. Ray Charles – Night Time is the Right Time (Live 1958)
2. Howlin’ Wolf – Spoonful
3. Aretha Franklin – Mary, Don’t You Weep
4. Sam Cooke – Bring It On Home To Me
5. Junior Wells – In The Wee Hours

As schools, museums, and other community-based organizations across the region close to limit the spread of COVID-19, we know that lots of families are thinking about how to continue learning from home! 

BIMA’s Education team has collected a variety of free online resources to support arts learning from home, with an emphasis on hands-on projects that rely on everyday materials, as well as streaming video resources. Happy art-making and don’t forget to wash your hands!

GRADES Pre-K-5: 

Art, Books, and Creativity
Art, Books, and Creativity (ABC) is a model arts integration curriculum developed by the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

PBS Kids for Parents
Arts Development for Kids gives caregivers tips and activities for ages 2 to 8. 

Metropolitan Museum of Art
MetKids has been inspired, tested, and approved by real kids ages 7–12. Explore the Met using an interactive map, watch behind-the-scenes videos, travel through 5,000+ years of art in our time machine, and try out creative projects 

The Museum of Modern Art
Art Making with MoMA: 20 Activities for Kids Inspired by Artists
Using easy-to-find materials—many of them recycled and everyday household objects—these activities encourage hours of imagining, designing, experimenting, constructing, creating, tinkering, and playing. Art Making with MoMA shows children, and their adults, how to start thinking like artists.

Tate Kids
The Tate in London offers an array of games, activities, videos, galleries and more designed to inform, spark and challenge an array of different ages.

GRADES 6-12+:

PBS Learning Media
Art School is a KQED web video series that introduces contemporary artists who discuss their careers and intentions, then demonstrate hands-on techniques or concepts. Art School provides resources for learning how to breakdance, draw comic strips, create animations, and much more. Empower folks of all ages to engage with contemporary art, and discover new ideas for creativity from a variety of professional artists through this fun and engaging series.

Art21: Art in the Twenty-First Century
Art21 is a celebrated global leader in presenting thought-provoking and sophisticated content about contemporary art, and the go-to place to learn first-hand from the artists of our time. Watch videos documenting artist’s practice across the world and use the Learning Library for hands-on activities or discussion/writing prompts most appropriate. 

National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art offers An Eye for Art series that groups works of art under topical headings such as storytelling or portraits, gives in-depth information about individual works and asks viewers to observe, analyze and question.

ALL AGES:

Arts Corps
Online resources for visual arts and writing.

Nancy Blum Coloring Pages
PDF downloads of artist-made coloring pages.

Craft in America
Craft in America is streaming more than a decade of its Peabody Award-winning video content and hundreds of artist stories that delight, inspire, entertain, and uplift through these challenging times. CIA’s vast library of 13 years of video content and educational tools is FREE.

Berlin Philharmonic
Free online viewing of films, performances for the month.

How to Start Drawing
Dive in and draw, even if you’ve never tried before!

❄️ Happy Holidays from BIMA! ❄️

We’re so grateful to have you as part of the BIMA family.

As a gift to you and yours this holiday season, BIMA’s staff put together a mix tape of some of our favorite tunes to warm up the long winter ahead!

From all-time favorites to wedding first dances, nostaligic jams to songs that just have a us grooving right now, this playlist has something for everyone! Enjoy and get dancing!

BIMA’s Within/Earshot Jazz Festival is over, but I’m still applauding. Bravo to the musicians, educators, filmmakers, organizers, sponsors, partners, artists, and jazz fans who filled the museum with excitement, buzz and some of the most mind-bending programming BIMA has seen all year long.

Here are a few highlights from Within/Earshot 2019:

Johnaye Kendrick launched us into Within/Earshot 2020 with her improvised jazz standards and ambitiously arranged original compositions. Her expressive vocals and broad range beautifully represent the true musicianship and technique of an artist who has dedicated decades to her craft.

Jim Cauter returned for his beloved series Jazz With Jim. Over the course of two evenings, Jim took the audience on a music history journey first exploring be-bop, hard-bop, cool jazz, and then down a winding path of fusion jazz exploring its many styles, influences, and key artists. Come back again next year, Jim—BIMA loves you!

In an effort to represent as much regional talent as possible during Within/Earshot, BIMA launched the Best of the West Sound Mini Jazz Festival this year, coinciding with the opening of BIMA’s Fall/Winter Exhibitions. This one-day festival featured three acts—The Cuban Heels, Sus 4 (aka Mission Drift), and the Chuck Easton/George Radebaugh Quartet—and had musicians representing every corner of the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas, from Port Townsend to Port Orchard and beyond.

Well-loved pianist, Bill Anschell, and his dynamic (and freakishly telepathic) bandmates and Seattle heavy-weights D’Vonne Lewis and Jeff Johnson, performed a celebration of what it means to “play” music. This trio truly enjoy playing together and it was fun to witness the joyous energy in their interactions (have any of you seen a more expressive drummer?).

What’s better than one Grace Love performance at BIMA? Two Grace Love performances at BIMA in the same year. Appearing mid-festival, soul singer Grace Love returned to BIMA and we are more in love than ever. Accompanied only by a guitar, the audience reveled in her powerful, unhurried and nuanced interpretations of jazz and pop standards. As far as I’m concerned, Grace can sing whatever she wants and it will knock our socks off.

When it comes to art, taking risks can really pay off, and if anybody is capable of truly taking that risk it is avant-garde power duo Bad Luck, whose Within/Earshot program was created specifically for BIMA and inspired true wonder and awe. Appearing in collaboration with stunning modern dancer, Lorraine Lau, Bad Luck brought sound, light, energy, emotion, and movement directly from their hearts to ours and it was unlike anything any of us have ever experienced. I’m sure I’m not the only one who was transported and transformed by this unforgettable performance – and still relishing in it.

Performing romantic and rhythmic songs in English, Spanish and Portuguese, Elspeth Savani and Savani Latin Jazz, turned many of us into chair-dancing fools. (Be honest, is anything more fun than pretending you know how to salsa dance? I didn’t think so.) There is something to be said for being a female bandleader who plays percussion, syncopates, and sings in three different languages. Brava, Elspeth!

It was extremely important to us to present documentaries Buena Vista Social Club and A Great Day in Harlem in a way that did justice to what each represented: capturing and preserving an important era in music. Korum and I researched, contemplated and wrote introductions to the films, but you, loyal cinephiles, brought the magic. After both screenings, I was surprised and impressed by audience members who shared anecdotes, observations and engaged in truly interesting conversation about the content. It is a delight to welcome such knowledgeable, passionate and curious film-goers week after week; not only is it a little intimidating, but it is extremely rewarding to engage in conversations with you, our audience. I just want to thank you for your anecdotes, observations, and for bringing so much to these post-film conversations. Take a bow!

Rounding out the festival was Jazz Combo III, a visual art exhibition featuring portraits of Seattle jazz greats by noted Northwest photojournalist Daniel Sheehan. Sheehan has been documenting clubs, venues, and musicians Seattle over many years and captured the scene in a way that few could, including the compelling faces of Clarence Acox, Scott Brown, Hadley Caliman, Floyd Standifer, Ruby Bishop, Overton Berry, D’Vonne Lewis, and many other local legends. Joining Sheehan’s photo survey was a selection of iconic illustrated jazz album covers curated by photographer Raymond Gendreau, owner of Backstreet Beat record store.

Wow! All that in only four weeks?!

Thanks again to Realogics/Sothebys, City of Bainbridge Island, Earshot Jazz, KNKX, Crosscut, and art supporter Steve Davis for cheering us on.

BIMA is humbled to be a part of the larger Earshot Jazz Festival and over-the-moon to share in the exploration of jazz music and history with you every year. See you in 2020!

We’re excited to feature local multimedia artist Ellen Antonelli in the Museum Store for the month of November 2019. Stop by the Museum Store to pick up one of Ellen’s handmade bags, wallets, totes, and duffle and travel bags.

The Museum Store is open daily from 10am-6pm.

About Ellen Antonelli

We’re excited to feature local multimedia artist Carrie Goller in the Museum Store for the month of October 2019. Stop by the Museum Store to pick up one of Carrie’s greeting cards, prints, and paintings, many of which feature Carrie’s Woodland-theme seen in her exhibition Creatures Comfort at BIMA in 2018.

The Museum Store is open daily from 10am-6pm.

About Carrie Goller

Carrie Goller was born and raised on Bainbridge Island. She recalls that during childhood she was advised to pursue a career in fine art – but it was a brush with mortality that finally shook her towards this dedicated path. Goller attended Northwest College of Art, and also studied with many master artists – including the classical painter Juliette Aristides, and plein air artists Jim Lamb and Ned Mueller. She has always been inspired by the organic, sensuous forms and colors and textures in nature. She leans towards impressionism – and enjoys experimenting with abstraction. Yet she also paints more traditional compositions, such as still lifes, landscapes, and other figural subjects. Goller works in a variety of media, including watercolor, oil, pastel, and encaustic (melted and pigmented beeswax). She paints mostly in her studios on Hood Canal and Bainbridge Island, but she can also be seen creating watercolors on cross-country flights! She owns and operates Carrie Goller Gallery in Poulsbo.

BIMA is super excited to be participating in Refract, The Seattle Glass Experience from October 17-20, 2019!

Refract celebrates the region’s luminaries of glass art with epic exhibitions, festive art parties, fascinating talks, tours & demos, scores of open studios and exclusive collector events over four days. Glass artists, collectors, enthusiasts and more will converge on the Puget Sound region to give credit where credit is due in the Pacific Northwest’s role in advancing the art form.

To participate, BIMA is opening its first-ever exhibition exclusively dedicated to the many glass pieces in the Museum’s Permanent Art Collection. The exhibition opens October 12, 2019 and will remain up through February 23, 2010. It is also holding over its popular solo exhibition Carol Milne: Knit Wit which features kiln-cast glass techniques. Her sculptures defy the meticulous processes employed to complete the work. Milne’s ‘knitted’ sculptures go beyond realism and re-creation — they also weave personal memories and stories.

Chihuly Garden and Glass and Visit Seattle set out to answer the question of why the PNW has become such a center for glass art by creating Refract: The Seattle Glass Experience, which is the nation’s newest festival highlighting creative uses of glass. Refract brings together more than 50 art organizations and artists to host events throughout the region. Tour local studios, get up-close to the art of glassblowing at live demonstrations, explore exhibitions and museums, attend evening parties, and more.

See where glass art is created with obsessive passion, beauty, and who-knows-what’s-next creativity. Explore the magic and depths of this fascinating material. Celebrate alongside the artists who put this region on the map. We hope to see you there.

We’re excited to feature local artist and designer Joel DeTray in the Museum Store for the month of September 2019. Stop by the Museum Store to pick up one of Joel’s charming etchings featuring wildlife and the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

The Museum Store is open daily from 10am-6pm.

About Joel DeTray

Joel DeTray is an artist and goldsmith living on Dyes Inlet in Bremerton, WA. A graduate of Western Washington University, Joel received a Fine Arts degree in Studio Drawing and Painting. He went on to own and operate a working Intaglio Printmaking Studio/Gallery in Spokane, WA. Later he transformed his creative talents into the jewelry trade as a GIA Graduate Gemologist and master jeweler; going on to own and operate a successful business in custom fine jewelry and art for over 25 years. 

Printmaking is Joel’s passion; focusing on artistic creativity, discovery techniques, and expression. The detail of his original prints (etchings, dry points, monotypes, and linocuts) are direct, expressive, and easily translatable. He is known for his “artist’s touch” – an innovative and imaginative style.

We’re excited to welcome guest blogger Natalie! Natalie, who will be starting 3rd grade in the fall, recently attended the Art & Nature Camp at BIMA this summer and wanted to share some of her experience with the world:

Art camp was good. There was lots of art. Lots and lots of art. My teacher was Isobel. We did indigo dying, cyanotypes, made camouflage out of natural material we found in the park, made paint brushes from nature and painted with special paints made from vegetables. I did so much art that I have no where to put it. It was a good camp. BIMA is fun.