SOLA Seattle

05/11/2026

Happening tonight! How to begin, how to stay organized, and how to build systems that honor both your practice and legacy. Join us for "Keeping Track of a Creative Life," featuring Catherine Eaton Skinner and Suzanna Westhagen.

Free & open to all | Register via link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1987654815058?aff=oddtdtcreator

05/11/2026

Happy birthday to 2025 SOLA Awardee, Caryn Friedlander!

For Caryn, "art making is an adventure into the unknown, a challenge to discover what is true - in herself, life, love, nature and beauty. This perspective aligns with her contemplative practice, where maintaining an openness to the possibility of “not knowing” or, not holding to preconceived outcomes, is a way to live fully into the most profound questions that give meaning to life."

See more work and read about Caryn here:

https://solaseattle.org/awardees/caryn-friedlander
https://carynfriedlander.com/

05/10/2026

This Mother’s Day, we’re honoring the many ways women artists nurture—not only families, loved ones, and communities—but also their creative lives.

For many artists, the path is anything but linear. Seasons of caregiving, raising children, supporting aging parents, building careers, and tending to life’s many responsibilities often shape the rhythm of an artistic practice. And yet, creativity endures—sometimes quietly, sometimes patiently—waiting for its moment to expand.

Join SOLA Awardees Rene Westbrook , Jeanne Simmons , and Gail Grinnell as they lead No Straight Lines: Art Careers, Pauses & New Beginnings, a conversation about caregiving, creative ambition, returning to practice, and forging an artistic life on your own timeline.

Happy Mother’s Day from SOLA!

Register at Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1988965193435?aff=oddtdtcreator

05/07/2026

As we count down to Decades in the Making: 10 Years of SOLA Awardees at Tacoma Art Museum , we’re featuring one exhibiting artist each week.

This week: Norie Sato (2018 SOLA Awardee)

Norie Sato’s interdisciplinary practice spans public art, sculpture, glass, printmaking, and installation. Known for creating site-responsive works that engage architecture, landscape, and community, her art transforms public spaces into places of connection, reflection, and wonder. Across decades of work, she has helped shape the visual language of the Pacific Northwest through projects that thoughtfully bridge art, environment, and everyday life.

Image: Meet Me at the Triangles, 2020

Learn more about Norie:
https://solaseattle.org/awardees/norie-sato

More awardees coming each week!

05/05/2026

A creative life leaves a record. Not only in finished works, but in sketches, journals, photographs, notes, and the many materials that trace an artist’s evolution over time.

This month, SOLA invites you into a conversation about what it means to care for that record—how to begin, how to stay organized, and how to build systems that honor both practice and legacy.

Join us May 11, just a week from today, for "Keeping Track of a Creative Life," featuring Catherine Eaton Skinner and Suzanna Westhagen.

Free & open to all | Register via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1987654815058?aff=oddtdtcreator

04/30/2026

! This week: Tip Toland (2018 SOLA Awardee)

Tip Toland’s figurative ceramic sculpture is intimate, haunting, and deeply human. Through striking realism and emotional vulnerability, her work explores aging, fragility, resilience, and what it means to inhabit a body over time—inviting viewers into moments of quiet recognition and profound empathy.

We’re honored to include her work in this anniversary exhibition opening July 18 at TAM.

Learn more about Tip:
https://solaseattle.org/awardees/tip-toland


Image:
"If I Hold My Breath Will I Rise," 24 x 24 x 12", stoneware, paint, chalk pastels, hair

04/28/2026

How do you preserve a creative life?

A lifetime of art is more than finished pieces—it’s sketches, notebooks, photographs, records, ideas, experiments, and evolving bodies of work that tell the story of an artist’s life.

But where do you begin when it comes to organizing it all?

Join SOLA on Zoom Monday, May 11th 5:30-6:30pm for our May Community Call: Keeping Track of a Creative Life, a conversation about archiving artwork, organizing studio records, and creating systems that support both your practice and your legacy.

Featuring multidisciplinary artist Catherine Eaton Skinner and studio manager/photographer Suzanna Westhagen, who will share how they maintain an extensive archive spanning decades of creative work.

Perfect for artists beginning to organize their work—or thinking about long-term stewardship of their creative legacy.

Topics include:
• Cataloging artwork
• Organizing studio records, images & notes
• Maintaining archives over time
• Building systems that support creative work + legacy planning

Free & open to all
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1987654815058?aff=oddtdtcreator

04/23/2026

As we count down to "Decades in the Making: 10 Years of SOLA Awardees" at Tacoma Art Museum (), we’re featuring one exhibiting artist each week for . This week we're excited to feature 2018 SOLA Awardee, Gail Grinnell!

Gail states on her site about her work that she "...has been known for her large-scale immersive assemblages created to interact with the architecture of the site. A humble translucent non-woven material found in her mother’s sewing basket is the ground for the hand cut drawings that form the building blocks for each installation. She repurposes this archival material whose original use was to lend strength to construction projects of all kinds from clothing, to buildings and landscape work on a municipal scale. The nearly weightless drawings are pinned together under light tension to form a large precisely balanced form that interacts with the light and proportions of the host space and the people who visit."

We’re honored to include her work in this anniversary exhibition opening July 18 at TAM.

Learn more about Gail:
https://solaseattle.org/awardees/gail-grinnell


More awardees coming each week!

Image:
Fiat Lux, acrylic coated spun polyester, natural dye, ink, pins, 2022, 22’H x 30’W x 22’D

04/20/2026

Happening TONIGHT!

Join us from 5:30 to 6:30 PM PT (Zoom) for a chance to connect with fellow artists, talk about how you’ve experimented with AI tools, ask questions, and exchange ideas. This is following our Art & AI Community Call with Peter Bittner in March, it’s time to try it out and share what you learned.

Didn’t attend the original session Art & AI session last month? You’re still very welcome. Come meet the community -- artists sharing, learning, and supporting each other.

Register on Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1984834065119?aff=oddtdtcreator

You may watch the replay of Art & AI here to prep for next week: https://youtu.be/E13RgOfMzl4?si=pwRjwEIF_qwiwQp6

04/14/2026

Have you put AI into your practice yet? The next Community Networking call is just one week away!

Join us on Monday, April 20, 5:30–6:30 PM PT (Zoom) for a chance to connect with fellow artists, talk about how you’ve experimented with AI tools, ask questions, and exchange ideas. This is following our Art & AI Community Call with Peter Bittner in March, it’s time to try it out and share what you learned.

Didn’t attend the original session Art & AI session last month? You’re still very welcome. Come meet the community -- artists sharing, learning, and supporting each other.

Register on Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1984834065119?aff=oddtdtcreator

You may watch the replay of Art & AI here to prep for next week: https://youtu.be/E13RgOfMzl4?si=pwRjwEIF_qwiwQp6

04/03/2026