A sculpture of a porpoise skeleton made of glass hangs from the ceiling.

Crafting Futures Panel Discussion

ABOUT OUR PANELISTS

Betsy Hagestedt, Programs Manager, Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network (BARN)

Betsy has always been an artist, beginning in fiber with a focus on knit and sewn garment construction, and more recently playing with new techniques and materials like glass, paper, bronze and wood. She has lived, studied and researched in northern England, Victoria, BC, Calgary, AB, and Quito and Puyo Ecuador. She holds a PhD from the University of Victoria in Visual Anthropology and Materiality. As an anthropologist, though her research focused on visual communication rather than artistic practice, knitting became a universal point of connection with diverse people around the world. Leaving academia, Betsy has now shifted to a focus on arts access through nonprofit administration. In addition to working for BARN, she sits on the boards of Wayzgoose Kitsap and Pratt Fine Arts, and the Bremerton Arts Commission.

Ed King, Executive Director, Pottery Northwest

Ed King is the Executive Director of Pottery Northwest, the longest-running ceramics nonprofit in the Pacific Northwest. Since joining in 2022, he has guided the organization through a period of transformation by fostering inclusive and equity-focused programming, advancing a bold relocation project, and mobilizing significant financial support for its long-term sustainability.

A recognized arts leader, award-winning artist, and cultural strategist, Ed brings deep experience across arts administration, creative practice, and equity-centered organizational leadership.

Ed passionately advocates for economic vitality for artists and expanded access to cultural participation, and approaches leadership with a commitment to inclusion, equity, and community-centered programming. He also believes that everyone deserves the chance to experience joy, community, and restorative healing found in creative art practices.

Ed is widely regarded as a visionary bridge builder who fosters collaboration across artists, community partners, civic leaders, and funders. As a Seattle Arts Commissioner, he contributes to citywide arts policy and champions creative ecosystems that support a diverse range of cultural voices.

Daniel Wallace, Executive Director, Northwest Designer Craftartists (NWDC)

Daniel Wallace is a 2008 graduate of The Maryland Institute College of Art, having also studied at The Glasgow School of Art, and the Baltimore School for the Arts. Before joining NWDC, he was the Program Coordinator at Howl! Arts, a non-profit gallery and archive dedicated to preserving the arts and culture of Lower East Side Manhattan. He continues to develop independent curatorial programs and maintains a personal practice as a ceramic artist and illustrator.

Donna Davies, Executive Director, Pilchuck

Donna Davies became Executive Director of Pilchuck in 2024, after serving as Deputy Director for four years. Prior to Pilchuck, Davies was the Director of the SOFA art fairs including SOFA CHICAGO, SOFA New York, and SOFA WEST: Santa Fe. The SOFA art fairs were established to create and foster a larger audience for the applied arts, which Davies further developed with national and international art galleries exhibiting art and design, greater outreach to non-profit organizations whose missions supported the applied arts and expanded corporate sponsorship of the fairs. Prior to that, Davies was the Director of Marx-Saunders Gallery in Chicago, and the Assistant Director of Contemporary Art at Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe. Davies holds a BA in Art History from the University of Kansas and an MA in Art History from the University of Oklahoma, where she wrote her Master’s Thesis on contemporary Indigenous glass, focusing on the work of Preston Singletary (Tlingit), Tony Jojola (Isleta), and Marvin Oliver (Quinault/Isleta).

Thanks to our 2026 Exhibition Sponsors

Artist Talk & Film Screening: Storytime with Mare Blocker

Thanks to our 2025 Exhibition Sponsors

Meet the Artist: Aisha Harrison – February 15

THANKS TO OUR 2025/2026 EXHIBITION SPONSORS

Meet the Artist: Aisha Harrison – January 31

THANKS TO OUR 2025/2026 EXHIBITION SPONSORS

BIMA Mercado

OUR VENDORS

  • Alice Mendoza — Mexican made earrings for charity

  • Calin — Calin Garcia, Jewelry

  • Chaotic Goods Shoppe — Jade Cates, Textile Art

  • Kimberly Desaulniers — Facepainting

  • Leilani Urquieta — Prints & Stickers (@alohalanicitart)

  • Maria de la Luz Rosario — Handmade clothing, textile art

  • Piñata Party WA — Irma Rubio, Piñatas

  • The Introverted Potter — Maritza Leon, Ceramics (@the.introverted.potter)

  • Tizana Mexicana — Suleiny Altamirano, Authentic Mexican artisan goods (@tizanamexicana)

  • Tozi Tea — Carolina Ramirez, Tea & Wellness (@tozitea)

  • Yo Its Cake — Krystal J, Prints & Stickers (@yoitscake)

Thank you to our sponsors

Artists’ Books Unshelved (Online) – First Saturday – 2026

Sample Video

Sculptural Artist’s Books Workshop with Mare Blocker

Thanks to our 2025 Exhibition Sponsors

James Washington, Jr.

The Living Legacy of James W. Washington, Jr.

Guest Speakers

Esther Ervin is a contemporary visual artist and jewelry maker. She has a BS in Biology from the University of California, with credits from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. She completed her MFA thesis in medical Illustration at California State University, Long Beach. After a brief career adventure in the insurance and securities industry, Esther was awarded a residency and the Gregory M. Robinson scholarship at Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle, Washington, where she studied jewelry-metalsmithing and welding. Later, she had a residency at the James and Janie Washington Foundation in Seattle, where she incorporated materials found there into new work. Her wearable art has been exhibited in Washington, Oregon; Beijing, China; Vilnius and Palanga, Lithuania; and in Legnica and Gdansk, Poland. Esther consistently generates and exhibits art and jewelry. She has 18 concrete, glass, and bronze pieces installed at the Liberty Bank Building on 24th Ave. and Union St., Seattle, WA, and was the coordinator for the art plan, which included seven other artists. Esther continues exploring new techniques and works in various mediums, sometimes focusing on environmental or political subjects. She is a member of the Seattle Metals Guild and shows work at Onyx Gallery and her home studio.

June Sekiguchi was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Studio Art from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She works primarily with scroll-cut wood in her studio practice making sculptures and site-specific installations. Her current work is in the public art realm. Sekiguchi is an arts activist and advocate, co-founding and participating in several non-profit and artist-run spaces in the Seattle area. Sekiguchi’s interests involve social justice issues, cultural exchange, mental health, and elder communities. She is currently an independent art curator for Era Living and curates for the gallery at Asia Pacific Cultural Center in Tacoma, WA, where she serves on the board. Sekiguchi is a recipient of a GAP grant and Fellowship from Artist Trust and five 4Culture grants. She has participated in residencies in the Pacific Northwest, including Willapa Bay AiR, Vashon Artist Residency, and the James and Janie Washington residency, as well as abroad in Cambodia and Laos. She has exhibited extensively in the Salish Sea area, including the San Juan Islands Museum of Art, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, the Vashon Center for the Arts, the Wing Luke Asian Museum, and Bellevue Arts Museum. She lives in Tacoma and is represented by ArtX Contemporary in Seattle.

Stewart Wong is a mixed-media artist whose work spans fiber arts, sculpture, and public installations. Drawing inspiration from both natural and built environments, he blends craft and technology to explore structure, identity, and cultural memory. A descendant of Native Hawaiian and Chinese immigrants, his heritage informs much of his work, which often highlights underrepresented AAPI and BIPOC histories. Wong’s public artworks include installations at the Wing Luke Museum, Sammamish Park & Ride, and Bernalillo County Courthouse. He earned a BFA in Design from Cornish College and has served as a mentor to youth through programs like Wing Luke’s YouthCAN and Mercer Island schools. His art reflects his understanding of displacement, labor, and equity—shaped by personal family history and broader systemic challenges. A member of Northwest Designer Craftartists and the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, Wong continues to create pieces that offer social insight and encourage cultural reflection through layered, material-rich forms.

Artist Talk and Panel Discussion | The Living Legacy of James W. Washington, Jr.

Thanks to our 2025 Exhibition Sponsors

James Washington, Jr.

Three Voices, Three Visions: On The Life and Legacy of James W. Washington Jr.

Guest Speakers

Anna Bálint is a London-born, Seattle-based poet, writer, editor, and cultural activist of East European descent. Her many years of editorial work for Raven Chronicles Press include the Take a Stand, Art Against Hate Anthology, which won the 2021 Washington State Book Award for poetry, and Words From the Café, an anthology of writing by people in recovery. Her short fiction collection, Horse Thief (Curbstone Press, 2004), spans cultures and continents and was a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Book Award. A longtime teacher of creative writing, Anna currently teaches adults in recovery from trauma, addiction, mental illness, and homelessness at Seattle’s Recovery Café, where she founded Safe Place Writing Circle.

Susan Noyes Platt, PhD, is a freelance art historian and art critic based in Seattle. Her most recent book is Around the World in 25 Years: Provocative Art from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas: Collected Writings (Ingram 2025). After many years as a tenured professor of art history, Susan Noyes Platt is an independent art historian and freelance art critic and curator, based in Seattle, Washington. Her books include Modernism in the 1920s (UMI Research Press, 1985), Art and Politics in the 1930s, Modernism, Marxism, Americanism (Midmarch Arts Press, 1999), and Art and Politics Now, Cultural Activism in a Time of Crisis (Midmarch Arts Press, 2011), Setting Our Hearts on Fire, Collected Writings Volume 2: Essays on Artists from 1982 to the Present (2022).

Through poetry, artist books, installations, and mixed-media works, Carletta Carrington Wilson discovers answers to questions she did not know to ask. This artist finds each artistic endeavor to be an act of excavation and a revelation. Her work, described as “decorative with a message,” has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and libraries in the Seattle area and beyond. Her poems continue to appear in local and national publications. Carletta Carrington Wilson created Poem of Stone & Bone, a work of memory, on the property of James W. Washington Jr. in 2011. Four installations revived key aspects of the sculptor’s artistic lineage, melding geography, spirituality, nature, and intellect. The culminating event led visitors on a journey across the Washington landscape and into his studio after the artist’s month-long residency. Raven Chronicles Press published, in 2023, Poem of Stone & Bone: The Iconography of James. W. Washington Jr. in Fourteen Stanzas and Thirty-One Days. The book documents Wilson’s series of site-specific installations created on the property of the noted sculptor. Journal entries chart her journey and visceral responses to objects found on the grounds, in the house, and studio of the artist. The artist engaged with objects, land, and literature to create a nuanced perspective on the life and work of James W. Washington Jr.

Book Sale & Signing: Poem of Stone & Bone

Poem of Stone & Bone: The Iconography of James W. Washington Jr. in Fourteen Stanzas and Thirty-One Days by Carletta Carrington Wilson (Author), with an introduction by Anna Bálint and a foreword by Susan Noyes Platt, documents Wilson’s 2011 series of four site-specific installations at the Seattle home of renowned African American sculptor James W. Washington Jr.

This richly illustrated volume features 59 full-color images and essays by Wilson, Bálint, Platt, and Dr. Angela Gilliam. The book offers readers an intimate experience of Washington’s world—his garden, studio, and unfinished sculptures—while reflecting on the spiritual and historical resonances present in his home. Wilson’s installations incorporated stones, bones, photographs, and symbolic objects to evoke the artist’s legacy as a sculptor, activist, and leading member of the Northwest School.

Three Voices, Three Visions: On The Life and Legacy of James W. Washington Jr.

Thanks to our 2025 Exhibition Sponsors

Día de los Muertos Ofrenda 2025

THANKS TO OUR 2025 EXHIBITION SPONSORS