Northwest now is supported in part by viewers like you.

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Covid 19 blew a hole in Seattle's art scene, and it's only now starting to come back.

Part of that comeback includes the Seattle Art Museum and its new CEO, Scott Doolan.

Can Sam help Seattle recover from the civic unrest, bad governance and crime that turned parts of the Emerald City into a combat zone?

and it's the end of an era at a local ballroom.

But that doesn't mean it's all coming to an end.

Our Steve Higgins has the latest on the future of Seattle's famed century Ballroom.

That's part of the discussion tonight on northwest now.

Music Scott Stueln has been in place since last August, coming to lead the Seattle Art Museum from the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

He's got a master's in fine art focusing on the visual arts like painting and drawing with a bachelor's in sculpture.

Sam has done well since Covid, turning a profit in the past three years with some recent exhibitions of national importance.

But with that said, membership is down about 25% from pre-pandemic levels.

Despite his fondness for fine arts and stoked attendance at Philbrook with things like a burger night, a mini golf tournament and a cat video festival.

So walking that fine line between what people should see and what they want to see is part of the job.

I have often jokingly told people, you know something, if I wanted to boost the ratings for Northwest now, I would make it northwest now.

Cats and Dogs edition with some user generated content, I'm telling you.

And we'd zoom right to the top, right to the top of the charts.

You actually did that a little bit at Philbrook.

You had the mini golf and cat videos and barbecuing hamburgers.

All great.

But I think the broader question here is there's the art we should be interested in and study and know because we should.

And then there's the art that we want to look at that's interesting, cool and popular.

How do you, as a as a director in the position you're in, get that balance right between the main course and dessert?

Well balance is the key about all of it.

But I also think often museums to lean too far to the one side of being either stuffy or a little too kind of like impenetrable in a way in which a lot of audiences feel like, well, that's not for me.

Or I walk in and I'm just confused by what I'm seeing.

And then I'm like, I guess this isn't really speaking my language.

So things like, can I, will I support the cats and dogs?

Like you say, it works, but, but if you find different ways to invite people in.

So, you know, with the Cat Video Festival, we did Burger nights.

We did various types of things at the museum that invited an audience that had never been there before.

Right?

Yeah.

So they came in and they're like, okay, well, this thing's cool.

I'm coming with my friends.

I'm having fun with my family here.

What's that around the corner?

So I'm going into the gallery.

I'm like, well, this is interesting.

And then if you take it the extra step and you make how you're speaking about that work, connect to that audience and feel relevant to their lives today, then you're in.

Yeah.

And that's been my strategy place is how do you make people feel at home in the museum?

How do you invite people in to places they may be one of naturally gone?

And one of the best ways of doing it is actually through play, through fun, through being social.

Yeah, I think that's a great point.

I think you're right on the money with that.

In the media world, that phenomenon is called discovery, right?

You're opening the door for discovery.

There you come.

Watch Star Trek, but there's these other cool shows.

That's right.

Same with the museum.

Hey, come for burger night.

But, you know, I actually like some of these paintings that are over in the thing, and I want to learn more.

Exactly.

And then you also the other.

You know, a challenge for museums is like, I come once I saw everything, I'm like, yeah, all right, I saw that, I did that, I'm good.

So being able to do other programs activities means I'm coming this week to have a burger.

I'm coming next week, see a film.

I'm coming on my lunch break because I just want to get away from everything.

A recharge, a different week.

How do you create different entry points for different types of experience?

I think that is one of the greatest challenges that a museum director faces today.

I'm not in the industry, but it just occurs to me as I've been, you know, doing some background for this.

We live in a world now where swipe, swipe, swipe, click, click, clicks.

These pictures have been on the wall for a month.

That's right.

I'm not going back to see those pictures.

I saw them a month, a year.

Are you kidding?

So a how do you know when to cycle this and be?

How do you possibly get enough inventory to survive in a world where I want to see the new thing?

Right.

It's a it's a great challenge.

I mean, and I think what you're speaking to is, yes, it is that challenge.

There's also another layer to this.

It's harder actually to penetrate an audience now through the marketing.

So people don't know about shows happening until months they've been up.

So actually extending the shows longer is working more in our favor now than the rotation.

The other thing is, most museums show between 3 and 5% of their total collection.

So how do you have more those pieces come out?

How do you see different things?

My goal is that if you come multiple times during the year, every single time you see something new.

Yeah.

And and also that you do different types of activities and things that you can engage with.

So that's on the Museum of Programing having different ways that you engage with that art.

But I also think there's another piece of it with the swipe culture, how to actually slow people down.

And I think actually slowing down and looking at a work of art is not something that you inherently know.

You kind of need to learn it.

So it's on us to kind of how do we create that prompt.

How do you make you sit in front of something for 30s maybe a minute, which feels like an eternity particular for you.

Yeah, I ready to do it.

But I think there's something to that.

And I, you know, I love the fact you can go online, see any work of art in the world anywhere, through it, which is amazing.

Yeah.

It does not replicate sitting in front of the real thing.

No.

And seeing the scope of it, the size of it, the color of it, and some of those things I would I would say too, it's hard.

You don't want to change the channel because, Sam's received some donations and now has some nationally significant collections, which you don't want to say.

Well, that's that's not here this month.

No, we came.

Now, in my case, I would come to see those nationally significant collections and want to make darn sure they're there.

Yeah.

So that's trying to serve several different masters.

Yes.

And this is the this is the puzzle.

But what we want to do is we want to have those anchor pieces.

So if you want to come and see that work of art that you've always loved, you remembered as a kid coming in, we want those pieces to be there so that you can come and see your your good friends that are there and then discover something totally new.

So coming full circle, it's about the balance.

How do you have both those things happening all the time?

And I got to some of the good stuff early.

I want to swing back around and get into your bio a little bit, talk a little bit about where you're from, your education, your interests, and how you're tracked to get here.

Sure, I'm somewhat unusual as a museum director, so I grew up in Minnesota, so I grew up in like outstate rural Minnesota, the resort country there.

I went to school.

I, my undergrad is in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin, my Masters in Painting and Drawing from University of Minnesota.

And I wanted to teach painting, and I wanted to just make my own work.

And I showed my own artwork around the country for many years.

And I fell into the museum world somewhat by accident.

So I came in through education and then kind of came up through programing, eventually curatorial, doing mostly music and film and dance and performing arts, and then eventually I became a director, which I never really thought was ever going to happen.

Now I will say my background somewhat rare.

I'm the only museum director in the country with a studio art master's background.

Most of our art historians are come from finance, which again, yeah, not a not, you know, a judgment call.

A better or worse.

You can't see me rolling my eyes over here because we're going to and we're going to bring that up in a minute.

But about the finance director.

Yeah, but it's but really what it is, is I think it gives me a slightly different perspective.

So I, you know, when we're working with artists like I'm, you know, one of them, I'm still making work.

I've dated for the last 20 years.

I do a lot of things that are kind of on that making side of thing, and I think it influences how I approach the museum, and I think that's so huge.

I am such a proponent of people coming up through the system and actually making and doing the thing before they run the thing.

Yeah, now that is not cool.

And media, you know, you can be a management stooge coming out of sales and run a news department or, or at least be the GM.

And there are many.

I don't want to cast aspersions on everyone, but I just think it's important to have done a lot of different jobs.

And you know something?

If you're an artist who becomes a director, to me that's a much different vibe than a guy.

You know, I did spreadsheets and now I'm telling the art museum how to do things.

So I think there's just tremendous value to that.

With that said, you want to do the art, you want to do the cool stuff sustainability, counting the nickels, making sure that we have enough people coming through the door, making sure our memberships up.

That's kind of a the dark side of what you have to do now as an artist.

Do you like that or do you hold your nose and do it?

How do you approach it?

I like it because it matters and loud to do all the stuff that we want to do.

So it's important.

So I think when I came up to my first director job, there was this think maybe I could do the programing.

I had a track record of doing that.

They knew I had innovation, ideas.

It was whether or not could I like, can I fund it?

And I've been very successful in doing that.

And part of it has been the same innovation I've been applying to programing, applying that to revenue.

So how do you think about different ways that you can bring in membership?

How do you think about different ways you can create revenue programs to be able to do all the things that museums doing and in some ways to borrowing from other areas of borrowing from for profit models as much as nonprofit models, thinking about ways like, why do you want to come back to museum?

Let's lean into that.

How do we make more of that?

How do we make the museum be a cool social space that you want to come on a Thursday night, not just once a year?

All those things kind of link together.

So I really apply kind of that same approach to the finance side of it as I do the programing side.

So why do you maybe like to be doing a sculpture in the back room?

You are forced to wear your management hat, you know.

Welcome to Seattle.

Here comes an 11 day strike.

Yes.

You're now a union shop.

It got resolved.

Any lasting implications of that?

Is it long term a good thing, a bad thing?

How do you review it?

It's a good thing, I think, coming in.

I mean, nobody wants to walk into a situation.

And this is one that had been going for a couple of years.

So I kind of inherited it coming in.

But to be able to reach a resolution relatively quickly, but for me it was learning a lot.

I learned a lot about the organization.

I learned about Seattle, I learned about who I have on my team.

I think that's incredibly important.

And through that process, it's surface, some adjacent things.

With the organization that allowed me to take care of those right away, that may have taken a much longer time to deal with retirements and work rules.

And, and, you know, just how we're kind of, you know, approaching labor and we want to support our staff.

And there's also those things that are non compensation.

Like what are those other areas that we can look at.

So in a way it was like in somewhat of kind of I wouldn't want to do it again, but it was a blessing to kind of go through all of that and learn from it.

So we're in a great place going forward.

You know, with the union and look forward to continuing to grow that.

In reading your bio, you you'd been targeting Sam for a long time.

You always wanted to come to Seattle and do this all along with that.

You talk a little bit about the relationship management piece.

You manage relationships in Tulsa.

There's some big oil money there.

There are people with money here.

There are billionaires.

Yes.

And they have big art collections.

They do.

And, how are you managing that?

Are you do you feel like you must feel like you're equipped to manage it, but, what's out there?

Are there big collections you're trying to get?

What have you received?

Talk a little bit about your plan when it comes to that much bigger, more global even piece that you're dealing with here?

Yeah.

Well, it's really exciting.

I mean, there's some tremendous supporters here that have been very generous, not only to Sam, but to all sorts of organizations across the region.

There's amazing collections here, some of which have already been, you know, gifted to Sam and some, of course, that we want to nurture in the future.

So I think it's just a blessing to be able to kind of work with, people that are avid collectors that know art, they're passionate about the arts community here.

And I think part of it is like whenever you're dealing with, you know, somebody who's supporting the museum, I get asked often like, is it hard to ask for money for things?

I think it's really easy to do when you believe in what you're doing.

And I truly believe in what we're doing through the museum.

And I know that, you know, I was brought in for a purpose.

Yes.

Here.

And and be able to execute that.

So I feel like it's a great synergy.

And I'm just really excited to be here.

Yeah.

I don't think there's any way unless you're a sociopath, you can't ask for money for something you don't believe.

Now you have to believe it and be excited about it.

Yeah, yeah.

Speaking of which, you know, people with some big money Paul Allen Family Foundation, they're bringing back stuff, free first Thursday, which what was there?

Then it went away and now it's coming back.

Talk a little bit about some of these engagement pieces and I'll hit you next on World Cup.

But first up.

Yeah, the Thursday nights.

How is that.

So Thursday nights they had been with Covid hit and a lot of things kind of rolled back downtown.

And we brought those back.

So those are back in full force.

So all locations are free on on Thursday nights are Thursday actually all day, but Thursday nights in particular programing.

We also have the south entrance.

So where the Hammerman sculpture is up the harbor steps that is now open, that's been closed for over five years.

So that is open now.

We're adding more art to public spaces, we're adding more to those entry ways.

And then we're making those nights be really kind of interactive.

So having like music some nights, having different types of film programs or lectures or other things.

So if you go to the website, you'll see all the stuff we're planning there.

But the biggest thing is I want you thinking about those Thursday nights as an example, like, what are we going to do tonight?

Like, well, we always, you know, Samwise, that's cool stuff on Thursday nights.

I don't know what it is, but I know it's gonna be interesting.

Let's just kind of come over.

Yeah, yeah, we'll talk a little bit about that, too.

You know, you've been here not quite a year.

It's.

Yeah, yeah, about seven months.

But downtown Seattle really took some lumps.

In the past, in the early part of this decade.

And it's going to, it's going to be a while to fight out of them.

Like it or not, what role can Sam play in that as you open things up and try to bring some of that pedestrian traffic back, do you see that as an opportunity for Sam already to smack your forehead and say, gee, I wish it.

Gee whiz, I wish downtown wasn't a combat zone?

How do you view it?

Well, I would say it's I think it's an opportunity and it and I and even the short time I've been here, it's it's improved considerably downtown.

I think always the lagging thing is there's the kind of reality versus the perception.

Yeah.

And a lot of people need to come down here for themselves.

Really.

It is.

And it's and that's real.

And that can be years sometimes to be able to overcome that.

So I think us working with a lot of our other partner organizations, downtown to really kind of have that message out there.

But the big thing is when you come down, it needs to kind of match that reality.

So we're really focusing a lot and we'll say, I'm rolling out a vision for the museum and the first part of it as being how we're kind of hospitable, how we're clean and welcoming and inclusive and have that spirit where everything feels like you're coming in and I feel like I'm, you know, a safe, welcoming environment, which is key.

And sometimes that's more important than the art that's on the wall.

Yeah.

And those two things that need to work in sync.

So we put a lot of efforts into that.

And I know our fellow organizations are to you.

You also want to make sure that you're, you know, it's the Twitterverse will probably get you for pandering, you know, trying to tie the art museum into the World Cup.

But by the same token, when there's something massive happening, you got to try to get a piece of it.

So talk a little bit about the World Cup and what you think it's going to do.

And is there any role that an art museum can play in something like the World Cup?

Oh, absolutely.

And I will say I'm a big sports fan.

So I'm, I'm we're going to lean hard.

But also it's an opportunity.

I mean, having millions of people, you know, come to the region, you want people to be able to see what's Seattle about.

And we want Sam to be one of those things that you do.

I mean, along with going to the market of the Space Needle, that Sam is just one of those things that you have to do while you're there.

So we're we're planning on doing everything from activations there.

Hopefully we can even have you can watch some matches at the museum.

We're going to have, jerseys in the shop.

That'll be Sam with artists doing jerseys.

We're going to be leading in a lot of ways.

And then we have the Olympic Sculpture Park, too.

So that's going to be a key connection point as people go up to some of the fan experiences, towards around the Space Needle.

So we want to connect that through and we're going to be having our experiences along that whole way.

So we'll be deeply part of it, looking at ways that we can interact, engage.

And I hope as visitors come, we're one of those places that go get a little already here.

Talk about art itself.

Is startup art still possible with all the high costs?

Especially in a place like Seattle, I've said for a long time, the next big thing coming out of the northwest now is probably going to come from the South, Sound or beyond, because you can't be a poor, broke artist anymore in Seattle.

Is that important?

Does that matter?

Do I have that right?

I think there's actually it's it's starting to kind of turn again where there is more spaces available for artists.

I mean, it is difficult.

I mean, you need to find a place that you can kind of live and work and be able to kind of function.

But there's a lot of amazing artists that are working here that are in this space.

I'm getting to meet a lot of them now, and I've been very impressed with things that are happening, and I do see in some of those areas, yes, it is further south where studio space and other things are opening up, but artists are incredibly innovative and there's a lot of artists doing work now where they're doing it from their laptop, from their kitchen table and outsourcing even some of the production.

So sometimes the environment will change a little bit.

But even what the work looks like now, can we do more to support our artists and create more livability?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And I'm hopefully some of that will come in the future talking a little bit about balance again that that word keeps coming up in your in your gig doesn't it.

It does.

I will keep to my own biases.

I would go up there to look at represent representational art as opposed to the abstract stuff.

And you've only got so much square footage, only so much wall space.

How do you get the balance right between, you know, the ball of yarn or the literally the banana duct taped to the wall, which is the big one lately?

Yeah.

Versus what I consider to be something worth going to see.

Well, I think it's all about balance again, like you said, but I think it's really thinking there are people that want to see the banana on the wall for the spectacle of that.

But I think what you really want to do is I feel strongly that you can take an artwork from 4000 years ago or from four weeks ago, and it's really about how you connect it to things that are relevant to your life now.

And there is ways that like, how do you have that abstract piece and kind of enter in so you maybe have a better way of looking at it, but also knowing, acknowledging pieces that people really love and want to see all the time.

So I think the idea is that we are we are different types of experiences for different people and different types of days all day for everybody.

Exactly.

And so I think it is it's about having a variety.

And I think what you don't want is something I feel static.

Yeah, I'm coming in.

It's the same stuff we've seen or this is the, you know, the same place that's been here for 30 years in that same spot.

How do we really have something where it feels like it's changing, it's dynamic.

And then I think the big connection point, how do we make it, you know, interesting to you and your life right now in the interest of transparency, we're pre-recording this a little bit.

But talk about maybe not this week, but what's hot this year?

I've just got a few bullet points here.

AI Weiwei, of course, is downtown, the Asian Art Museum and at the Asian Art Museum.

You've got some things going on.

The Shirley family's color collection.

What's important, what's what's on your radar and what what can people, look at for 20, 25?

Yeah, I think for this year, the can't miss is the Iowa Way show.

We just we just opened this.

It's going to run through September, so it's up for a longer run.

This is the largest exhibit of his work ever in the US.

It's 130 works downtown.

It's a whole variety of things.

You'll never look at Legos the same way again, I promise.

You have to see the show.

But his work couldn't be any more time because it's really about resistance and really thinking about authoritarianism and censorship and somebody who's actually lived that and very authentically lived that in their life.

But are you seeing it through their work and a lot of it has been against the Chinese government, but you could apply that to a lot of things.

And he does.

And the work, the things that are happening right now.

But that that is all over downtown.

So you see it there and then we also have a piece that's at the Asian Art Museum, which is Monet is Water Lilies, painting 50ft long, in Lego.

And it's amazing.

And and then we will be having starting mid-May at the Olympic Sculpture Park, having the Chinese zodiac heads one of his sculptures in bronze.

And that'll be up for two years out there.

So that'll be up through World Cups.

You can come out and see that.

And of course, the Olympic Sculpture Park is free all the time.

Calder collection.

What else is it?

What what are some of what do you kind of consider the museum's crown jewels?

Yeah.

Calder collection absolutely is one of those.

And we continue to kind of add more pieces to that and have different exhibitions.

Next year, we'll having Tara Donovan will be, kind of in conversation with Calder, but we'll always want to have it's there's colors.

You can always come and see plus other types of work in the collection.

So if you want to see we're going to be re hanging some of our African collection coming up and some of our Middle Eastern galleries.

If you like Aboriginal art, we have an amazing collection of that.

And then we have this fall, we're doing a show called Farm to Table, which will be French Impressionism, around food and food culture.

So again, that diversity of having a different type of work, you can see at any point in time, I want you to be able to, you know, come to the museum and feel like this is, you know, I didn't see it all this time.

Yeah.

I need to come back again.

I promise you, right now there's a lot more you can see in one visit.

And then hopefully people become members and support them.

As you talk about seeing a lot, when I think of your footprint downtown, are you kind of landlocked?

Can you build up, if as a management guy, you've got to have the five year vision and the ten year vision, what are the options there when it comes to size and and expansion?

We've got some options there.

But I will say currently we have a lot of space that isn't used in the museum, okay.

If you walk in, there's a lot of open space and we want to be able to fill more of that space, have more works in the collection and fill those public spaces.

I want to have more art that you see in before you go to the pay wall.

And areas that you can even kind of lounge areas you can kind of hang out in those spaces.

Public space.

Exactly.

And we have other areas in the museum that we can, you know, utilize, I think a little bit more effectively.

Same thing with having some more work out at the Olympic Sculpture Park and then thinking more innovatively around the Asian Art Museum.

So we do have some options in the future.

And of course, you're exactly right.

I am looking at kind of what that 5 to 10 horizon looks like.

And we do actually have some options.

You know, downtown if we so choose.

But at this point we have a lot more than we want to do with the current footprint.

Last 30s here.

Shameless plug time.

How can people learn more and get involved if they want to?

So go to our website.

You can see all the programs there.

We'd love for you to become a member.

I will say with the AI Weiwei Show, I strongly recommend you get your tickets ahead of time so you can come the day in time you want, because we do have some busy moments for that.

And then follow us on all the social media, particularly Instagram and on our YouTube channel.

You'll see a lot of content there and do give us the website.

We are Sam talk sam.org simple enough.

All right.

Scott, thanks so much for coming to northwest now.

Great conversation.

Thank you.

now.

Scott Sterling is a student of the visual arts.

But when it comes to the performing arts, as our Steve Higgins tells us, it's the end of an era at the Century Ballroom in Seattle.

But that may not mean goodbye.

my God.

Somebody wants to talk to a five.

Okay, father.

For almost three decades, countless friends and strangers have come toe to toe and hand a hand to the iconic Oddfellows building in Seattle's Capitol Hill.

All of the people who have come through these doors over the years, they are the reason that we're here for hosting deejays, live music socials, and teaching students home salsa, tango and more.

Venue owner Holly Cooper once love for music and dance has connected communities since the 1990s.

Movement is a connection to yourself and dance with a partner, dancing as a connection with somebody else and yourself.

So that's what makes it so incredibly special.

Last November, Cooperman and partner Allison Cockrell went to social media sharing news that their venture was coming to an end.

And we've lived our dream for 28 years.

And so it seems like it's time to let that go.

For decades, the Oddfellows Building has been a hub for arts and culture, something Cooperman hoped would continue theater, dance, opera, ballet and poetry.

I don't really care what it is, but keeping it for artists in general, and I call those the dancers, the performers, the musicians.

That is the ideal use of this venue.

The immensity of this it like, gets to meet sometimes the very notion that Seattle could lose a space that builds community hit hard.

The connections joining Art in motion in Century Ballroom left its mark on the walls.

Just a really small percentage of people who have met and gotten married gotten engaged here.

But century's legacy is not over.

There are plans for renovations and modifications, but first, a new name Revelry Ballroom.

The venue's new owner, Eliza Water, holds deep affection for this space.

I was 18 and I came dancing here for the very first time, and it left a really memorable impression.

While so much of Seattle has changed in the past 30 years, a community both through music and motion has renewed promise.

Promise that the arts and connections made in Capitol Hill will remain.

I know that we've made an impact on people's lives, so dramatically, greatly.

I don't know what the right word I will hold out with me forever.

And so will Allison in Seattle.

Steve Higgins, northwest now.

Here it comes Seattle is now a well-established, high dollar art Mecca of national importance.

The bottom line tomorrow's art superstars in any medium don't start high dollar.

They start dead broke.

And that's why I've said it once.

And I'll say it again.

Don't be too surprised if the next big thing in northwest art or music is spawned in the more affordable South Sound, or even beyond.

In the meantime, I thank Scott and for coming to the northwest now and encourage you to check out all three venues operated by the Seattle Art Museum.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can find this program on the web at kbtc.org.

Stream it through the PBS app or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of northwest.

Now, until next time, I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

Music