Philip H. Red Eagle shares stories of Seattle and Canoe Building

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Philip H Red Eagle: December 18, 6pm

As part of the 2013-2014 theme, How Are We Remembered? The Project Room presents a unique series of conversations specific to Seattle, featuring guest presenters who have deep roots in the city. Taking The Project Room’s position as a platform for understanding creativity, questions that address Seattle’s legacy and its creativity will be addressed such as, What should we be proud of as Seattleites? What stories do we want to remember and pass down to the next generation? And, How is today’s Seattle making its mark?  Taking a personal approach to our city’s history, this special group of guest presenters will share their stories, memories, and hopes for the city’s future.

Each event in the series will feature a guest speaker from a creative field who shares his or her point of view on this subject in a conversation with the audience. This will provide an unusually-intimate setting for these high-profile public figures- so arrive early and be ready to participate!

All programs are free and open to the public

Above image: Moon River, Vietnam 1971. ”The call sign for the base there was ‘Moon River’.  The Base was Nha Be Logistical Support Base. Nha Be was about 30 miles up river from the coast just above the Mekong River.  I had just acquired the camera from the Cholon Exchange in Saigon, now Ho Chi Mihn City.  I had already been In-Country for almost a year at that time.  I shot primarily in black and white film up to 1990, with some shots in Kodachrome.” -Philip H Red Eagle

Guest Presenters

Peter Steinbrueck, Architect and 2013 Seattle mayoral candidate
July 12, 7-8pm
Listen to audio here

Patrinell Wright, Founder of the Total Experience Gospel Choir
August 9, 6pm
Listen to audio here

Megan Jasper, Executive Vice President of Sub Pop Records
September 6, 6pm 
Listen to audio here

Paul Marioni, Glass Artist
October 2, 6pm – Featuring a special screening of Paul’s 1972 experimental film, HOLE. This is a rare opportunity to see this short film, hosted by the Northwest Film Forum.  Join us at 6pm for the discussion and at 7:15pm for the screening down the street! Special thanks to our program sponsor Chihuly Garden and Glass 
Listen to audio here

John Gilbreath, Earshot Jazz Executive Director
November 7, 6pm
And join us afterwords for a live Earshot Jazz Festival performance featuring Kneebody at Poncho Concert Hall at 8pm! (The presentation at TPR is free; tickets for the 8pm show are available online here)

Philip H. Red Eagle, Writer, Poet, Cultural worker
December 18, 6pm

And more presenters to be announced!

About the Presenters

Grow­ing up in Seat­tle, Peter Stein­brueck never knew who might show up at the fam­ily table on a given night or what issues were going to be debated. Archi­tects, actors, writ­ers, and peo­ple of all polit­i­cal per­sua­sions – who­ever was there, the con­ver­sa­tion was always lively.

The late 1960s and 1970s were stir­ring times of polit­i­cal and social upheaval – the epic civil rights move­ment, world envi­ron­men­tal awak­en­ing – mass cul­tural change, and chang­ing cities.

Peter’s father, Vic­tor Stein­brueck, an archi­tec­ture pro­fes­sor, artist, author and activist, was prob­a­bly best known as the sav­ior of the Pike Place Mar­ket. He ral­lied city­wide sup­port for res­cu­ing the blocks of build­ings between First and West­ern avenues at a time when tra­di­tional local farm­ers mar­kets were van­ish­ing, and the con­cept of his­toric preser­va­tion was hardly known in Seattle.

Peter was born and raised in Seat­tle. He grew up in the Denny Blaine neigh­bor­hood in the Cen­tral Dis­trict, attended Har­ri­son Ele­men­tary School in Madi­son Val­ley, and grad­u­ated from Lake­side High School.

Pastor Patrinell “Pat” Wright was born in Carthage, Texas to a Baptist preacher dad and a school teacher mom. She is one of seven siblings. Being introduced to music early, she sang her first solo at the age of 3. By the time of her 14th birthday, she had taught herself to play the piano and was directing two choirs in her father’s church.

Patrinell attended Turner High School in Carthage where she graduated as valedictorian of her class. She went on to attend college at Prairie View A & M in Hempstead, Texas. In 1964, Pat moved to Seattle and, in 1973, founded Total Experience Gospel Choir. The choir has performed in 38 states, on 5 continents and 22 countries. The choir consists of persons ages 7– 72 and has to its credits numerous awards and 7 recordings.

Over her long musical history, Pat has received numerous awards and citations, and she has performed on the same billing with the following: Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Take Six, The Winans, Charlie Daniel, Chuck Mangione, Steely Dan, Sweet Honey In The Rock, Dionne Warwick, Melba Moore, Olympia Dukakis, Pete Seeger, Michael Bolton, The Judds. Foreigner and NUMEROUS gospel artists. She and Total Experience Gospel Choir are featured artists on Dave Matthews’ CD entitled “Same Devil” on the song “Save Me”. Her latest credit is on the soundtrack of the movie “Because of Winn-Dixie” on the song “Glory, Glory”.

Megan Jasper currently works as Sub Pop’s Executive Vice President. She started at the label in 1989 as an intern, was hired as the label’s receptionist, got fired, then re-hired and promoted. She has done more than 20 years of volunteer work and board work for The Service Board, The Vera Project and she is now serving on the Music Commission for the city of Seattle.

Paul Marioni, one of the founding members of the American Studio Glass movement, creates sculptures and vessels that incorporate humor, images of taboo sexuality, genre figures, tribal masks, photographs, and visual puns.

Paul moved to California in the mid 1960s, where he was attracted to the beat poets of San Francisco and to the burgeoning counterculture of that city.  There, he became part of the influential group of artists working in stained glass in the Bay Area during the early 1970s.

Paul has completed more than 85 public commissions, including cast glass walls, ceilings, and skylights. Known as an innovator in the glass world, Marioni pushes his techniques to their limits, regularly redefining what is possible to achieve with the material.

Marioni graduated in 1967 from the University of Cincinnati, and is a Fellow of the American Crafts Council. He has received three fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts. He has taught at the Penland School of Crafts and at the Pilchuck Glass School.

Paul Marioni has a son, Dante, who is also a glassblower, and in 1998, the two of them presented a feature exhibition of their glass at the Fresno Art Museum in California. Paul Marioni’s program is sponsored by Chihuly Garden and Glass, which aims to celebrate our region’s creative energy and inspire visitors to engage with our region’s cultural community.

A rabid jazz fan since childhood, John Gilbreath has been immersed in the local and national jazz and performing arts scene as executive director of Earshot Jazz, Seattle’s non-profit jazz-support organization. He oversees Earshot’s monthly publication and educational programs, and has produced more than 1,000 far-reaching concerts, including the Seattle’s annual Earshot Jazz Festival each fall. He actively works with various Northwest arts organizations and national jazz consortia, hosts the weekly Caravan show on KBCS, and, in his rare spare moments, is a student of stone sculpture. John is the host of KEXP’s Jazz Theater, Sunday nights into Monday mornings, from 1am-3am.

Philip Harold Red Eagle is of Dakota and Puget Sound Salish heritage. His father, Philip Sr., is of Sisseton-Wahpeton-Mdewakanton-Yankton descent; and his mother, Marian (formerly Mary Ann) is of Steilacoom-S’Klallam descent. He holds two degrees from the University of Washington, Seattle, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Metal Design from the School of Art (1983) and a Bachelor of Arts in Editorial Journalism from the School of Communications (1987).

Philip writes poetry, fiction, essays and reviews. His works have been included in Art Access,Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Humanities Today, Nobody’s Orphan Child (Anthology),Northwest Ethnic News, The Raven Chronicles, Red Ink, Seattle Arts Commission Newsletter – Diverse Views, Guest Editor Series-1990.

His current work is a book of fiction titled: Red Earth – A Vietnam Warrior’s Journey. Red Earthhas received high praise and is now going into a 2nd Edition. Red Earth is actually two novellas focused around the return home of Native American Vietnam veterans and their struggles with their loss and inability to cope with with their past. It is Philip’s experiences in Vietnam in 1970-72 that he draws his images for these stories.

Philip is also a visual artist and a photojournalist. His photos have appeared in American Indian Art Magazine, Air Cal Magazine, Northwest Ethnic News, The Raven Chronicles, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Seattle Times and The Tacoma News Tribune, as well as several gallery exhibits across the country.

Philip is the originator and co-founder of The Raven Chronicles – Multicultural Journal of Art, Literature & The Spoken Word (1990).

Philip has also been part of the Canoe Nations Program which is bringing back the Traditional Carved Canoe to the Northwest. He is primarily concerned with using the canoe as a mechanism in which to bring about cultural change among the tribes and to bring the notion of traditional ideas to bring about healing and pride among Native youth.

This series is part of The Project Room’s current theme, “How Are We Remembered?” Special thanks to artist Seth Friedman for his part in creating this program. Seth’s site-specific MONUMASS was installed at Seattle’s Victor Steinbreuck Park from July 20 – August 10, 2013. Read more here. 

About the top image: 
This is an image showing the Denny Regrade that took place in Seattle between the years of 1908-1911 (and again in 1929). Many homeowners held fast to their properties in protest of the massive leveling of the land, and some even sued the city (unsuccessfully) to avoid their destruction. What were playfully called “spite mounds” emerged from the deep underground digging around these houses (see the ladders in the foreground for a sense of scale!). How did the future of this city change because of this physical altering of the landscape? What does this kind of change do to a city’s identity? And how many who live there today know of its history? More about this story can be found here
Photo by Asahel Curtis (1874-1941), 1910. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.