November 3-5 - Seattle II -- I heart the Alsdorfs

From Bellingham, I drove back to Seattle to hang out with Sarah and Bob Alsdorf, parents of Matt, my co-JA (dorm advisor) from college.  I have always loved the Alsdorfs.  They and my parents got on like a house on fire at my college graduation.  Sarah and I had corresponded but I hadn't seen them in years.  I am sorry to say I never took a photo of or with them -- perhaps testament to how seamlessly I was folded into their home life, enjoying further outpost of the 'ideas at the breakfast table' stripe of worldliness.


The first night there, Sarah made a delicious meal and decided we would eat at the dining table.  Then, we decided to call Matt.  Sarah produced not one, not two, but three cordless phones -- a fantastic flashback to those college phone calls with both parents on the line.  Matt wasn't there and the three of us left a voicemail.


The next morning, I walked over to the Gage Academy, an interesting model of art school.  Rather than granting formal degrees it invites people to commit to intensive, traditionally based training in the arts.  You might only use black and white the first *year* then a limited color palette the second, and so on.  The director and co-founder Pamela Belyea met with me and took me around.  

You know Pamela is a supporter of the arts in that I gave her a Hol Art Books button and she immediately put it on, champion of other people's creative projects.  Here is the banner in her office:

She took me on a tour that encompassed the library,

the gallery, and a number of the ateliers, where students study under a single instructor, in an old-fashioned quasi-apprentice model.  Here is one atelier we visited:

Most of the ateliers were full of artwork, and people in the midst of making it, which somehow stopped me from taking their picture.  Pamela was an astonishing PR, describing my book to the people we visited.  By the time she was done I was like, "gosh, I want to meet this person."

I spent the afternoon at the Seattle Art Museum, to see the collection in advance of speaking to the docents that night.  There were a couple of standout pieces, a Nick Cave sculpture very similar to one I had seen in North Carolina, and a guard I had a long conversation with who charmingly called people "cats" and agreed with me that the thirty-foot-diameter emperor's coat made out of dog tags was pretty extraordinary but that, as Ethan would say, neither of us "had any affinity with" an ill-shapen flag made of mylar and plywood, leaning against the wall.

The actual docent talk took place at the Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, in the auditorium with captivating, pea green velvet cushions:

It felt like a plausible set of a Hitchcock film.

I enjoyed meeting my hosts and speaking with the docents, but I honestly couldn't tell at a couple of points whether they were interested, confused, or offended. I resolved to request feedback.

I was in Seattle the day of, and day after, elections.  Very few people are as interesting to talk politics with as the Alsdorfs.  I felt part of the family, trusted not just with their house keys but with a wonderful, rainbow, irridescent, miniature slinky keychain on which they sat.

I would come back to Seattle again the next week, as a special trip to see the Microsoft Art collection, which would be a bust, apart from more time with the Alsdorfs, a fun lunch, and a chance to see baby Ezra and his parents again: