Teaching Artist Team Selected

The Steering Committee is pleased to introduce a strong team of teaching artists that will be guiding the youth art project at Thurgood Marshall Elementary this summer.  Yvette Simone and Timothy Siciliano will collaborate as lead artists, with poet Daemond Arrindell, as a guest teacher in the first week of the project. Their collective talents, skills and experience are sure to produce not only a great piece of public art but also an exceptional experience for the 24 young artist participants.

Yvette Simone

Native American, African American, Irish and Scottish, born in the Northwest, Simone’s family’s story has been featured on Oprah. She has been honored at the White House for her artwork included in the Arts in Embassies program.  Simone has completed eleven public art sculptures, exhibited in five museums, and exhibited in numerous galleries locally, nationally and internationally and now has a studio in Seattle's Central District. Simone’s work challenges what art is with her seemingly comic-strip-like style and also challenges censorship with hard topics. Simone and her paintings can be described using the same adjectives: childlike, playful, deliberate, intelligent, thought-provoking, seemingly simple yet complex, and masterfully skilled in artistic delivery.  To learn more Simone: http://ysimone7.tumblr.com/

Timothy Siciliano

A Seattle Native with over 20 years of solo art exhibits, Siciliano has deep experience in both theater design and public art work and sculpture. His commissions include works for the Seattle Center, City of Seattle, City of Auburn, City of Issaquah, King County and Washington State Arts Commission. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, King County Individual Artist Award, and the 2010 First-Prize International Arts Award from Fabrik Arts Magazine. He has collaborated with Coyote Central on other teaching projects, including last summer’s Hit the Streets youth art project at Washington Middle School in the Central District of Seattle, WA.

Daemond Arrindell

Arrindell wants to change the world with words, particularly the lives of young people. The spoken-word poet has been in Seattle since 2001, a transplant from New York. Inspired by Seattle writer Sherman Alexie, Arrindell has influenced hundreds of teens and wants to show that poetry isn’t just about “old dead white guys.” Poetry can give kids a voice. With professional experience as a youth crisis counselor, Arrindell is a full-time writer, teacher and poetry mentor. He works as a writer-in-the-schools and as a mentor with Youth Speaks, a writing and spoken-word poetry project for teens, sponsored by Arts Corps. To learn more about Arrindell: http://kuow.org/post/seattles-daemond-arrindell-changes-lives-through-poetry

Art & Ideas Shared at Community Forum

The Judkins Park community enjoyed performances from Thurgood Marshall Elementary students in a packed hall at the Northwest African American Museum last Friday afternoon during a community celebration honoring Justice Marshall. [See the program here.]

Community Art Activity:  "What Thurgood Marshall Means to Us."

The community also shared its ideas for the public youth art project commemorating Justice Marshall that will be installed at the elementary school this summer as part of Coyote Central's Hit the Streets program. [Read our summary of the dialogue here!]

Participants shared ideas through a group discussion and a drawing and writing exercise, entitled "What Thurgood Marshall Means to Us."  The ideas are currently on display at Thurgood Marshall Elementary and will later inform the Hit the Streets artists.



Click on photos to enlarge. (More photos follow.)

Why Thurgood Marshall?

As a lawyer, Thurgood Marshall successfully fought school segregation in the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, a major turning point for the civil rights movement.  In 1967 he became the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court, working to uphold the constitutional rights of all people for 24 years.  He died in 1993.  

While the Judkins Park neighborhood public elementary school has been named for Thurgood Marshall since 1996, members of the community felt we could do more to honor his legacy.  This youth art project with Coyote Central's Hit the Streets program was born.

Thurgood Marshall outside the Supreme Court in 1955, when he was chief counsel for the NAACP. (Photo by Hank Walker – Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

February 6th - Community Celebration & Forum for Youth Art Project

A special program at Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) on Friday, Feb. 6, will help us learn more about and celebrate the life of Thurgood Marshall, the pioneering Supreme Court Justice and civil rights lawyer, and explore ideas for the planned outdoor youth art project honoring him.

Community Celebration & Forum on Art Project

Friday, February 6, 2015, 4-5:45 pm

Legacy Hall at NAAM 

2300 S. Massachusetts St.

Seattle, 98144

From 4-5 pm, enjoy activities such as performances by students in Grades 2-5, including the Thurgood Marshall Elementary Choir. At 5 pm, a forum will explore everyone’s ideas for the planned outdoor youth art project honoring Justice Marshall, the first African-American on the Supreme Court. He died in 1993, and in 1996, the Seattle School Board voted to name our neighborhood’s school for him.

The artwork will be installed this summer on the east side of the Thurgood Marshall Elementary School campus, near Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Much of the creative process will be in the hands of 24 neighborhood youth, led by a professional artist. The project is funded in part by a $24,300 “Small and Simple” grant from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, and supplemented by Community donations of time and other resources.

What is Friends of Hit the Streets on MLK (FHSMLK)?

Friends of Hit the Streets on MLK (FHSMLK) is a group of people and organizations bringing together the Judkins Park community to create a youth art installation honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

The artwork will be installed in August 2015 on the east side of the Thurgood Marshall Elementary campus, near Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Much of the creative process will be in the hands of  24 neighborhood youth, led by a professional artist. The project is funded in part by a $24,300 “Small and Simple” grant from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, and supplemented by community donations of time and other resources.

A local youth art organization, Coyote Central, will coordinate the project. Coyote Central’s vision is for Seattle-area adolescents of every background to become creative thinkers and problem-solvers confident in their capabilities and engaged with their community.   If you’re interested in leading the work with youth, watch for the Call for Artists to be posted on Feb. 1 on www.coyotecentral.org. 

If you’re interested in getting involved or have ideas, email FHSMLK@gmail.com.