Sam's Reflections

Sam Read, LT'22, City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods

The Arts and Culture Challenge Day really took me by surprise with its emotional impact. At the beginning of the day, I was feeling pretty checked out, overwhelmed by my work and navigating some serious burnout with Leadership Tomorrow and all the other things on my plate. But that changed quickly once we all jumped in and began sharing and hearing each other’s stories about our personal intersections with art and culture.

It reminded me of the ability of arts experiences, from their simplest forms to their most complex, to truly shape and transform people. I have always known this personally. Some of the most earth-shattering, mind-opening experiences I have had in my life came to me through songs, books, movies, and plays. But it’s the act of participating in art that resonates with me and reminds me how much those experiences are relevant to my leadership journey.

I grew up working in theatre. The theatre, in many ways, was like my second home. It was where I felt most comfortable and most myself. It is also where I learned to be a human being and how to be in community with people. Collaboration, trust, adaptability, bravery, curiosity, vulnerability, empathy, activism - these are all things that working in the theatre either taught or reinforced in me. And these are all things necessary to do the work that we are trying to do.

As we continue this path together, I’m struck by how much the arts can be a powerful tool for all of us, regardless of sector or focus. Much of the work we are trying to do through Leadership Tomorrow is centered on individual and collective transformation. To me, that is the true and unique power of the arts, and there are lessons from this day that can be threaded through every other Challenge Day and conversation I have had at Leadership Tomorrow.

One conversation that particularly stands out to me is the exchange between Sean Goode and Ben Danielson during the Health & Wellbeing Challenge Day. Sean challenged us all to not just be articulate about what we are working against (racism, colonialism, anti-Blackness) but to be even more articulate about where we want to go. What is the world we want to live in vs. what is the world we are running from? I can think of no better way to envision and elevate that world than through arts and culture. 

Stephen's Reflections

Stephen Yamada-Heidner, LT'22, Architects Without Borders Seattle

In reflecting on the Arts and Culture Challenge Day, what came up for me were the questions raised by cohort members. One question related to the definition of art. Conversations ranged from how culture is art, art's veiled elitism, to agreement about the need to broaden its definition.

Consistent with these sentiments as well as inspiring were the ways in which the presenters have been bringing concepts of antiracism into their respective realms. Brian Carter, LT'18, Executive Director of 4Culture, and Jasmine Mahmoud, Assistant Professor of Theater History and Performance Studies, School of Drama, University of Washington, do this by addressing the inequities in the distribution of arts funding and its relationship to politics and race. Their examples of challenging institutions and conventions demonstrate how they engage with complicated issues of systemic racism and anti-Blackness.

During another breakout, a cohort member raised a point about the role of capitalism. Capitalism in the U.S. has and continues to sustain inequitable racist policy and citizen behavior even as we grapple with our own roles within the structure. This is of course not a novel point. Disparities in wealth, health, educational opportunity, policy impacts, and countless other consequences are well documented. More dialogue in LT about embedded U.S. economic structures and how they perpetuate that which we wish to change would be welcome to further help the cohort navigate our own spheres.  

The world right now is so fraught. It is easy to look at the future with pessimism, if not outright despair. How can arts and culture stack up against the weighty significance of federal legislation, Supreme Court decisions, political power, and global/community stresses of all kinds? 

Art and its connection to culture is unique in its capacity to lift the human spirit, to heal in shared experience, and to present possibility. Art is remarkable in that it can bring people together in a moment. In the wide range of its forms, art includes everyone. And in some of its forms, art can inspire and communicate positive change. Embrace art. Support art. Make art. 

Linda's Reflections

Linda Chavez Lowry, LT'22, Community Leader

How does art reflect leadership? For me, it takes bravery, loyalty, and passion to be an artist. An artist puts themselves “out there” for all to see and to “judge” their work or performance. When it comes to cultural art, it takes a leader to pass down and teach cultural traditions to the next generation. I loved teaching my son the Mexican holiday tradition. When he went away to college, he was excited to share and teach these traditions with his Fraternity brothers. Now, that’s a leader in the making! 😊

I'm seeing more arts and culture organizations creating spaces for racial healing. An example of this is the WOW Gallery in downtown Seattle, where a few of our Non-Black POC Caucus members met one Sunday afternoon. We shared a memorable experience enjoying live music and being surrounded by faceless paintings of Black leaders in our community. The artist, Hiawatha Davis, painted his subjects without a face because he wanted the viewers to see themselves in these great community leaders. Many of our local museums have created antiracist exhibits featuring BIPOC LGBTQ+ artists, as well as theatre performances focused on the Black Lives Matter movement. An example of this would be the opera “Blue."

My call to action in the arts and culture space is to provide and create access to everyone in our community to enjoy and experience our region and our nation's arts and culture collection. Our state has programs to provide access to arts and culture. However, the call to action is to share the information on how to participate in these programs and to fund these programs as needed.