Do you wish your creative process wasn't isolated from other artists and ideas? Do you feel unsupported, uninspired, or artistically unmotivated, especially since the pandemic? Come learn from and with other artists! Work on a creative project, build skills in your chosen artistic practice, and gain insight from other creatives during your process.

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Creative Salon and Shop Series

For storytellers and artists engaging in the creative process

Window Seat is hosting a space to support community members engaging in creativity. Bring a storytelling project in your chosen medium that you want to work on in a group setting - memoir-writing, poetry, script-writing, composing, painting, audio editing, collaging, cross-stitch, or something else. Sessions will have a mix of dedicated creative work time and peer-to-peer process sharing guided by Window Seat hosts. “Salon” time features an artist-narrator to share about their own creative process. We’re partnering with local practicing artists and cohort members of our oral history projects for featured artist-narrators. “Shop” time focuses on creative process work. We’ll ground ourselves in six Fundamental Questions of Creative Expression:

• EVIDENCE - What do you know and how do you know it?
• PERSPECTIVE – Whose viewpoint is being presented or represented?
• CONNECTIONS – How does this connect to anything else?
• SUPPOSITION – What if things were different?
• RELEVANCE – Why is this important?
• TRANSITION – What’s next?

Where and When

‍The series is on the second Tuesday of the month from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. beginning in January 2024 at YWCA Friendship Hall, 220 Union Ave SE, Olympia, WA 98501, the building next to the YWCA. Friendship Hall is a space stewarded by our partner for the series, The Liberation Collective.

Series Calendar

• Tuesday, January 9
• Tuesday, February 13
• Tuesday, March 12
• Tuesday, April 9

No May Salon - come to our Annual Community Storytelling Gathering on Thursday, May 16, from 5 - 8:30 p.m. at Tolmie State Park!

• Tuesday, June 11

No July or August Salons - go play outside!

• Tuesday, September 10
• Tuesday, October 8
• Tuesday, November 12
• Tuesday, December 10

Why this? Why now?

‍Our goal is to support our community's capacity to steward our own stories and tell our histories. We are all knowledge-holders. When we create opportunities to cultivate collective wisdom through intergenerational conversations and peer-to-peer sharing, we can more readily tackle the challenges of today and imagine the possibilities of tomorrow.

‍Cost

‍This series is free and by donation, because we believe access to arts and humanities programming is a human right. We encourage community members to join our Friends of Community Storytelling Program - committing to a recurring donation for as little as $5 monthly - to show your support of our access-for-all community programming.

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‍Subscriber instructions

1. Click "subscribe," above, and then click the gold "contribute" button
2. Select the box "Become a sustaining, monthly contributor"
3. Select an amount or input a custom $ amount
4. Subscribe to our Friends of Community Storytelling program by committing to a recurring donation at the following levels: Friends - $5+/ month‍, Neighbors - $10/ month‍, Connectors - $25/ month‍, Cultivators - $50/ month‍, Champions - $100+/ month.

Consistent, recurring donations over time, no matter how small, allow us to count on a dependable general operating income stream. This means we can be more nimble in our community programming and continue to offer large sliding pricing for our events and services

We cultivate members of our Friends of Community Storytelling program, or "subscribers," as key collaborators in our work. We often gather advisory groups comprised of subscribers, core supporters, creative collaborators, and organizational partners to get feedback on strategic initiatives and help us gain community support and project momentum. Subscribers are the first to be invited to our Annual Community Storytelling Gathering each spring! Join our Facebook Group, where we post volunteer opportunities, programming, and events specifically for subscribers, and chances to help us get the word out about our work and develop new donor relationships.

Where we give our money is a value-based choice. Know that your contribution goes toward activating local public history, access-for-all arts and humanities programming, all-ages community building, and communal narratives of success and social change. Thank you for your support!