Intiative 100 - Schools Not Jails

Grey is teaming up with local artist Diana Falchuk and visionary activist Lisa Fitzhugh (Arts Corps) to host some upcoming events related to the local art community's support of Initiative 100... more on that later, what you need to know now is that time is running out to show support of this important initiative that could re-direct the disbursement of millions of dollars.

What this initiative is proposing is that the City of Seattle use the $260 million that it would take to build a new jail and invest the funds in upstream programing for the education of our youth. It is widely recognized that a significant investment in education is the most effective means of achieving a decrease in incarceration.


Initiative 100 has a few basic components:

1. The City shall negotiate openly, publicly and in good faith with King County to explore alternatives to a municipal jail, including extending the existing City-County contract for jail services.

2. The City shall conduct a rigorous, public analysis of how incarceration rates could be decreased in the short and long term while increasing public safety and positive outcomes.

3. The City shall develop and make publicly accessible a strategy to address racial disparity issues in arrest and incarceration rates.

4. The City shall place the matter of the new municipal jail before the electorate in a public vote.


We will keep you updated on Grey's support of the initiative and the upcoming events to be held in the gallery and our neighborhood.

Until then, we are urging the public to do some research about the initiative and find ways to help get it on the ballot for November. The deadline for signatures is June 8, 2009. At this point, the best and most effective way you can help is by volunteering to collect signatures. Please contact Rachel at i-100@realchangenews.org and get all the information you need to get started!! Volunteer signature gathering training is available and suggested for anyone interested!

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STOP BY GREY TO SIGN THE PETITION

For more information check out the website for The Committee for Efficiency and Fairness in Public Safety.

Grey Gallery and Lounge featured on Seattle Metropolotan's Smart Drinker's Guide

Seattle Metropolitan recently published a new Best Bars edition, in which Grey was noted for being a... "different kind of bar, which, in addition to rotating exhibits of work by local artists every two months, features lectures, silk-screening parties, DJs, slide shows, and theater performances. An impressively stocked bar with three beers on tap and a menu including salads and savory and sweet organic whole-wheat crepes are enjoyed on salvaged black walnut and Douglas fir tables and a sprawling black leather couch. All combine to create, in Guttridge’s accurate estimation, a “community-centric melting pot of sight, sound, and really comfortable seating.”

Noah Grussgott in The Seattle Times

Noah Grussgott's current exhibition here at Grey, Caution Kid, received an honorable review last week in The Seattle Times.


See Rachel Shimp's piece here

POET Premier

This month, we are hosting a short film premier on Second Thursday, during the Capitol Hill Art Walk.

A blocked poet at the end of his days is stuck in an isolating routine at the edge of the world. He lives a bleak life, colorless, featureless, empty of human contact. The one exception: a list hanging on the poet's cupboard of everyone he has known. Name after name slowly gets crossed off the list with no reaction from the poet. Time passes. Unable to cross off the final name, a sudden impulse unlocks the poet's imagination and sensual memories, leading to a strange new artistic process: a form of alchemy.

Filmed in the dead of winter in Eastern Washington, Poet explores the life of the elderly, pushed out of the active flow of modern life and into still and often stagnant pockets. The protagonist suffers the pain of an unproductive artist, uninspired and unable to even remember what inspiration feels like. His way back into the land of the living is a strange journey through the eyes of the dead, reminding us how words have the power to set us free, and how an artist who has lived and lost can bring magic back into the world.

This 13 minute long, locally produced short starring Wil Mohney, Co-Produced by Val Mohney, directed by Jesiah Bell, Carey Christie, and Fort Dudak will be shown starting at sundown on Thursday, May 14th, and consecutively throughout the evening.

Thursday, May 14th
7pm
Free


Followed by SunTzu Sound, at 9pm
jazz + soul + past + present + future