Artist of the Week

The Jack Straw Artist of the Week Podcast highlights work created through the Artist Residency Programs at Jack Straw Cultural Center.
  • Moonyeka and House of Kilig New Media Gallery Podcast

    Jack Straw artists Moonyeka and Heidi Grace Acuña of House of Kilig talk with Jack Straw producer Carlos Nieto about their Jack Straw New Media Gallery installation flourish like an ocean’s grief.

    Applications are open now for Jack Straw’s 2025 artist residency programs. Visit us on Submittable for more information: https://jackstraw.submittable.com/submit

  • So’le Celestial - Numa’lo

    During their artist residency with Jack Straw, So’le Celestial composed and produced a 5 track soundtrack titled Numa’lo – meaning, “revive, do again, return” in Fina’ CHamoru (the CHamoru language). This soundtrack explores So’le’s journey as a Trans & Queer, CHamoru, chronically ill, and disabled person. Numa’lo audibly illustrates So’le’s inner soul’s movements through life, love, grief, and death. So’le hopes to turn this soundtrack into a short film in the near future.

    Jack Straw will host a listening event on Friday, October 11th, featuring Numa’lo, as well as soundscape works by Jack Straw resident artists Gregg Dietzman and Perri Lynch Howard.

    Applications are open now for Jack Straw’s 2025 artist residency programs. Visit us on Submittable for more information: https://jackstraw.submittable.com/submit

  • Leanna Keith - Al-Wahdat al-Wujud

    Leanna Keith’s album body of breath, available September 27th and produced through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program, is a concept album exploring the bass flute as a living, breathing, organism. “Al-Wahdat al-Wujud” was composed by Nebal Maysaud. Other composers featured on the album include Josh Hou, Heather Bentley, Kaley Lane Eaton, and Kevin Baldwin.

    Applications are open now for Jack Straw’s 2025 artist residency programs. Visit us on Submittable for more information: https://jackstraw.submittable.com/submit

  • Tom Baker – Deeply Lodged I: Gather

    Tom Baker’s album Deeply Lodged includes music from multiple Jack Straw Artist Support Program projects. “Deeply Lodged,” a work for solo piano in three movements, is performed by Cristina Valdés.

    Applications are open now for Jack Straw’s 2025 artist residency programs. Visit us on Submittable for more information: https://jackstraw.submittable.com/submit

  • Tokio Florist Project New Media Gallery Podcast

    Jack Straw artists Susie Kozawa and Brigid Kelly talk with Shin Yu Pai, Seattle’s Civic Poet and host of the podcast Ten Thousand Things, about their Jack Straw New Media Gallery installation Tokio Florist Project.

    Applications are open now for Jack Straw’s 2025 artist residency programs. Visit us on Submittable for more information: https://jackstraw.submittable.com/submit

  • Bridge of Eights - The Sleeping Tune

    Gregg Dietzman‘s 2023 Jack Straw Artist Support Program project resulted in the soundscape album Sound and Light Signals. The sounds here were recorded at various locations along the Inside Passage of the Pacific Northwest, including “the Haida Náay I´waans (Whale House) in Kasaan, the cupola of Five Finger Lighthouse in Frederick Strait, a boathouse on Kupreanof Island, on a boat at anchor in Eucott Bay, and in chapels in Port Townsend and Friday Harbor,” and edited and mixed together in the studios at Jack Straw Cultural Center.

    Jack Straw will host a listening event on Friday, October 11th, featuring Sound and Light Signals, and soundscape works by Jack Straw resident artists So’le Celestial and Perri Lynch Howard.

    Applications are open now for Jack Straw’s 2025 artist residency programs. Visit us on Submittable for more information: https://jackstraw.submittable.com/submit

  • Foleada - Creoxote

    Jack Straw resident artists Foleada released their new album of Brazilian Forró music, Eu Vou Pra Lua, this summer. Forró, a cultural mainstay of Northeast Brazil, describes not just a musical genre but a way of life, a celebration of dance, love, and community. On Eu Vou Pra Lua – Portuguese for “I’m Going to the Moon” – Foleada gives Forró a contemporary Northwest spin, exploring the music’s soulful rhythmic tradition with four originals and four standards.

  • Vibhuti Kavishwar - Prabhu More Avagun Chit Na Dharo

    Jack Straw resident artist Vibhuti Kavishwar‘s album Shraddhanjali is now available to listen to on YouTube. The album is a tribute to the  compositions of Vibhuti’s father, Pandit Lakshman Chausalkar.

  • Jeff Rice New Media Gallery Podcast

    Jack Straw artist Jeff Rice talks with Carlos Nieto about his Jack Straw New Media Gallery installation Pando Suite.

  • Nacha Mendez - Juanita

    “Juanita” is a new song from Jack Straw resident artist Nacha Mendez‘s forthcoming full-length album, produced with support from the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.

    Nacha writes, “This is my Pride month offering, the breakup song Juanita. . . . 
I recorded this in Nov. 2023 at Jack Straw . . . I sat with it for 2 1/2 years. I wrote it when I started to date Juanita, but the words emerged after the break up. The song traveled to Seattle, Santa Fe and Los Angeles. It features Stephen Duros on guitar and bass, Rafael Herrera on percussion. Thank you to Camelia Jade, who engineered the first tracks at Jack Straw. Thank you to Jon Gagan of Electric Co. Studios, my collaborator of many years Stephen Duros, and lastly to my producer and friend Steve Peters.”

    Lyric translation:

    I sincerely offer you this song
    There will be a day when you’ll see me on the street
    You will say, that I look lovely and well,
    I will say the same about you
    Too bad our beauty couldn’t hold us up
    It’s nothing you’ve said or done

    I finally reached the depths of my soul to find you once again
    You told me that you thought we were friends, and I thought we were more than just friends
    The sign on your door said, hope doesn’t live here, keep walking
    I wish you the best, it’s true, yes

    Keep walking Juanita, Keep walking

    That kiss you gave me, lasted forever
    Damn kiss woke me up
    You played with my heart, you did it to confuse me

    Keep walking Juanita, Keep walking
    I wish you the best, it’s true, yes.

    Words and Music by Nacha Mendez
    BMI 2023 All Rights Reserved