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Canoe Social Club

Comments (50)

• Tabitha Jensen

  The Canoe Social Club is an amazing project that allows for artists and arts supporters to mingle and share ideas. As a nonprofit manager in the social services sector, Canoe allows me a place to develop my arts administration skills and share my knowledge and business expertise with other members. Not only do I feel welcome in the space, I feel encouraged to discuss the arts and participate in art-making without fear of exclusion for not being an “artist” myself. Overall, Canoe is a fun, inclusive environment with diverse programming and awesome rehearsal/performance/socializing space.

• Stephanie Wichmann

  I was introduced to Canoe Social Club earlier this year and it has been a fantastic experience becoming a new member. It provides artists of diverse backgrounds, and arts-supporters, opportunities to collaborate on multi-disciplinary projects. Imagine walking into a room full of of visual artists, poets, sculptors, directors, performers, arts-therapists, musicians, set designers, etc. all coming together to share ideas and learn from one another! It allows for an inclusive environment where cross-disciplinary partnerships thrive. I think that in so many facets of our modern society there can a sense of isolation and Canoe provides a vibrant, flourishing, community. Anyone who supports art is welcome. I love it!

• Maridee Slater

  I was introduced to canoe many months ago, and have since expanded my social horizons, my imagination, and my collaborative nature beyond exponentially. Canoe is such a vibrant organism, existing not only as a physical space but as a catalyst for ideas. Canoe has serve as a springboard for so many of my projects since I became a member that I cannot imagine life without it. Canoe is serving a certain something Seattle has been crying for, and those of us who have felt it’s love are forever in debt to it, and forever ingrained in it’s bow.

• Daniel Thornton

  As an artist and arts educator, I’m always looking for places that foster collaborative arts opportunities. When Jennifer and Patti first invited people to come and discuss the Canoe Social Club idea, I immediately was attracted to the diversity of people who Jen and Patti invited in to the discussion.

  Being an artist in any American city can be a lonely and often difficult road to travel, but Canoe has proven to be a place where I can go meet, discuss and collaborate with artists from every discipline that I can imagine. Its also a safe place to share ideas, ruminate and share creative ideas. Its been a joy to be a part of this truly unique venture and I hope it will be around a long, long time.

• Brendan Kiley

  Canoe is a valuable cultural crossroads. We’ve needed something like it in this town for years.

• Libby Matthews

  Canoe is an enterprise that brings varied discussion, artistic freedom, and creative courage to the community it serves- but beyond this, it fosters the growth of this community into a framework for lives worth living.

• Nathan Sorseth

  The Canoe Social Club is a fascinating experiment that I’m proud to be a part of. More than just a vacant space, Canoe gives artists a place to create and tailors its programming to the needs of its members. Over the course of its short history, Canoe has served as a gallery space for visual artists, a rehearsal and performance space for performing artists, and a venue for fundraisers of all kinds.

  Looking forward, the potential of Canoe has barely begun to be tapped. As a focal point for artistic cross-pollination, industry networking, and creative expression, Canoe is just beginning to serve its community and enrich the cultural life of Seattle.

• Christian Jacobsen

  What would happen if you took passionate artists and arts supporters from an incredibly broad range of disciplines (dance, sculpture, stage, music, culinary, etc), provided them with a place to meet, brainstorm, create, and have a few drinks…?

  I don’t know, but I sure as hell am excited by the possibilities! That is why I have been a member since the day Z told me about Canoe, and I will continue to be a member, participant, creator, instigator, and connector at the Canoe Social Club.

• Saskia Delores

  One of the things I love about the Canoe Social Club is the relaxed yet energetic atmosphere. It’s a refreshing feeling to walk in to an active arts community without all the pretentious energy of your average “art scene” & to be immersed in a mutually supportive environment.

  It’s very motivating for me and I like the fact that there is a balance of casual socializing along with regular exhibitions in the gallery, performances & a variety of artists using the rehearsal space.

• Wes Hurley

  Canoe would make Gertrude Stein jealous. It brings together so many talented creative people of all disciplines.

• Marya Sea Kaminski

  Every city should have a Canoe. We should take good care of ours.

• Otto Bulut

  Like many artists who have chosen animation as their main creative form of expression, I work mainly in isolation and have had little exposure to any artistic community. Getting involved in Canoe Social Club and becoming a member has allowed me to feel connected in a way that I never have before.
  On all of my visits the atmosphere of genuine welcome, appreciation, and community has been palpable. The club was a great venue for showing my latest work, and I look forward to getting further involved in club activities.

• Jessica Dodge

  Every time I drop in to Canoe I find a mix of old and new friends; I never leave without having at least one or two conversations that inspire, motivate and engage me. I also always admire the spare industrial elegance of Canoe, the space is so well laid-out and flexible that it can support a variety of different activities and uses. I add my voice to the previous comments in saying that this is a community/facility that is invaluable to Seattle.

• Erin Brindley

  Canoe serves as a great connecting resource in the rich tapestry that is the Seattle artistic community. Ideas are born and raised within its walls, and there is not another institution in Seattle that compares.

• Bob Rousseau

  Most artists I know (myself included) tend towards being lone wolves, and when they do connect with other artists, it tends to be people working in the same discipline. Canoe is a fantastic haven and place to plug into the arts-related community at large. We in the Pacific NW are lucky to have it.

• Anne Blackburn

  I have always wanted to have a salon, in that Paris in the Twenties kind of way. Now I do.

  Canoe is the best manifestation of the salon that I have seen in Seattle–a venue that can serve as creative social network, resource for rehearsal, exhibition, performance, and meetings; generative space for building new partnerships and new ideas, and some of the most bang up conversations I have had in a good long time.

  The organic structure, programming created in and of the membership, and the dazzling mix of creative professionals all add up to an aerobic, flexible, incredibly diverse resource for anyone working creatively in Seattle during this time of reduced funding and fewer affordable venues.

• Joshua Kohl

  Canoe is the best thing that has happened to the Seattle Art Scene in ages! The resources and connections that have come to our company (http://www.degenerateartensemble.com)and to many many others as a result of joining the Canoe club are enormous. We love the canoe club!

• Erin Shafkind

  The Canoe Social Club has been a fabulous resource and source for inspiration. Like stated above, it’s a place I can go to see friends, meet new people and check out what creative endeavor is happening. Getting to be involved from the beginning, participating in community building and seeing connections arise has truly been food for the soul. As a visual artist and educator I am so excited to tell others about Canoe. So far I have been able to participate in Art Shows in the Gallery Space, a Film Festival and Poetry presentation in the main space, and Yoga in one of the rehearsal spaces. All the elments of community are at Canoe. It’s a little boat for me in a Big Seattle Sea.

• Troy Gua

  Every experience I’ve had with Canoe and its members has left me inspired and honored to be part of such a supportive and inclusive arts community. I think I’m in love.

• K. Fernandez

  Canoe is a valuable resource for the community at large. It is an intersection of disciplines, a place for where new ideas are born. We need to support ventures like this that expose and inspire.

• Troy Gua

  Yep, I *am* in love. Viva La Canoe!

• Andrew Lazarow

  I agree with Marya. Every city should have a Canoe Social Club.

  Beyond the resources and rehearsal rooms, canoe creates a true community, instead of small insular groups.

  Artists of different mediums do come together. That has been wonderful inspiration for my work, and has helped me find other companies to work with.

  But most importantly, it is also a community of audiences and arts supporters. That is the true magic of Canoe. It reminds me who I do this work for.

• Sara Edwards

  Canoe is a crossroads for Seattle’s arts community. People working in all disciplines can meet there, convene, collaborate, learn and socialize. It’s a safe and welcoming place to meet new people and for folks to develop or deepen connections. Fun + supportive + creative = amazing.

• Spike Friedman

  I’ve seen the Canoe Club support their members and other artists in so many ways, from providing rehearsal and performance space to a place to crash in the midst of a move. Seriously, they let my friends crash there in a moment of need… come on!

• Sari Breznau

  I’ve met so many incredible people of all artistic disciplines at the canoe- it’s a unique organization serving a crucial function in the Seattle arts community. Whatever I need- a sawsall, liquid latex advice, a drummer, design skills, rehearsal space, a friendly place to take a break, I can find it there.

• David desVoigne

  Canoe has allowed me to bring life to a project that has been bouncing around in my head for years now. without them I don’t know if I could have ever made it happen.

• Mike Katell

  Seattle benefits from having a very diverse and active arts scene that belies the relative smallness of the city. What we lack are abundant private/public spaces where artists – both working artists and aspiring makers of work – can come together in a casual and open atmosphere. Sure, you can get on a stage at Velocity or On The Boards – or show at a gallery – but those venues exist as purely professional enterprises and it can be difficult to break down the barriers in those places between the professionals and the rest of the arts community – the craftspeople, semi-professionals, amateurs and up-and-comers.

  Canoe is a place where art is social. It’s a gallery and performance space – but also a living, social space. The environment is inviting and unpretentious. There is an emphasis on community. That emphasis is key to expanding and growing the possibilities of our city’s arts scene. Canoe is a place for creativity to be both celebrated and, perhaps more importantly, fostered.

• cl tewes

  canoe club gives artists a chance to see each other when they are not working (a rare and wonderful opportunity!)

• Sonya Schneider

  Canoe was an amazing place to hold a new play reading because it supports new voices, nurtures risk-taking and calls upon a diverse and committed community for feedback. I’m proud to be a member.

• Matthew Counts

  I love the open, collaborative, clubhouse nature of Canoe. Physically it’s the perfect space to host a wide variety of arts, from static media to performance. The best part of Canoe, however, is the community and its willingness to bring people in, expose them to new art and music, and encourage them to use the space for their own creation. Viva Canoe!

• Keely Isaak Meehan

  Canoe is the kind of place you dream about finding. Joining has brought me new collaborations, friends and resources. My community has broadened and been enriched, my creativity stretched, and supported. Fellow members step up to save the day when you need it most, and I know where to go any night of the week to have an inspiring conversation.

• Troy Fischnaller

  The true genius of Canoe Social Club lies in the immense power of resources, networking, and friendship that it puts in the hands of its members. I find myself buzzing with inspiration upon entering its confines, or as I muse, as now, from afar.

• Brendan Toner

  If Canoe survives, and is able to fulfill it’s purpose of enfranchising the collaborative art form, we will remember it’s inception as one of several moments that foretold the cultural golden age of Seattle – when a restructured city government, intelligent corporate investment and an empowered, employed and inspired community of artists cultivated an urban ecosystem that relied upon the arts as a vital, productive, irreplaceable element of daily life.

• Juniper Shuey

  Canoe represents a great place for artists of all types to congregate sit back relax and talk about the things that are important to them. More and more the events that are happening down there bring together a diverse group of artists.

• Kimberly Coffin

  Canoe is a very unique place for Seattle, and is a very democratic place for artists, which seems to be hard to come by. It’s not only artists who benefit from it, but the sense of community and art is open to anyone. Just try to think of a (legal) event that wouldn’t go over. It really is a perfect community spot.

• Laurel Pilar Garcia

  Canoe Social Club is a place where you can come and always feel welcomed, inspired and a sense of community. There’s no other place like it.

• Lauren Hester

  Canoe Social Club is proof that I moved to the right city. I feel very lucky to be part of such a supportive and diverse artistic environment. I feel wanted there. You would too.

  Within those Robin’s Egg Blue walls, I have spent so many hours collaborating, philosophizing, rehearsing, scheming and laughing out loud with excellent friends.

  Know that support for Canoe bolsters the life and work of the countless engaged artists touched by this unique community.

• Jed Dunkerley

  Canoe has allowed me to start a figure drawing session I am using mostly models from the members’ list. The class brings a diverse group of people together to participate in the centuries-old tradition of drawing the human body- whether they are artists creating studies for future paintings, or photographers looking for inspiration, or costume designers, amateurs who want to learn, or teachers who want to get back in touch with drawing. Canoe gives Seattle artists an amazing space, excellent resources, and a talent pool to build community around through events like these.

• Melissa Braxton

  The Canoe Club is a remarkable place! I have never a known a community of artists more adept at inspiring creative debate, collaboration and antagonism (of the productive type). I have a great deal of gratitude for all those at the club who continue working to facilitate this space where artists share, play, explore, rehearse, grow, build, philosophize, spelunk and mull.

• John Boylan

  Canoe is currently the only community-based multi-use arts space in Seattle, with performance spaces, rehearsal rooms, an art gallery, and a projection theater. The fact that progamming is decentralized, with members actively working to create material there, and that it is also a social and arts community center, make it uniquely valuable to the city.

• annette toutonghi

  In a town and a time where being an artist can mean spending great amounts of time isolated or with a small group of people creating something, Canoe is an oasis of community and cross-pollination.

• Elizabeth Rose

  Canoe is a brilliant and vital part of my life and the lives of every person that walks through the door. It’s been said already, but it is important and even necessary that we nurture the kind of community we are building through Canoe. I am a career artist and have lived in Austin, New York City, and L.A. , and none of those places are attracting the kind of artists that Seattle is right now. The quality of our work is rising and inspiration is flowing in our world. Canoe is the place that brings us all together and makes our work possible. I can’t imagine now where else I would go.

• L.B. Morse

  Seattle is a city with an incredibly rich arts community, but in my experience there is very little cross-pollination between arts disciplines. The Canoe Social Club provides a place for artists of all disciplines to meet, mingle and share ideas. Every single time that I have walked through the doors at the Canoe I have met somebody new, and somebody who works in a different area of the arts from me… it is always welcome, definitely refreshing, and absolutely NECESSARY. Bravo, Canoe!

• Damian Puggelli

  The Canoe is a furnace with many creative irons in its fires. The boundaries between artistic disciplines melt away as the conversation is fueled. The bar serves drinks. New ideas get worked out from many angles of approach. Work in process can be tempered by thoughtful peer review. Frolicking is always an option.

• Doug Nufer

  The Canoe Club is a valuable and practically unique space that is ideal for a variety of peculiar, critical, and whimsical events that could not take place elsewhere. Most of these events have to do with art, and all of them can provide benefits for anyone who is involved with the arts.

• Kathleen Skeels

  The potential for Canoe is fantastic and yet very down to earth. I can’t think of a better place for artists to meet and share work experiences. It’s also a very good work place for many different sorts of artistic collaborations.

• Jennifer Law

  There is an unusual collection of opportunities available at the Canoe Club. It functions as a place to socialize, network, exhibit/perform/teach/learn, and find collaborators.

  There is a sense of possibility here that is extremely valuable and inspiring. I don’t know of another place like this that also encourages it’s members to take part in shaping and creating the offerings of the club.

• Rick Araluce

  The Canoe Club is an amazing venture, and I support it wholly. A social club where artists, performers, those in the creative and commercial arts, can mingle, discuss, view others’ creative works is a valuable asset to our artistic community here in Seattle. I hope to see Canoe Club grow and prosper in the coming years, as it seems poised to do. Again, my thanks to this bold experiment in art and community.

• Todd Jannausch

  Canoe represents the best of what Seattle art has to offer. A place where truly great ideas come to offer a helping hand. It is rare, as an artist, that you can find a place to share, critique, support, and mature. Canoe gives me that.

• Linden Ontjes

  I support Canoe Social Club, an dazzling experiment in building artistic community.