CURRENTLY SHOWING:
READ ME SOFTLY:
A show of stitched truths, worn messages, and whispered declarations.
August 14, 6-10pm
Closing party: August 29, 6-9pm
What does it mean to wear your words—on your body, on your sleeve, in beads or thread?
Read Me Softly brings together three artists whose practices center text as a vessel for intimacy, identity, and assertion. These works are delicately beaded, meticulously machine-knitted, and firmly illustrated in bold ink. Phrases in these works are messages to self, signals to others, and fragments of personal myth.
Kristine Rodriguez (Declarative) crafts knitwear that reads like a quiet mantra—“You are already home.” “It’s okay to feel this way.” Her pieces are slow-made on a vintage knitting machine, each word stitched with softness and care.
Panda Landa constructs beaded and textile works that blend language with memory, queerness, and belonging. Their pieces, like “It all just means so much” and “Maybe this is an experiment,” speak to emotional truths spelled out bead by bead.
Amanda Manitach’s T-Shirt girl series brings us drawn figures in stark black tees bearing phrases like “Not Mom Material” and “Bowie died and the world went to shit.” Her work plays with humor, cynicism, and sharp self-awareness—using the language of fashion to reflect deeper tensions around identity, power, and feminism.
Together, these artists transform text into texture, whether it’s weaving meaning into materials that are held, worn, or witnessed— they’re all asking to be read, and to be heard.
UPCOMING:
CALL IT WHAT IT IS:
A Neon Show of Banned Words
September 11, 6-10pm
Call It What it Is - A Neon Show of Banned Words, is the first of two exhibitions in Seattle’s Capitol Hill to visualize the breadth of language flagged by the current administration “to be scrubbed from federal government websites and documents.” As a group, the banned words provide a clear picture of the administration’s central priority—to roll back decades of social and scientific progress. The dozens of artists and neon sign makers participating in this exhibition make these banned words visible as a protest to this administration’s regressive efforts at wresting power from experts and everyday people alike. Call It What It Is recognizes that if language is a battleground, speaking truth is a vital defense.
Curated by Tommy Gregory.