ArtSEA: On the prowl for fresh Seattle art shows

If you can’t get to a beach but you’re up for a scavenger hunt of sorts, consider hitting the streets to encounter the abundance of art currently on display in urban windows. 

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Seattle Civic Poet Shin Yu Pai has orchestrated a “public poetry campaign,” featuring short works by five poets writ large across the city. Appearing in the form of posters and installations, the poems reflect the theme of sustainability. 

Included are local writers Cindy Luong, whose ode to checking out books is posted on the window of the Seattle Public Library in South Park, and Bryan Wilson, whose poem “Atmospheric River” is appealingly reproduced in large cascading banners in the windows of the Seattle Municipal Tower Gallery downtown and the Bureau of Fearless Ideas in Greenwood. (See the full map of poem locations here.) 

If you’ve recently noticed an influx of colorful lighting in Pioneer Square, you can thank Shine On Seattle, a collaboration of the Downtown Seattle Association and Lusio Light. Five new art installations are aglow in Occidental Square and nearby vacant storefronts (through April 30). Peer through the windows to see neon artist Kelsey Fernkopf’s minimalist yellow mountain (at 220 S. Jackson St.), and video artist Anthony Bassett’s lava-lamp-like storefront (at 113 First Ave. S).

More art worth window-shopping: The storefront windows at AMcE Creative Arts on Capitol Hill are currently adorned with 1950s-inflected vinyl wraps by Jennifer Vanderpool, as part of the vibrant Oh So Rosy show (through April 28). And in Ballard at Das Schaufenster — which has always been a window-only gallery — Seattle-based Polish artist Sylwia Tur presents Language Forms […], featuring small sculptures that transform letters into a geometric code.

Lastly, in the Pratt Fine Arts exhibit window (across the street from the school in the Central District), new-to-Seattle glass artist Eriko Kobayashi is showing “Chewy Thoughts,” her delightful homage to the Gum Wall (which is significantly less gross than the real thing). “Gum and happiness,” she says, “are parallel experiences.”