Sarah Stackhouse
Can Alaska Kelp Help Washington Crops Beat the Heat?
A Ketchikan company is working with WSU researchers to see whether its kelp-based biostimulant can help grapes and berries withstand environmental stress.
From the floatplane, reddish-brown kelp traces the edges of the small islands between Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island like brushstrokes on the surface of the water. Up close, on a rare 70-degree July day in Alaska, the kelp is glossy and beautiful, though the wind coming off the water makes it nearly impossible to…
PlantCon Is Coming for Seattle’s Windowsills
The nation’s largest gathering for houseplant lovers makes its Pacific Northwest debut this August with 200 booths, hands-on workshops, and a DJ.
My house is full of plants, enough that I’ve lost count. Houseplants have the same suspicious math as tattoos: One is rarely the final number. I propagate cuttings in jars of water, regularly rearrange corners of the house in pursuit of better light, and like to imagine the entire collection is improving the air. That…
Five Easy Summer Outings That Don’t Require a Big Plan
August is wonderful, but it can get a little feral when the kids are roaming free and school still feels far away. Consider this your low-effort rescue plan.
There’s a point in summer when the family starts to fray a little. Camps have come and gone, and the novelty of popsicles for lunch has worn off. Everyone wants something fun to do, but nobody needs a major production that involves sand all over the car or a ferry reservation. These five outings are…
A Spa for People Who Are Bad at Relaxing
Circle Wellness is bringing its private thermal circuit to Seattle, where a calm voice keeps time so you don’t have to.
From the outside, Circle Wellness does not look like a spa. It looks like the sort of large black structure you might hesitate to enter without first texting someone your coordinates. I arrived at its Vancouver, B.C., location on an unusually warm June afternoon and found no windows, almost no signage, and one massive steel…
Rearview Mirror: Storytellers in Clay, Wild Seattle, and an Alaskan Feast I’ll Never Forget
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
CLAY RELATIONS I went to see the Seattle Asian Art Museum’s new Kondō family exhibit expecting beautiful ceramics, and there are plenty. What I didn’t expect was a fascinating story that starts with samurai. Long before pottery became the family trade, earlier generations guarded Kiyomizudera, a historic Buddhist temple in Kyoto. That role vanished when…
Studio Sessions: Jennifer Leigh Harrison
Seattle artist Jennifer Leigh Harrison uses layers of paint and abstraction to explore what we carry beneath the surface.
Jennifer Leigh Harrison’s paintings are dense with movement. Color and texture gather into mosaic-like fields, as if they have been fractured and reformed. There are places in the work where a frenetic buzz seems trapped between the canvas and the first layer of paint. That energy runs through Patterns of Belonging, her current exhibition at…
The Concert Hall Has Left the Building
Pianist Hunter Noack’s IN A LANDSCAPE brings classical music outside, where the piano, the audience, and the scenery all get to move a little.
Find a tree to lean against or look at. Put your feet in the water. Sit down and make a flower crown out of dandelions. Spread a blanket over the grass and close your eyes. “You can experience this show in really whatever way you want to,” says pianist Hunter Noack. “The people next to…
Rearview Mirror: A Timber Stage, Goodwill Vinyl, and the Summer Camp Hack I Needed
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
STAYING POWER So, the World Cup in Seattle is over. Our final match was Monday, July 6, when the U.S. unfortunately lost to Belgium, but man, was the whole thing fun while it lasted! Seattle broke attendance and transit records, the streets were packed, and there seems to be a collective sense of, Hey, our…
World Cup 26 Is Keeping the Region Busy. So Are Its Recycling Bins.
A local expert explains what actually happens after a plastic bottle leaves the bin.
Seattle is buzzing right now. In the first 11 days of World Cup 26, Waterfront Park recorded more than 451,000 visits, including nearly 85,000 on June 19 alone. SEA Airport has also seen some of its busiest travel days ever, with match-day crowds and summer travelers moving through the city. That is a lot of…
Rearview Mirror: A Striking Mural, Winery Nights, and a Beautiful Vancouver Dinner
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
A SOFT LANDING There’s a new reason to look up in Pioneer Square. Seattle painter Cristina Martinez’s new mural, A Soft Place to Land, fills a wall along the Occidental Promenade with a dreamy woman stretched out in daisies. The mural measures 70 by 150 feet near Lumen Field Event Center, where Seattle Art Fair…
Studio Sessions: Nakisa Dehpanah
Artist Nakisa Dehpanah’s new show uses suspended textile forms and movement to explore identity as something layered and always changing.
Seattle artist Nakisa Dehpanah’s work hovers between sculpture and performance. First developed during a residency at Base Art Space, Suspended Selves is now on view at Method Gallery in Pioneer Square, where billowy, vessel-like sheer fabric forms hang with geometric clay elements integrated into them. They seem like soft shelters or skins waiting for an…
Eat the World in Seattle Southside
World Cup visitors don’t have to go far from the airport to find one of the region’s most global dining corridors.
With World Cup 26 underway, Seattle is full of visitors looking for the obvious things: the stadium, a jersey or scarf, a good pint (or three), and a great place to eat. But some of the region’s most interesting food is waiting a few miles south of the downtown crowds, in Seattle Southside, near Seattle-Tacoma…
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