White Center Now: The blog about White Center

Story and photos by Torin Record-Sand
Reporting for White Center Now

Fall was in the air at the October Rat City Art and Food Walk, and Halloween was front and center. Almost every artist there paid Halloween homage in some way or other. Here were some of the spooky sights we managed to catch a glimpse of:

The highlight of the night was “Madame B’s Dark Bazaar” at Mr. B’s Mead Center – 13 separate vendors both inside and outside the meadery, all offering a unique selection of goods. DJ StarTropic also played a long set for Mr. B’s. Here were some highlights:

Trusty John of Trusty John’s Junk Shop made an appearance as a swashbuckling buccaneer, even offering to play liar’s dice with anyone stopping by. He is a local artist, working mostly in ceramics. Part of his display were these lovely ‘dragon eggs’ done in the style of Japanese Raku ceramics. He’ll be hosting an event where you can get one of these eggs custom-made at Mr. B’s next month.

Christy Badillois a local terrarium designer. She was offering a wide variety of her self-contained glass terrariums for sale.

Eli Wolff is a pop artist who had a whole host of pop culture and horror-adjacent work available. His process, he said, was mostly acrylic paint on wood, often then copying over to stickers – but he also had some full art on display as well. If you’d like another chance to get his work, he said he also regularly appears at the year-round Haunted Farmers Market in Tacoma.

Misfit Strength Studio offered aerial silk performances from students in their own studio, as well as hosting belly dancing. The bellydancers were from the Seattle group ‘Sirens of Serpentine‘ [], as one of the troupe members also teaches at the studio.

Outside the Lariat Bar, Joseph Hill had interesting offerings for anyone still looking for a costume. He had leather caps and medieval garb for sale, which he said were old costume stock from his days performing with the Seattle Knights, a local medieval-theater troupe. He also had a variety of chain-mail goods, ranging from purses to keychains, all hand-made.

Appropriately, the recently opened Trove of Treasure also had artists with a distinctively macabre theme.

Danni Maika’i was there with a selection of their more horror-themed sketches and prints. Danni primarily works as a tattoo artist. If you’d like to see more of their work, you can find them here.

Arpeggio Romiti offered a selection of dark bead-embroidery work, with a rendition of the elephant man from David Lynch‘s eponymous movie, and a series of skulls and flowers. They also had pieces from their series “Swimming with the Fishes,” featuring the faces of unidentified persons attached to various sea creatures. If you’d like to see more of their work, you can find their website here; they also mentioned that they have some of their embroidery on display currently at Doll Parts Collective in West Seattle.

Even though the weather is getting colder, many participating artists were on the street. Moony of Kitty’s Kandis had a display of impressive bead work for sale, inspired by rave culture.

Naomi Benson, sporting season-appropriate vampire fangs, was offering various pieces ranging from psychedelic collage to nature-inspired prints. She said she’ll be at the West Seattle Art Walk in December, featured at Canna.

Even with much of the art walk focusing on the holiday, there were still many artists there with a focus on social justice in between their more seasonal work.

Kristel Chua of Centipede Zines was in the lobby of Misfit Strength Studio with a selection of her zines available for sale. Much of her work focuses on contemporary political critique, tackling larger issues of decolonization and resistance against capitalism. She said also that there’s a visual component to it as well, hand-designing the artistic assets for her zines. If you’d like another chance to get some of her work, she’ll be at the Zine Fest at Woodland Theater on December 6th.

The Rat City Art Walk occurs on the third Thursday of every month. The next one will be on November 20th. If you’d like more information, visit their website here.

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