Barton Jackson delivers the second installment in our video series, featuring talent from the Seattle poetry slam scene. In less than three minutes, Jackson forcefully delivers a poignant piece with a passion that sucks you in, and keeps you listening. An award winning speaker and second generation poet, Barton Jackson knows his way around the English language and its delivery. For more, check out his Facebook page.

As with the first video, and all the videos in this series, Another Passion members can download a digital copy to keep.

The Focus: Seattle Poets series is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, who provided the location and was a most excellent host to the cast and crew, during the filming of these videos. Full Pull is a list based wine dealership specializing in fine wines from the Pacific Northwest. Thank you to owner Paul Zitarelli, for being awesome.

Digital Download

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If you follow me or Another Passion on Twitter, you may have picked up that a video project is in the works. If not, well now you know. Focus: Seattle Poets is a series of short videos, each featuring one local artist performing one of his or her pieces. Each clip will be released on Another Passion and depending on how it’s received, the series may pave the way for more. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I chose poetry for this series, not because I am huge poetry aficionado, though I do think it is an underrepresented artform in general, and that video is a fantastic medium for facilitating the connection between artist, material and recipient. And that connection is what I am really looking for. What I like about poetry as an artform is its purity, which inspired me to make the videos black and white.

The series is currently in pre-production, but if all goes well the first videos should appear in January. Each video will be about 3 minutes in length, depending on the piece performed. The talent has been cast primarily from the Seattle poetry slam scene, with the help of Dane Kuttler (a former Another Passion interviewee). Later this week, we are moving out of pre-production and shooting the entire series. After that is editing and post processing, which should keep me plenty busy over the holidays. And then it will be released upon the world!

This is the first original series from Another Passion, which of course adds to the excitement. As mentioned above, if it becomes a success there might be more “Focus:” videos. And by success, I mean that the results are as good as or better than the vision I have in my head – weighed against how much time and effort went into producing the videos. Focus: Seattle Poets is a small production, and yet about a dozen people are involved in making it happen — all volunteering their time. Though the budget is minimal, there are still some expenses involved, but I consider that an investment in production value.

The videos themselves will be published on YouTube at a rate of one a week, the same time they are published here. For our members, the videos will also be available as digital downloads. To get sneak previews and updates as they happen, be sure to check Another Passion on Facebook.

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Vincent Kitch is a busy man. As the head of the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs he oversees the city’s involvement with – and funding of – the many creative groups and subcultures. Kitch was appointed by mayor McGinn in February 2011 and started work in April, after having worked in Austin, TX for several years.

In spite of facing budget cuts and picking up after a long gap between himself and his predecessor, Kitch has been extremely active in reaching out to the community since accepting the position. I met up with him outside King Street Station during brief gap in his tight schedule, yet he did not seem stressed or in a hurry. Instead, he carries with him an air of comfortable professionalism and attentiveness.

AP: What does the director do, exactly? What is your role in day to day operations, as well as on a larger scale?

VK: As a member of the Mayor’s cabinet, I lead the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and a staff of about 20. On a day-to-day basis, I oversee staff working on our funding programs, public art program and outreach and advocacy efforts. I also work closely with the citizen-advisory Seattle Arts Commission. On a broader scale, a big part of my job is cultivating community partnerships and collaborating within city government to advance cultural policy. So there is a lot of meeting, planning, convening, participating and in general working with people, organizations and projects that impact a myriad of things related to arts, culture, and heritage.

AP: What is the greatest challenge for the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs today? What are you doing to overcome it?

VK: I think it’s important that we re-engage with the broader arts and culture community. I’m committed to raising public awareness of arts and culture and elevating the profile of the important work of the office. We are evaluating our programs and processes and engaging people in conversations about how we can improve services and increase our impact. It’s a thoughtful and deliberative process, which is important to building the foundation for our future work.

AP: In Austin you held the Arts Program Manager position for several years. What made you take on Seattle and move to the Pacific Northwest? Did you run out of challenges in Texas?

VK: I was fortunate to land the position in Austin when it was created. Austin was one of the first cities in the U.S. to combine arts and economic development, and it’s a great city! I believe we were able to accomplish a lot in the seven years I was there, but Seattle is a city that I have always admired. There are few other cities I would consider working in and after being in Austin, a city akin to Seattle in many ways, I decided to give Seattle a shot. I feel incredibly honored to have landed the job here. In the field of government arts administration, exciting opportunities don’t crop up every day. For me, Seattle felt like a good fit.

AP: What do you see as some of the greatest strengths of Seattle’s arts and culture scene? If you were to describe it to an outsider, where would you start?

VK: I think outsiders, at least in the arts field, have a very high opinion of Seattle’s arts and culture scene. It’s easy to tell the Seattle story. We’re home to world class arts institutions, vibrant theater and music scenes, a cadre of accomplished individual artists, a tremendously diverse community and rich cultural heritage. All this helps set Seattle apart as one of the leading edge cities in the U.S. I think some Seattleites take it for granted and assume that every city has this wealth of talent and cultural milieu. It’s simply not like this everywhere.

AP: How do you keep in touch with the arts community? I’ve read you attend events as often as possible, but obviously you can only attend so many, and only the ones you know about. What else do you do, and how can the community help keep you informed?

VK: Yes, I do try and attend as many events and activities as I can. The community has really opened up and helped fill my calendar, which is great! Because I’m new on the job, I try to go out of my way to meet and network with colleagues and individuals. My door is open. I invite people to contact me. Give me a call or send me an e-mail.

I am working to build relationships across community sectors, from arts and culture to education to business and philanthropy, etc. I believe it’s important to partner on every level in the community. When I’m not working which seems to be most of the time, I’m also trying to get out and explore Seattle and Pacific Northwest, learn the history, geography, culture, food, and even do touristy things as well!

For more, visit the website for Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. To contact Vincent Kitch directly, call (206) 684-7173 or send an email to vincent.kitch@seattle.gov.

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As Farnsworth would say: Good news, everyone! Another Passion recently partnered up with Puget Hound – a Seattle based community site, owned and operated by Fox/Tribune. Puget Hound is a collection of local blogs from the Seattle area, handpicked to showcase the best of the region. Together, the syndicated blogs cover everything from food and green living to dating and passion-driven lifestyle (that would be me).

As if that wasn’t exciting enough, there is more big news. The first ever printed edition of Another Passion is now available! 12 interviews from the first 6 months of operation, put together in one sweet 78-page magazine. There are no ads, just pages of inspiration and passion overdrive, paired of course with the portrait photograps by yours truly.

Puget Hound is still in beta and big changes are coming to the site in the next few months. You can follow it all via Facebook or Twitter, if you want to stay in the loop on fresh blogs being added and other new features. If you live in the Pacific Northwest and you’re reading through either RSS or anotherpassion.com, I highly recommend checking out these other local bloggers too.

I still own all the content I publish and make my own decisions on whom and what to feature on Another Passion, and being part of Puget Hound will absolutely expand the circle of readers, the range of new interviewees and sources of inspiration. This is where I take a moment to thank all of the few but faithful readers who have been with me from the start, because with all of this stuff happening, it does feel like Another Passion is taking a huge step forward – and I wouldn’t have gotten to this point without your support.

On that note, if you want to support Another Passion, don’t forget that I have a contact form you can use, if you or someone you represent would like to be considered for an feature on the site. General comments and suggestions for interviewees you would like to see are also appreciated. Or you can buy a copy of the printed edition.

I am super excited that all of this has happened within the first year of operation. It really has gone beyond my own expectations in a very good way, and I am constantly looking to do more with it.

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Paul and Storm is a comedy duo. They are also geeks. And when I heard that they were taking their show – w00tstock – to Seattle, I immediately asked if they might want to do an interview. Which is what you are reading now.

Paul and Storm have been active on the comedy scene for several years, first as part of the a cappella group “Da Vinci’s Notebook” and since 2004 as a two-man group. They have harvested the power of the Internet in several ways, from applying a Creative Commons license to their work, to organizing the w00tstock show, which apart from themselves co-stars Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage.

But it doesn’t stop there. W00tstock 2.0 (which was the official designation for the show in Seattle, followed by 2.1 in Portland, Oregon) featured a host of geek royalty including musical acts such as Molly Lewis, MC Frontalot, Hank Green and Load Ready Run, as well as segments by people such as Stepto and Lone Shark Games (watch for an upcoming interview with Mike Selinker from Lone Shark here on Another Passion).

All the guest performers were invited and/or hand picked by the w00tstock team. Both Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage are involved in that process. In general, there is a strong spirit of cooperation throughout the w00tstock project.

Adam Savage, just a few minutes before going on stage.

They told me to come by just after sound check, about an hour before show-time, and I was fully expecting to have to capture both Paul and Storm as well as the essence of the show itself in just a few minutes. However, I ended up documenting the show from start to finish from behind the scenes.

The above photo is the only one I got of the both of them posing for the camera. It was shot about half-way through the show, and instead of minutes, I only managed to make them stand still for a few seconds. But as it turned out, I worried for nothing and it wasn’t about posed portraits at all, but about telling the story. In the slideshow below the interview, you can see many more photos from w00tstock – set to Paul and Storm’s own song “Frogger! The Frogger Musical“.

AP: What is it specifically about comedy that appeals to you and makes it worth devoting your creative energy to?

S: I think humor would be part of anything we chose to do. If we weren’t lucky enough to be musicians, we would have ended up as funny plumbers or something. There’s just a certain type of joy you get when you make people laugh that can’t be replicated any other way.

P: Not to get all “amateur psychologist,” but it seems to me that all performers, to some degree or another, are seeking direct approval and validation. (Otherwise, they could just record things and release them without any live performance) And for me, laughter is the best, most rewarding type of approval, because it’s involuntary, and can’t be faked – it can be, but you know what I mean. It’s a certain type of power rush, almost — “I’ve made you laugh, I control your actions!” That’s overstating it a bit, I guess, but I think, beyond the joy I get evoking laughs, I really do personally get a “power rush” out of it. Sure makes me sound diabolical and manipulative, eh?

AP: Could you take us through your creative process? How are your songs written and how do you know which ones are keepers?

S: We don’t have a set creative process. Generally, you get a germ of an idea that comes from who-knows-where, and you run with it. Once we have the idea, sometimes one of us will build it out and then pass it to the other, and other times we’ll be on the phone shooting ideas back and forth. As for which ones are keepers, if it still makes us laugh after working on it for 12 hours, that’s a pretty good sign.

P: Given the comedic nature of what we do, it’s usually, though not always, a lyrical idea that comes first — a central joke for the song, a storyline or what have you. But there really is no formula. But generally, the good ones we both get excited about pretty quickly, and as Storm says, stay excited about later.

AP: You’ve chosen to put your original material out under a Creative Commons license, even though your songs are also available for sale. What is your experience with this approach to self-marketing and do you still sell enough to make it worth your while, financially?

S: Using Creative Commons is a terrific way to help spread your music organically. By making your material more easily available, it turns everyone who hears your music a potential member of your marketing team. And it’s great that people are at liberty to create something of their own from what we’ve done, and that you can choose which rights you wish to retain. No doubt it’s been profitable for us. Although a smaller percentage of people who hear our music are paying, the number of folks who are aware of us is much larger than if we used the traditional model. And we figure most of those people will help support us financially anyway — either by coming to a show, buying merch, or putting us in their wills.

Jason Finn (of Presidents of the United States of America fame) acted as house drummer for the evening.

S: w00tstock started because Paul and I were looking to fill a couple of dates in LA and San Francisco, and we thought it would be fun to do a show with Wil and Adam, both of whom we were just becoming friends with. And since we knew a lot of other fun, cool, and geeky acts in both cities, we thought it would be fun to have some of them as guests to ramp up the fun and excitement. It turns out we were very, very right, and the shows were a tremendous success. For the 2.x shows, we made a big list of potential guests for and from each city, and then just started knocking on doors. Again, many of the acts are people we know, but a big part of the fun is discovering new acts or getting to know others that we’d only heard about, and then sharing it all win the audience.

P: Show-wise, we liken it to nerd vaudeville – in our original discussions, we wanted it to be “all the good parts of a Convention” – and we try to vary the acts and keep the pace up. So you’ll have stuff that’s musical, thought-provoking, funny, and even heart warming all in one show. In addition to the live acts, we also break things up with short films and animation, again to keep the pace varied and interesting for folks.

AP: It seems that with the first shows you were kind of testing the waters, and that the success of these paved the way for a West Coast tour with W00tstock. What’s next? Will there be a full US tour or perhaps a DVD, or do you have something altogether different in the works?

S: We have a lot of plans for w00tstock. The reaction to the shows has been so strong, and it’s really a joy for the audience and performers alike to be at a special event where every kind of nerdiness and geekiness can be celebrated. We’re certainly going to add more cities, though it’s hard to coordinate all three of our schedules, and we have dreams of doing an all-day or weekend-long event at some point.

P: We do intend, at some point, to film a show (or several shows). But that adds another whole layer of complexity to an already-growing pile of responsibilities we’re dealing with.

We are consciously working very hard to maintain the shows’ original “hey, let’s sweep out the old barn and put on a show!” spirit, even as the audience and performance space sizes grow rapidly. There is a very strong connection at these shows between the performers and the attendees, a sense of intimacy, borne out of sharing the same interests and joys. Indeed, the performances themselves are very interactive, with a lot of give and take between audience and performers. We’re wary of letting these events grow so large that that sense of intimacy is lost, because we believe it’s a very important key to the success of w00tstock so far.

S: First things first: we’ll be launching w00tstock.net soon, which we hope to grow into a hub for people to share all things w00tstock, and to tie together everything that’s happening on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and wherever people are hanging out.

The photos in the slide show are presented in chronological order.

Paul and Storm, their co-stars and many of the featured performers are also active on Twitter . Also, check out the many w00tstock videos on YouTube and photos on Flickr (yes, pictures and videos were not only allowed but encouraged during the show) and sign up for the w00tstock mailing list if you want to know if and when the show might be coming to your part of the world.

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Kevin Urie is a go-getter. I got that feeling even before setting up an interview with him. He is a marketing man who just over a year ago made the decision to learn more about social media. So he formed the Seattle chapter of the Social Media Club and was blown away by its reception. The rest is history and today the Seattle Social Media Club is one of the most popular networking groups in the city.

I met with Kevin downtown, making sure to show up 15 minutes early and still not getting there first. This did not surprise me. I found it more surprising that he drinks tea instead of coffee (this being Seattle, that’s almost considered a sin by some). In a matter of seconds, I was drawn in by Kevin’s curious nature and warm personality. Obviously both a great talker and listener, I came away from the interview uncertain as to who really asked the most questions.

AP: You founded the Seattle chapter of the Social Media Club, which is now very popular. What made you invest the time and energy to do this?

KU: Ignorance at first. 12 months ago when I started Social Media Club Seattle (SMC Seattle) I had no idea what I was getting into. I’m a learner, and believe if you are not moving forward you are moving back. I wanted to take on a new challenge and learn something new. In the months leading up to me starting SMC Seattle I started to dive into social media, and really enjoyed it, and wanted to learn more.

So I reached out to Kristie Wells from Social Media Club international to see if they had a Seattle group I could connect with. I learned there was not an active chapter in Seattle, so I asked if they would like me to start one. Considering the other Social Media Clubs I knew about at the time, had around 30-50 people at a bar talking social media, I thought it would be no big deal.

Well at our first event we had over 150 people and I was shocked and wondering what the heck I got myself into. Lucky for me a great group of board members surrounded me, and have made working on SMC Seattle fun. Not to mention I have learned more than I would have ever thought, and have made some friends I don’t know what I would do without now.

AP: How has Social Media influenced your own way of life? How much is personal, how much is business?

KU: Social media allows me to get outside both my personal and business silos. I think this is a key to both personal and professional growth.

We learn more from those around us than we do in any book or blog, and with social media I am able to surround myself with some of the best and brightest. I am able to connect with people I would have probably never met through traditional channels.

Think about how many people you typically come in contact with on a daily basis, at work, coffee shops, gas stations, etc. Really it’s not too many people, and it’s a lot of the same people every day. These connections are important but they limit us, and we tend to make us all start thinking the same way.

By using social media I have been able to escape this silo. I am now able to connect with thousands of people every day. Hear what they have to say about topics, see what they think is interesting. Then with SMC Seattle I am able to meet some of these people in person, and take these relationships to even the next level.

So to answer your original question, in my personal life, I am now exposed to more ways of thought than before, and I think it makes me a better friend and more complete person. These social connections work the same way for my professional career. I bring more info and experience forward to my clients and employer than I ever did before.

Social media is like the Borg from Star Trek, but in a good way. When a bunch of people share and learn together, everyone benefits.

AP: You talk about social media as a ‘communication philosophy’. What is that about, and could it be applied to offline life as well?

KU: It’s a little pet peeve of mine. I hear people and companies say I need to get on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Those are tools, they really don’t matter, they are just a vessel for communication. Heck in some cases they might not even be the best vessel.

What social media is about to me is about communication. It’s about connecting with people, establishing relationships, and learning together.

For companies this means listening, sharing and working with your customers/employees to improve your product/service and social media tools provide a great way to do that. If you don’t believe in the listening and sharing part however, the tools are going aren’t going to help you.

Offline is no different. Take a networking event. Some people are there to learn, but others are just there to make connections, give out business cards, and make a sale (lucky for us, SMC Seattle doesn’t have many of these). The networking event is a tool, how you choose to use it determines the value you get out of it. Same thing can be said about friendships, jobs, or pretty much for anything if you think about it.

AP: I know from experience that it’s easy to waste a lot of time on things like Facebook and Twitter. How do you engage in the social aspect and still stay productive?

KU: I won’t lie, it’s hard. The more connections I make the harder it is to step away. I feel like I am turning my back on my friends when I do.

Most of the community understands however, because they go through it as well. We are not all Chris Brogan and can be connected at all times, and going 1,000 miles an hour. I’ve got a family, a busy job, and not to mention SMC Seattle which ironically takes me away from social media at times.

I think with anything you need to find your balance. I remember when I got my first smart phone it was a bit overwhelming to have access to my email at all time. Every time it beeped I freaked out, but over time I learned to live with it, where now it’s to a point I stress if I don’t have it.

I think the younger generations have a huge advantage over us in this area. They can multi-task better than me. They can IM, TXT, and carry on a conversation all at the same time, and give everyone the proper attention they deserve. I can do about two, but still have trouble with it at some times.

ADD is our friend beyond 2010.

AP: I’ve heard some critics say that social media will eventually drown in spam and marketing. What do you think about that?

KU: I agree that people will try, but don’t know if they will succeed. The community on these networks must understand that they are in charge, not the brands. It’s not like TV or Radio, where business decides what airs and what we see. In social media we determine who we friend, what we pay attention to. If we pay attention to the spam and marketing and it works, it will be there.

Let’s hope we are all smarter than that.

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I met with Shannon and Matt at Arcane Comics in Ballard, Seattle. They are regulars here, I found out as they entered the tiny boutique and the clerk lit up in a smile and a “I have your stack of comics ready!” But I wouldn’t be surprised if the store owners are proud to count this couple among their costumers. They are after all the producers of “Seattle Geekly”, a weekly podcast about all things geek. That includes comics but also things like movies, games and news from the community.

They regularly interview guests on their show, and it was a little surprising to see them turn a little shy at first, once they were the ones in the hotseat. Within a few minutes though, they were picking out their favorite super heroes and goofing off in front of the camera. I got the sense that this was a brilliant example, of a couple who had made it their shared activity to dive into and talk about the things they enjoy the most.

AP: What does it mean to be a geek to you, and why is it important enough to share with the world?

SG: The best definition for geekdom that we’ve come up with is really an analogy – Geeks are to culture what nerds are to technology.  In broader terms we tend to view geekiness as the quality of having a particular fondness for certain kinds of media, books (especially genre fiction), movies (once again of the genre category), video games, boardgames, etc.

There are a couple reasons we decided to share our geekiness with the world.  First on a personal level it was a really good excuse to get us out of the house and to some of the cool events that happen in the area.  Also, being a geek can be kind of lonely sometimes.  A lot of the activities geeks enjoy are, or can be, pretty solitary.  We wanted to get the word out that there are great opportunities to go and socialize with other geeks.  There really is a community and we want people to know about it.

AP: You ask listeners to dare you to watch bad movies, you have contests, do interviews and feature fellow geeks of all kinds. What do you take back from interacting with the community like this?

SG: For the bad movies, those are things that Shannon would probably end up watching anyway and it made a good bit for the podcast.  For the rest we really wanted to be as interactive as possible.  It gets back to promoting the geek community, we like meeting new and interesting people and we like sharing the things we enjoy with our little corner of the world.

A great example of the community that is out there was our first trivia night at Neptune Coffee.  We host one trivia night a month on various geeky topics and the first one we did covered the works of Joss Whedon.  The turnout was much higher than we expected, 25 or 30 people, and everyone had a great time.  There are communities like that made up of fans of just about any tv show, game or movie and we’re just trying to let people know about them.

AP: As a couple, how has the making and success of your podcast affected your relationship?

SG:  Minus time spent at our day jobs we’re pretty much together 24/7.  As we said before, the podcast gives us a great excuse to go out and do things together which is geat! We have really come to realize that neither of us could do the podcast alone, there just aren’t enough hours in the week for one person to do it.  It’s given us a shared project that we both enjoy and can be proud of.

AP: How do you share the work?

SG: We brainstorm ideas for shows together and we usually have things planned out 1-2 months in advance.  Shannon takes care of coordinating interviews and writes the show notes, Matt manages the website, gathers news and keeps the event and convention calendars we have on our site.

AP: With all the time and effort put into the site and podcast, are you able to make it pay for itself or better yet, your mortgage?

SG: The short answer is no.  The long answer is noooooo.  Even though we have it structured like a business we really view it as a hobby.  If we had gone into this project with the idea of making money we would have been horribly disappointed.  We’re certainly open to the idea of turning Seattle Geekly into a major media empire that could support the two of us full time but realistically we’re happy with a few people buying t-shirts or hitting our paypal donate button.

We have a business license and we have seperate e-mail and physical mailing addresses for “geekly” business.  We try and keep things as professional as we can when we’re “on the clock” at events and conventions, but of course we’re geeks too so the fanboy/girl in us frequently shows through.

AP: Any chance you might go beyond podcasting to feature articles, regular video or even expand the number of contributors to go beyond just the two of you? What are your plans for the future of Seattle Geekly?

SG: We’re actually working on doing some things with video.  Of course we’ll be using borrowed equipment and technical expertise but we’re going to try it!  We’d love to have regular articles, but we’re about at the limit of what the two of us can do in terms of generating content.  We’re certainly open to the idea of contributing bloggers.  If anyone wants to contribute articles we’d be happy to turn into editors and post content from other people.  Of course we can’t pay anyone for anything they do, but we’d be happy to have additions to the Seattle Geekly circle.

Our plans for the future are kind of undefined.  We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing of course and we’re trying to be mindful of potential opportunities to increase our audience and add new features.

Be sure to check out Seattle-Geekly.com, get the podcast straight from iTunes and follow @seattlegeekly on twitter.

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Erin Staffeld, Cheryl Robinson and Mary Enslow (front to back) are the three owners and operators of the Twilight Artist Collective (TwAC). They have a boutique in the heart of West Seattle, where they show and sell the works of local artists. I meet up with them after a business meeting, and I’m immediately infected by their positive attitudes and, dare I say it, bubbliness. The store itself is full of bright colors and beautiful pieces of art. Were I not on a mission, I would probably spend half an hour just looking through the many pieces available. At the time of this interview, Twilight has about 70 associated artists, all of whom have an opportunity to have their work displayed and exposed for the local community. Each work of art typically has a shelf life of 60-90 days, and with that many talented artists, those shelves are never short of interesting work.

AP: You have an art boutique featuring the works of many artists. How did you get started and grow into the collective you are today?

TwAC (Mary): We got started, when after several hours of passionate discussion about making it as an artist. We spoke of artists like ourselves falling out of the scene after college and getting trapped in the work world, never to produce art again. We felt the need to create a space for us and people like us. Cheryl and I had been working as a part of the Special Projects crew for One Reel Productions at the time. Erin and I had just returned the year before from a study abroad program in Rome, when this whole thing started to grow. Erin and Cheryl had not yet met.

I had been designing purses and selling them in various locations, one of my outlets was a shop in the Pike Place Market that would soon become the home of Twilight Artist Collective. We got word that this store was going out of business. After a few energized meetings Erin, Cheryl and myself were signing over checks and starting a venture that had all the passion and good intention in the world, but not much actual structure.

During the first year we found ourselves in a sort of business 101 reality show. We learned by doing, reaching out for guidance and following our senses. Looking back it was ridiculous, but when your young and passionate, anything is possible. In January of 2007, Twilight was in a good spot, we had started paying ourselves a small monthly stipend and felt that we had the potential and know-how to get bigger and better. We stumbled upon a great location in the West Seattle Junction, where we had all been living for a few years, and decided to go for it.

We realized after keeping two stores afloat for 1.5 years, that we had too much on our plates and that to survive and provide the quality of service we hold ourselves to, we needed to pull out of the Pike Place Market location and re-focus on our ever growing, beautiful West Seattle location. As a trio, we’ve faced everything together and subsequently make a powerhouse partnership.

AP: When new artists want to join, how do you decide if that person’s work is good enough?

TwAC: We look at the quality of the work first and foremost. We expect work to look finished. The artist must show a certain amount of respect for his own work. We look for work that has an edge; if it’s got a great or compelling concept, shows amazing skill or attention to detail, or if it’s just plain great fun. The work must be new for the viewer. We do consider price point, if the work is out of our range we encourage the artist to pursue the big time galleries. As I said, we are here to be a stepping stone into the art world for artists that want to continue along this challenging path.

Once we are working with the artist we are in a business together and we expect our artists to be active business partners. We don’t continue relationships with people who’s only interest is in dropping off their art and leaving it for us to sell. We want to have an ongoing dialogue that teaches both us and them how to serve eachother better.

Our most successful artists are the ones who take an active role in their position here. We appreciate artists who attend events, promote events, network and are otherwise engaged in the community. These artists are the ones who reap the most benefit as a member, their work sells with greater frequency, because we are equipped with a greater knowlegde of them and their work. This story adds a great amount of value to the work itself. People want to know what inspires art.

AP: You participate in local art walks, you have a twitter account, a blog and more. What does community building mean to you as opposed to traditional advertising?

TwAC: Because we are an art gallery, we do not generate a huge amount of profit. We’ve found these free options to be essential tools for us to communicate with Seattle and our greater community.

Twilight has grown organically from the get-go. Each artist that becomes engaged has a personal experience with Twilight, this goes for our customers as well. Because all the work has a story that is in some form tangible to us all, as humans, coming into twilight is not a standard shopping experience, a platform for interesting dialogue is set and more often than not they begin. Kids express insights and their parents learn something new about their childs mind. Art evokes powerful emotions. The converstations and ideas that are generated inspire us and when we are inpired we are compelled to share. Word of mouth is the greatest marketing tool we have and is a natural product of the environment we offer people.

AP: You’ve been around for more than 5 years, and with art being such a luxury item, how do you deal with tough times like the current recession?

TwAC: Hard work and dedication with a large amount of ingenuity and faith. We realized during the recession that people tend to go one of two ways, they either fold in and spiral down, or they reassess and replan for a sustainable approach. Many people become responsible in a new way, they buy less of what they don’t need and wait to buy the perfect something that will fullfil their consumer itch and give them a the greater gift, that art provides.

Learning how valuable art is, can be difficult. If you grew up in an environment where the only value came from getting more for less, it may be challenging to understand how buying one piece of art that makes you smile every time you see it, is actually more valuable than buying a huge artificial something or other, that only costs $10, but ultimately brings you nothing but more stuff. We had some customers who would save and save for the perfect piece of art. Our loyal customers know that if they want us here, they have to support us being here. We did see that support even in the toughest of times. We are very grateful!

AP: Surely, there are easier ways to make a living. What do you get out of running the Twilight Artist Collective, as opposed to having “regular” jobs?

TwAC: Well, we do both. We all support ourselves independently of Twilight. This is a question we’ve asked ourselves several times and we keep coming to the same conclusion: we can’t not do it. We care too much about what we’ve started and what we believe in to stop. We’ll be here until something tells us, its time to stop.

This experience has absolutely changed us for the better, both collectively and individually. We’ve been able to build something from the ground up. It’s something that we believe in and this is a very empowering accomplishment. Once you have a taste of this sort of gratification, you really can’t go back. Living with purpose and meaning is invaluable. The day we can back off our other jobs and work here more, will be a great day, both for us and for the community. We have so many more things we want to pursue as Twilight Artist Collective and we’ve got the foundation to provide these things. Our other jobs have value because they enable us to run Twilight, but ultimately we want to put all of our time and energy into TwAC.

Check out the Twilight Artist Collective’s website for more about upcoming shows and events. There is also a Facebook page and a Twitter feed, you can subscribe to.

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2. Interview: Tracy Record – Seattle’s Queen of Hyperlocal News Tracy Record is almost half an hour late to our...

Tracy Record is almost half an hour late to our meeting, but I was expecting that. She apologizes and explains that three stories were all happening at the same time, and that time just slipped away. With her schedule, I’m happy she found time to meet with me at all. Tracy is a busy lady, covering every local event, meeting, accident and yard sale for her own West Seattle Blog, a hyperlocal news outlet that’s taken Seattle by storm.

West Seattle Blog (WSB) is not your average weblog. In 2009 it ranked number 5 on Google’s list of hottest search terms in the Seattle area, beating all the major networks and traditional media outlets. But Tracy Record is no stranger to success. She has a distinguished career behind her in television, newspapers and radio and three Emmy Awards to prove it. Still, Tracy threw all that away for a blog about the goings on of just a single neighborhood.

Today, WSB has a small staff of contributing freelancers, but Tracy and her businesspartner/husband – Patrick Sand – remain in full control over what can only be described as a driving community force. Did I mention that they were awarded a Citizen Appreciation Award by the Seattle Police Department in 2008?

Tracy checks her Twitter, blog and e-mail almost in real time.

AP: What is it about hyperlocal news that makes it worth dedicating your time to?

TR: I have spent two-thirds of my life delivering information to people, in a variety of ways. This is the most meaningful way yet. To be able to directly report on, answer questions for, share information about/from my community, and make a living doing it, is a joy. So much different from all my years in citywide/regional news, when we managers/producers would sit in a room and often wind up having to send someone off to whatever the most shocking crime du jour in the region happened to be, parachute in, parachute out, on to the next Big Story.

We cover crime, of course, but from the standpoint of sharing information that helps people protect themselves and figure out how to fight back, particularly against property crime like burglaries, auto thefts and vandalism. Yet though “hard news” is a huge area of coverage for us, I also adore being able to publish orca sightings, pretty sunsets, parade previews, Christmas Ship video!

AP: What were your considerations before taking the jump from mainstream media to starting on your own?

TR: It was clear by the time we got to fall 2007 that there was a huge need in the community for real-time information and neighborhood-issue coverage, and we had found ourselves trying to help fill it, since the December 2006 windstorm/power outages, when we started getting e-mail from people saying “we can’t find out ANYTHING about when the power’s going to be back, can you guys find something out?”.

The only real consideration was whether we could support ourselves doing this – would enough local businesses and organizations choose to sponsor WSB to add up to what we needed for business expenses and a modest lifestyle. I had absolutely no concern otherwise about leaving my longtime corporate-news-media career – the TV business didn’t interest me much any more for a variety of reasons, and it felt wrong to collect a paycheck for something I didn’t feel passionate about.

AP: In 2007, WSB held a pledge to get a feel for the level of support amongst your readers. That went so well, you turned it into an actual business. Could you share a little about that transition, the plans and concerns you had, compared to how it actually went?

TR: The “pledge day” wasn’t actually a barometer of support for whether we could make a go of it as a business. We already knew from the readership, through site stats and through e-mail and other feedback/communication, that there were enough people finding value in being part of WSB every day. In fact, the percentage of people who chose to donate was relatively low, maybe 3%, and that is one of the reasons I don’t believe an operation like ours could operate on a subscription-only basis, which some have suggested we try.

Of course I’m not downplaying the amazing generosity of the 3% who did choose to give us money; it added up to almost $2,000, which we used to set up the business (licenses, a business-only cell phone, etc.) and buy our first video camera. At the time we had the “pledge day” in August 2007, we still weren’t even sure we might try to take the leap and start selling ads – keep in mind, we not only didn’t sell ads at that point, we didn’t even engage in the common practice of running Google AdSense text ads on the site. We were wholly noncommercial. But there were a couple local businesspeople who actually kept urging us to offer ads, so we did some research and made some plans and Patrick started going out on sales calls in October.

We had no idea if we would be able to sell 2 ads or 20. But after about six weeks, the interest was strong enough that it seemed worth taking the risk to try working on it fulltime. The only financial backup we had was my 401k, and a huge factor in the decision to quit was when I learned that you could withdraw from it as long as you paid a penalty … until then I had thought that money was completely inaccessible. But I withdrew as little as possible — we lived even more frugally than before — and haven’t touched it in a year and a half – our business is 100 percent financially self-sustaining, which is still not that common for independent local news sites.

Tools of the trade: Flip camcorder, battleworn digital camera and a cracked iPhone.

AP: You are constantly attending meetings, markets and other events; you keep long hours and have a family at the same time. How do you keep the energy up?

TR: I have been a night owl all my life and have managed to do OK on five or so hours sleep. These days, three-hour nights are more common than five-hour nights, though, and I tend to nod off in the living-room chair while trying to finish that one last story that it always comes down to around 2, 3 am.

What keeps me going the times the energy just lags, is the fact that people tell us what we are doing – with their help! – matters. But the real hero is my husband Patrick, who not only works full-time as our business development director, but also goes out to breaking-news scenes to call in info and send photos, and to meetings on nights when there are two that need to be covered, and also engages in good old-fashioned community relations, meeting and talking with people.

AP: What have been the biggest obstacles for you, in starting and running this project, and what have you done to overcome them?

TR: I have never been so singleminded about anything. I have been focused, I have been devoted, I’ve done things like work many days in a row on a big project like producing election coverage or a special broadcast, but never before has one job, one task been so all-consuming for so many days, weeks, months. I know that we will eventually get to a point where we will have a paid staff – right now we pay freelancers, which is a start – and then the 20-hour days will just be a memory … we’ll be able to cut back to 16-hour days, ha.

I have also become an even-more serious person than I already was, have just never been the kind of person who could just go out and cut loose anyway, but now even if I was, there is no time. And last but not least, I have lost a lot of fear.

Becoming a mother tends to boost you to a certain stage of fearlessness, because you know you have walked through fire to bring that child into the world and you would walk through fire to protect him if need be … and becoming self-employed takes you to another level, knowing there is no safety net, there is no semi-guaranteed paycheck every two weeks, there’s no big boss looking over your shoulder to tell you you screwed up bigtime or maybe even catch you before you make a big mistake. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying, and each day of it that you survive, you feel a little tougher, a little prouder.

Would you like to know more about Tracy Record? Check out West Seattle Blog, her twitter account (@westseattleblog) or this interview from April 2009.