Jack Straw Foundation

Education: we served over 1000 elementary, middle school, and high school students in creative and curriculum-based projects including creative writing, oral history, radio theater, family celebration stories, music, and audio production. We continued to expand and adapt our programs for online, in-person, and hybrid settings in collaboration with our partners seattle school district, kandelia, hugo house, wa department of services for the blind, arts & visually impaired audiences, and the wa state school for the blind. We completed the 27th year of our blind youth audio program, serving 22 blind and visually impaired high school students virtually from throughout Washington state. We presented four accessible art-making workshops for blind and visually impaired students, families, and sighted friends with our new media gallery artists. We continued our ongoing programs such as our guitar lessons with new refugees at the seattle world school, poetry with elementary students at genesee hill elementary and french american school of the puget sound, poetry and song with concord and lowell elementary schools, and spanish-language poetry with eighth grade dual-language students at denny international middle school and seventh graders at chinook middle school. We also provided professional training for artists, teachers, and other community members.

Studio services: our studio services, which we provide for a wide range of individuals and organizations, include music and spoken recording and production, remote recording, audition audio and video recording, podcast/radio production, audio book production, media digitization and preservation, audio mastering, sound design for film and performance, interpretive material production, oral history production, student and professional music recitals and performances, and radio theater. Music projects ranged from audition recordings for music students and professionals to album recordings for individuals and groups of all genres. We recorded and produced podcasts, radio theater, audio books, and other audio media for a variety of individuals and organizations, such as entre rios books, imagination theater, american radio theater, the seagull project, encompass nw, opal food & body wisdom, university of Washington, macmillan publishers, and ek real estate group.

Arts: we successfully completed the thirtieth year of the Jack Straw artist support program, 27th year of the Jack Straw writers program, and the 24th year of the Jack Straw new media gallery and gallery residency program. Over one hundred artists created 29 new artworks, participated in 37 in person and streaming events, 6 exhibits, 1 anthology, and 38 radio programs or podcasts reaching over 10,000 audience members. We also presented an artist showcase to hundreds of attendees at the nw folklife festival we continue to develop new relationships and maintain longtime partnerships to keep our programming vital. We curated a selection of music and spoken word for seattle convention's center's public audio installation summit sound; presented events with hugo house and nepantla cultural arts gallery; and produced podcasts with partners such as common field and seattle arts and lectures, and environmental radio programs with reporter martha baskin. We also provided a variety of arts, heritage, and education organizations with production support.