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ARTBEAT THE COMET

january 2026 21

JANUARY 2026

Pink Martini Loves a Small Town Gig pg. 6

WENATCHEE FIRST FRIDAYS MAP INSIDE

ARTBEAT A monthly publication of the NCW Arts Alliance

Editor: Jamie Howell Layout & Design: Ron Evans Contributors: Meg Sanders, Carla Wilson NCW Arts - Elevating the Arts in North Central Washington

NCW ARTS UPDATE

President, NCW Arts Alliance

Yonder Cider - qualified as artistic creations from right here in our Valley. Another gentleman, a former mayor of Wenatchee this time, pulled me aside to say, “This has been missing from Wenatchee for too many years now.” And that’s when I identified it - the hunger. Everyone there was hungering for this creative experience; hungering for art; hungering for community. It’s the same thing I feel in the air when we jam the downtown core for the Night Market events. We’ve lost the Radarstation, Collapse Gallery, Gallery 76 and too many other permanent establishments that once helped sate this local appetite for the arts. Our artistic repasts grow fewer and farther in between. But there is no need to starve here in North Central Washington, surrounded by such beauty, rich beyond measure with our own talent and creativity. To allow our artists to go uncelebrated and under-supported is as criminal as allowing the abundance of our orchards to go unpicked. Because, just like every piece of fruit glistening from the branches, the Arts provide vital sustenance to our people and sustain life-giving connections across our communities. NCW Arts is here to help ensure this creative harvest continues. We are here to support the pop-ups, the night markets, the short-run plays, the mid-week gigs - anything and everything we can as we work toward re-establishing the vigor of our creative economy. “You should do this every month!” was another common refrain that evening. I’d watch our pleased but exhausted volunteers wither at the idea of it. But we should, really. All it takes is more of us – more resources, more hands on deck, more attention directed toward the Arts. Join us – become a member, make a donation, volunteer – and just maybe that’s exactly what we’ll do in 2026.

“That’s the most fun I’ve had in Wenatchee in years!” An acquaintance waved me down amid the Costco Christmas rush. The “that” to which she referred was the ArtBox event held by NCW Arts as part of last month’s First Fridays Arts Walk in Wenatchee. I welcomed the praise, a. because I knew just how hard so many volunteers had worked to make ArtBox happen and, b. because that’s especially high praise for a fundraiser - an activity more commonly “endured” than “enjoyed.” More comments like that filtered into our inboxes in the weeks that followed ArtBox. Truth is, it had been surprisingly fun. The concept was simple enough. Rent a local industrial space, gather local artists to exhibit and sell their works, set up a little bar, add lights and music, spread the word and hope for the best. The outcome proved to be more than the sum of its parts. Despite our location in the former Wells and Wade Warehouse being about as easy to find as an unmarked speakeasy, more than a thousand people streamed through the doors. Close to two hundred works of original art flew back out. Up on the turntables, high school teacher and local audiophile Tanner Dotzauer set the mood with his vinyl curations. The energy buzzed. And everywhere, there was art. Folks sat for live oil portraits with Henry Stinson. We meandered among fine art abstracts from artists like Scott Bailey, Alessandra Piro or Adele Caemmerer; inspired camp from Ron Evans or Spencer Piestrup; mixed media; ceramics; jewelry; fiber arts - eighteen talented artists in all. Even the drinks in our hands - loBecome a member or find out more cal vintages from Armour Wines, Watercore, Icicle Brewing Company and about NCW Arts at ncwarts.org.

Pink Martini returns to Wenatchee with two shows at Numerica Performing Arts Center - Saturday, Jan. 24, at 7:30 p.m.and Sunday, Jan. 25, at 2 p.m. Story on pg. 6

ARTBOX RECAP

AN UNSATED APPETITE FOR THE ARTS BY JAMIE HOWELL

ON THE COVER:

The community turned out in droves for NCW Arts’ first-ever ArtBox exhibition and fundraiser. Photo courtesy Thom Kokenge

ARTBOX RAISES THOUSANDS TO SUPPORT THE ARTS

he first-ever ArtBox exhibition and fundraiser hosted by the NCW Arts Alliance at the reimagined Wells & Wade warehouse in Wenatchee drew impressive crowds, successfully generating vital funds to support the region’s artists and NCW Arts Alliance programming. The free event held during the Wenatchee First Fridays Arts Walk on Dec. 5, took over the new ARTWORX space at 15 Yakima Street, a shared studio space for working artists operated by Wenatchee muralist Sara Hasslinger colocated with the new Community Clayworks space. A core component of the event was to offer free admission in order to maximize community engagement and artist sales while meeting fundraising goals for NCW Arts. “The turnout this year was truly inspiring. Seeing the community come out to support both the artists and NCW Arts is proof that the Arts are thriving in North Central Washington,” said Callie Baker, executive director of NCW Arts Alliance. Spearheaded by event director and artist, Nena Howell, ArtBox surpassed the organization’s goals in its first year: Attendance: Nearly 1,000 community members and visitors attended the inaugural event.

Artist Support: Eighteen NCW artists exhibited their works, collectively selling 197 pieces worth a combined total of $13,430, providing substantial year-end support. Fundraising: Through sponsor support, artist commissions, raffle and beverage sales, ArtBox generated $6,500 to fund the nonprofit programming of NCW Arts. “ArtBox is an example of just how important the Arts are to our region. I’m inspired by the board members and community volunteers who devoted hundreds of hours into making this event the success that it was,” said Jamie Howell, president of NCW Arts. ArtBox was made possible in part through the generous support of Courageously Created Fine Art Show, another important annual fundraising event supporting the Alatheia Therapeutic Riding Center that takes place each Spring. NCW Arts is a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting artists and communities in ways that elevate the creative economy of NCW through fiscal sponsorship, educational programs, advocacy, community outreach and events. For more information or to lend your support, visit ncwarts.org.

ANOTHER ARTS PROGRAM BITES THE DUST: WENATCHEE SD PULLING THE PLUG ON DIGITAL MEDIA ARTS

Jamie Howell, owner of Howell at the Moon Productions, visits with students in the Digital Media Arts class at Wenatchee Valley Technical Skills Center.

by Jamie Howell “This will be our last meeting,” said Eric Link, the disappointment palpable in his voice. As the year was drawing to a close, we learned that the Wenatchee School District is planning to pull the plug on the Digital Media Arts program where Link has been teaching for more than a decade. Typically, I’m not one to complain about one less meeting, but in this instance a complaint is warranted. Come along as we learn how a perfectly good arts program gets strangled out of existence by an internal money grab. Developing skills locally As the owner of Howell at the Moon Productions, I’ve spent years serving on an advisory board for the Wenatchee Valley Technical Skills Center and their Digital Media Arts (DMA) program, and over these more recent years, I’ve witnessed its orchestrated decline. I’m partial to the DMA program because it’s the only place in the Valley where they teach high school students how to do the things I need them to know how to do – things like how to operate cameras, compose shots, process footage, write scripts, edit stories; how to think and solve problems like a filmmaker. The Digital Media Arts program provided workforce development that was actually working for many of the small, independent production companies that serve our region. Many of the local hires I’ve

made over the years were young people who came through that very program. I’ve been able to take current students out on local shoots on numerous occasions - providing them with real-world, professional experience. You might spot these kids out filming at Wenatchee Wild hockey games, livestreaming for the Wenatchee Bighorns or the Wenatchee Valley Symphony, interviewing local icons for Elderspeak, or providing production services to countless other small companies or non-profit programs without access to large production budgets, as they build the creative skillsets that could actually translate into real jobs later. But then the fiscal noose began to tighten.

But there’s a workaround. I can simply say, “Hey, I’m going to start my own Digital Media Arts program in-house,” and then I get to keep the kids, along with their FTE dollars, right here. And that’s exactly what started to happen. The high schools became less amenable to presentations by the Skills Center instructors. Poorly equipped media classes led by inexperienced instructors (some of whom called me personally to ask for pointers along the way) began to pop up. And the DMA program at the Skills Center which used to fill up easily at 30 or more students every session was slowly but surely starved of students, dwindling ultimately to as few as 6 per session – a number which makes it pretty easy to pull the plug on a program.

The money grab In simple terms, schools receive funding based on how many students come to school. There’s a complicated formula, but essentially one student amounts to one Student FTE, or Full-Time Equivalent. It changes from year to year and district to district, but around here that can be as high as $10,000 per kid. Here’s where that becomes a problem for a technical skills center. If I’m a high school and I ship a student off campus to some outside program, their FTE (or at least a fraction of it) goes with them. So, for the sake of argument, if I send 30 kids off to an outside program - that’s $300,000 no longer coming into my school coffers.

Workforce deterioration The problem is the move to in-house classes is virtually guaranteed to be a downgrade in the education available to our students. The Skills Center has a variety of advantages over our other local schools. Their program runs on a block schedule, for example, meaning the students get several hours in class at a time versus the 40-45 minute periods in a traditional high school setting. It’s exceedingly difficult to do much real work in terms of production in so little time. The Skills Center also provides a wellequipped, purpose-built facility conceived by our very own Charley Voorhis – one of the top videographers in our region –

complete with editing bays, a green screen studio, sound booth, a variety of cameras, audio gear, a screening room - all the stuff you really need to do the work. Replicating that learning environment in any of our high schools, especially in a time when they continue to face repeated and massive funding deficits, seems incredibly unlikely. And, as a result, so does the prospect of a company like mine ever being able to hire a student straight out of a local school ever again. Arts on the chopping block The decision to shut down the Digital Media Arts Program and idle that custom facility should be reconsidered. The money is there. The students are there. Yet we persist in this ill-advised shell game with the available dollars at the expense of our children and their prospects for the future. I understand this is but one program among hundreds that probably deserve saving. But the arts are too often the canary in the coal mine. Budgets get tight, out go the arts. The Skills Centers’ automotive, construction and culinary programs (also prohibitively expensive to replicate in high school settings) are safe for now, but if I were you, culinary ARTS, I’d be extremely wary of what the future may hold. You know what it would take to fix this? Creativity. Exactly the thing we’re teaching less and less of in our schools.

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MULTIMEDIA RETROSPECTIVE OPENS AT MAC GALLERY

new exhibition opens this First Friday featuring Spokane artist Rajah Bose whose latest work excavates the images he’s amassed to create an installation of photos, videos, musical compositions, and sculptures for the MAC Gallery on the campus of Wenatchee Valley College. The second iteration of his middlelife series, middlelife ii, focuses his lens more directly at the opposite sides of the world from where his parents originate — his fa-

ther, the son of a Indian factory worker, and his mother, the daughter of a Wisconsin farmer. The work is accompanied by Rajah’s album of train songs inspired by travels and stories gathered along the Indian and American rail lines entitled The First Sounds. The exhibition opens at the MAC Gallery with a First Fridays reception, Jan. 2, from 5 to 7 p.m. including an artist talk and short program. The exhibition runs through Feb. 27.

ON THE UPBEAT: PINK MARTINI

ABOVE: Pink Martini with Storm Large. RIGHT: Pianist and band leader Thomas Lauderdale ArtBeat caught up with pianist, bandleader and founder of Pink Mar‘Audiences in small towns ... tini, Thomas Lauderdale, to ask what it is that draws a group with so much inare the most exuberant.’ ternational acclaim to play the smaller, ince 1994, Pink Martini has been rural venues that so often appear on their stirring music from around the touring calendar: world into a universally appealing cocktail of joyful, performances. Pink Martini regularly plays worldThey’ve sold over 3 million albums class concert halls and major cities, worldwide, performed on six continents, but you also make a point to tour played alongside more than 50 orches- smaller communities like Wenatchee. tras, including the Los Angeles Philhar- What draws you to performing in monic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Bos- towns and venues of this scale? ton Pops, the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center and the BBC Concert Thomas Lauderdale (TL): The audiOrchestra at Royal Albert Hall in Lon- ences in small towns and more out-ofthe-way locations are the most exuberdon. And now, Jan. 24 and 25, they’re ant. Not as many nationally touring acts coming to the Numerica Performing come through, and they are grateful and Arts Center in Wenatchee to perform gracious to the ones like us that do. And two shows with the Wenatchee Valley it’s just as, if not more, important for these communities to have the Arts and Symphony Orchestra. live music as it is for major cities.

BY JAMIE HOWELL

America is becoming more urban, but also more divided and isolated. Music brings people together; it creates literal harmony. And there are some lovely smaller surprising benefits to playing smaller communities – like the food! The catering is local and the meals are delicious. We have had fresh-caught local salmon in Homer, Alaska, Southern BBQ in Boone, North Carolina, and kahlua pork and fresh pineapple in Hawaii.

Obviously, there is a lot of majesty and elegance in those iconic venues, but there is an intimacy and familiarity that comes with playing smaller venues that we also love. If there is any connection between one of the band members or guests on stage and that community, everyone in the audience knows about it and goes wild for it. That doesn’t happen- or there isn’t the same exuberance- in London and New York City. And some of our very best dance From the performer’s perspective, contests and conga lines have been in how does the energy or connection small towns, too. with the audience change in a smaller performing arts center as compared This performance pairs Pink Marto a large metropolitan venue? tini with the local Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra. What excites TL: We have played everywhere from you about collaborating with reCarnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall to gional orchestras, and what do you the Vashon Island Performing Arts Cen- feel these partnerships bring to both ter and on Kodiak Island, where the only the music and the community? venue is the local high school.

I’m a huge proponent and fan of orchestras, choirs, ballets, community arts. I love the sound of Pink Martini playing with orchestras, and I think our fans do, too. I’m on the board of the Oregon Symphony in my hometown of Portland, and I know how important and difficult it is for regional orchestras to stay afloat. Ideally, collaborations like these concerts with the Wenatchee Symphony expand our fanbase, and help keep the orchestra alive and thriving, too. Do you see touring smaller communities as part of a broader cultural or civic mission for the band? TL: Oh absolutely yes. I didn’t set out to create world peace, or even a 30 year music career. I thought I was going to run for mayor of Portland someday! But local civics are the very genesis of the band. I like to say that my vision of Pink Martini is the band you might have seen playing in the lobby of the United Nations circa 1962.

For communities that don’t often host internationally known acts, what do you hope a Pink Martini concert leaves behind—beyond the performance itself? TL: We hope that we leave a bit of international flavor and glamour, a little taste of the world beyond those communities, but not in some exotic way. Music is present in all cultures and societies, and vital in all communities. I hope we leave people with a little more joy and connection, and a sense of just how big and how small the world really is. Pink Martini featuring singer Storm Large will perform twice with the Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra led by Music Director and Conductor Nikolas Caoile. Performances are Saturday, Jan. 24, at 7:30 p.m., followed by a matinee on Sunday, Jan. 25, at 2 p.m. Tickets are available at numericapac.org.

FEATURED EVENT MTW PRESENTS NEW PRODUCTION OF ‘THE MINUTES’

he Music Theatre of Wenatchee opens their new production of The Minutes, a comedy by Tracy Letts at the Riverside Playhouse on January 22. Directed by Brian Higgins and produced by Marie Scanlon, the play is a scathing new comedy about small-town politics and real-world power from the author of August: Osage County. The Chicago Sun-Times called it, “Astonishing ... A pitch-black comedy about the current state of American politics.”

The action centers on a monthly city council meeting that initially appears mundane and bureaucratic, but quickly escalates into what director Higgins calls a, “very human exhibit of very human behavior in a very human setting.” The play runs Thursday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m. From Jan. 22 To Jan. 31, With two additional Saturday matinee performances. Tickets are available at mtow.org.

FEATURED OPPORTUNITY RETURN OF THE FOLLIES: AUDITIONS GUARANTEE YOUR ROLE!

nce every three years, The Follies return to the Wenatchee Valley. Under the direction of Jaime Donegan, The Follies is a wildly silly, spectacular revue featuring community members of all stripes singing, dancing and generally performing their hearts out as they raise funds to support the work of the Wenatchee Valley Children’s Guild. If you are inspired to take part in this tradition that has been taking place in the Wenatchee Valley for more than 75 years,

there will be an informational kick-off party Saturday, Jan. 10, at the Numerica PAC starting at 7 p.m. Auditions will also take place at the Numerica PAC, Sunday, Jan. 11 starting at 1 p.m. Auditions are open to the public, ages 18 and older, and all experience levels are encouraged to try out. Everyone who auditions will be given a spot in the show. The 2026 Follies Show Performances take place February 5-7, 2026. You can find more information at wvchildrensguild.org.

VISIT NCWARTS.ORG FOR MORE OPPORTUNITIES

thank you!! TO ALL THE SPONSORS, PARTNERS & VOLUNTEERS WHO MADE ARTBOX 2025 POSSIBLE

PRESENTING SPONSOR

ALLIA NCE BENEFITTING REGIONAL ARTISTS AND THE NCW ARTS ALLIANCE