Spring Update!

The last couple of months have kept everyone here at AHB incredibly busy with ongoing community  initiatives and preparations for summer events. The People’s Choice Award for favorite sculpture in the Something New IV Public Art exhibition went to a dedicated and deserving artist. The Moonlight Market made a triumphant post-pandemic return during the First Friday Art Walks of May and June. Our Arts in Education program was active with three separate AHB grant-funded teaching artist residencies, serving youth in Bainbridge Island public schools. And we continue in our leadership role of the soon-to-be launched Bainbridge Creative District.

Mosaic artist Jennifer Kunhs’ sculpture , Fertility, won the People’s Choice Award for favorite sculpture in the Something New IV Public Art sculpture exhibition! Located in front of the Town & Country Market, the winning piece is a mosaic encrusted terracotta egg with numerous colorful symbols of springtime and fecundity. Jennifer was given a $1000 check, a letter from the City Manager, and honored with a ceremony downtown on May 13. 

The Moonlight Market is a family-friendly night market with live music, DJs, beer garden, and 30+ booths featuring art, crafts, and vintage goods that made a wonderful return to Bainbridge Town Square during the First Friday Art Walks in May and June.  AHB is proud to be the Moonlight Market’s fiscal sponsor, supporting their mission to create economic opportunities for artists and creatives in our community and throughout the Puget Sound region.

AHB has been providing grants for Arts Education in local public schools for 24 years. This spring, Craig Jacobrown’s ‘Council of All Beings: Northwest Ecologies Speak’ residency brought paper mask-making and social-emotional learning to the classroom, while fulfilling the WA State curriculum requirement for local tribal history to 3rd graders at Blakely Elementary. Scott Breitbarth helped Odyssey 5th and 6th graders imagine the Hunger Games as parody, slapstick, dark comedy, AND a Grimm’s Fairy Tale to write, produce, and perform their own original play. And Karen Harp-Reed taught a Shakespeare residency at Woodward Middle School, in which students learned public speaking, voice production, and reader’s theatre techniques for their Shakespeare monologues.

Join us at the July 1 Moonlight Market where BCD logo stickers will be available. We will officially launch the Bainbridge Creative District with a ribbon-tying ceremony at Waypoint Park on July 3rd. The ribbon will be tied, not cut, to symbolize the coming together of arts and business in our community. BCD street signs from WSDOT will also be revealed.