by jasminemahmoud

Ethan Hunter, District 4 Candidate — Arts Platform

Candidate: Ethan Hunter, Candidate for District 4

Seattle Arts Voter Guide: Describe a meaningful arts experience that has stayed with you over time.

Hunter: From a young age, my parents involved me in music, in shows, in art and museums and one of my most favorite childhood memories involved regular trips to the Cantor Museum at Stanford for regular parties for members (we belonged) where I was let free to roam amongst the sculptures in the Rodin Sculpture Garden.  The sense of beauty it imbued me with lives with me to this day. While in school (2018 graduate Garfield High) I noticed, even at a more arts-focused school like Garfield, a school with the Quincy Jones performing art center, how lacking and few courses in the arts were. 

SAVG: How do the arts reflect the voices and perspectives in your own neighborhood?

Hunter: Being a D4 resident, which houses the UDub, the arts are essential. Essential to the future. Essential to keep the past alive. Essential to show youth that life is not about money alone. Essential to make and keep Seattle beautiful and to prepare the next generation of artists to keep making the world beautiful!

SAVG: How do you envision the arts as part of the Seattle, especially as part of education, equity, housing, transportation, culture, the economy, and/or community?

Hunter: As mentioned, we are lacking in education, I have just experienced it firsthand. Our concern over active shooter drills far outweighs our concern to perpetuate the arts through the education of our youth. This has to change. The arts connect people, make people see their similarities as opposed to their differences and bring people of different walks of life together. The importance of the arts in society becomes even more important as our schools teach art less and the community is left to step in and maintain the teaching of beauty.

SAVG: What does creative placemaking mean to you and how does it relate to your prioritization of housing and homelessness in Seattle?

Hunter: Highly important and not enough a part of future city planning and zoning, we should be looking to the arts to beautify our city and to perpetuate the loveliness of the PACNW as we expand and become more and more of a concrete jungle. The arts and the planning of additional artistry in community building and zoning plans would help to mitigate some of the loss of beauty from all of this construction.

SAVG: What are your policy initiative ideas that will enable artists and creative workers to stay in Seattle and continue to build a creative economy in our city?

Hunter: Creating incentives for art collaboratives to open around Seattle, commissioning local Seattle-based artists to beautify our city through Bronze sculptures, art tributes to Seattle artisan heroes, special collections and including the promotion of the arts in Seattle as part of our tourist marketing campaigns. We should look to educate, promote and provide opportunities to succeed to our artist community in Seattle.