by jasminemahmoud

Ry Armstrong, Seattle City Council District 3 Candidate — 2023 Primary Election

CANDIDATE: Ry Armstrong, Seattle City Council District 3 Candidate

ARTS PLATFORM

What is your arts platform? 

I am an artist myself who is an actor, writer, and producer. I am honored to be running for Seattle City Council to represent fellow working artists in our creative economy and to push forward an agenda for working people. We want to focus on shelter, safety, and sustainability by making Seattle a right-to-shelter city, create alternative response models instead of the traditional police model, and push to make Seattle carbon free by 2030.

How do the arts reflect the voices, perspectives, and communities in your district? What are challenges and opportunities? 

The arts in District 3 are ultimately based in a collective history of Blackness in the Central District and Queerness on Capitol Hill. The challenge is that our area has been increasingly gentrified over the years and one can visibly see a decrease in arts specific to these groups. As a non-binary theatre artist myself, I think back to the history of Capitol Hill, which was originally called Broadway Hill because of the street name and the amount of vaudeville artists who lived originally up on the Hill. We need to protect historic places and the arts in these areas for years and years to come.

How do you envision the arts as part of Seattle, especially as part of critical issues including access, affordability, displacement, education, and racial equity? Do you have any policy ideas around addressing these issues?

The specific policy we want to look at is applying a commercial vacancy tax and creating a program called Arts Pop Up. In this case a small business owner or property owner could coordinate with the city to receive an exemption on paying a vacancy tax in exchange for giving their space to an artist to create art or an artistic experience. This would help expand our creative economy and create events for young people and make in-person relationships in a “post-COVID” world. This program would be coordinated by the Arts & Culture Department and establish a progressive revenue stream for increased programming, marketing for free or subsidized events, and grants for artists to be able to live and work in our city.

The aftershocks of Covid are still being felt by artists and cultural organizations. Please share policy ideas you may have that aim to stabilize the cultural industry and increase cultural engagement to increase quality of life for communities across Seattle? If you don’t have policy ideas right now, what process would you initiate to determine new opportunities in these areas? 

The pandemic has affected our industry more than any other and I’m still seeing the aftershocks in Seattle and across our country. To see theatre companies like Book-It close after so many decades and others struggling to continue to survive hurts my heart when Seattle used to be such a prosperous indie arts scene. Across the State of Washington the arts contribute to around 10% of our collective GDP, and you can see the impact the arts can make when you look at one singular singer-songwriter by the name of Taylor Swift having such an economic impact in not only our city, but our region. This is the power of storytelling, and Seattle could very much become the incubator for new arts endeavors in a variety of different mediums. The policies already being recommended on our website would economically impact artists in our community, and the intersectionality of those impacts should not be underestimated. Artists need to be prioritized when looking at access to affordable housing, a living wage, good union jobs, affordable healthcare, and access to an environment that is both sustainable and healthy in nature.

How do you plan to work with governmental agencies including the Office of Arts and Culture and the Seattle Arts Commission? 

If elected, I would be there in those city offices meeting the people who are the heartbeat of our city. I would like to listen and learn from them about how we can all collaborate better to improve the status of the arts in our city. I would also engage office hours at local libraries where constituents could engage in our office and we can be accessible to all the needs of the District.

Describe a meaningful arts experience that has stayed with you over time. How have the arts affected your life? 

I grew up here singing with the Northwest Choirs and doing educational programs at the 5th Avenue theatre, and I can ultimately tell you I would not be here today without the arts. The stories we tell ourselves and others are palpable and powerful. I will never forget seeing my first Broadway musical (Newsies) in New York and will never doubt the power of storytelling since crying my eyes out in the mezzanine watching a story about people fighting to strike for fair wages and working conditions. That’s when I knew what I would be doing for the rest of my life: telling stories and fighting for fellow human beings.

Link(s) to your campaign website and/or social media pages  

You can find my artistic work at www.ryarmstrong.com or learn more about our campaign at www.ry4seattle.com. I am also on most social media platforms at @ryontheryse.