Must List: Polar Bear Plunge, Free Day at WA State Parks
What to do this weekend in Seattle
By Seattle magazine staff December 29, 2015
Must Rock
Patti Smith Rocks The Moore
(1/4 to 1/5, 8 p.m.) Punk rock songwriter, musician and poet Patti Smith brings her world tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of the release of her seminal debut album, Horses, to the Moore Theatre. Hear her sing the songs that helped make her an icon.
Must Get Outdoors
Free Day at WA State Parks
Friday (1/1, times vary) Celebrate the first day of the new year in grand Pacific Northwest fashion and access any Washington State Park without the need for a Discover Pass.
Must Plunge
Enter 2016 with a Splash
Friday (1/1, 12 p.m.) Earn your “cold badge of courage” at the annual Matthews Beach Polar Bear Plunge, where brave revelers leap into Lake Washington’s chilly waters.
Must Cheers
Spend NYE with the Seattle Symphony
(12/31, 9 p.m.) Lift your glass of New Year’s bubbly to toast the musical splendor of Beethoven’s Ninth performed by the Seattle Symphony, and then dance into 2016.
Must See
Last Chance to See Intimate Impressionism at SAM
(Through 1/3, times vary) In the show Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art, SAM fills its walls with tiny treasures: small-scale paintings by a bunch of French guys you may have heard of, such as Monet, Cezanne, Degas and Renoir, and one from the Netherlands who goes by Van Gogh.
Follow Us
Studio Sessions: Jo Cosme
The Seattle-based multimedia artist and 2026 Neddy Award winner challenges the postcard version of Puerto Rico and centers the persistence of its people.
Jo Cosme knows how seductive a postcard can be. The Seattle-based Boricua (Puerto Rican) multimedia artist works across photography, installation, video, sound, and interactive elements to examine and pull apart how Puerto Rico is seen, sold, and misunderstood from the outside. Trained in photojournalism, with a BFA in photography from Puerto Rico School of Fine…
Seattle’s Drag Brunch Has History
The city’s Sunday shows started long before the mimosas got bottomless.
There was a time not too long ago, when drag performances—now a mainstay of Seattle’s queer scene—were kept under wraps. And when brunches, complete with singing and dancing queens dressed in dazzling drag as you sipped mimosas, weren’t a Sunday staple. During the 1940s and ‘50s, an era largely shaped by restrictive laws and bias…
Studio Sessions: Sangram Majumdar
Working at the confluence of history, culture, and various painting traditions, UW associate professor Sangram Majumdar is one of this year’s Neddy Artist Award winners.
Discover the art of UW professor Sangram Majumdar, a 2026 Neddy Artist Award winner. Learn about his inspiration and upcoming Seattle exhibition at Cornish.
Rearview Mirror: A Georgian Dinner, Sidewalk Sips, and One-of-a-Kind Clothing
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
A new life for old clothes To celebrate one year in its current studio, the FXRY—a clothing repair service available via in-person appointments, home pickup, or mail-in drop off—is dropping its first collection. A small batch of reworked pieces, Second Mark will feature 13 vintage barn jackets, cropped, chain-stitched, and renewed into a completely unique, one-of-one…