Skip to content

A Seattle Indie Rocker Goes Solo at Bellevue Art Museum

An indie music veteran constructs his sonic vision in 3-D

By Gavin Borchert December 24, 2018

TheFlamer

This article originally appeared in the December 2018 issue of Seattle magazine.

Unless you’re Adele, the money in the music biz hardly comes from music anymore. (Thanks, Internet!) If you’re a struggling, touring musician, like Clyde Petersen (of queercore band Your Heart Breaks) or any of the indie acts he’s managed over the years (Kimya Dawson, Laura Veirs and Aesop Rock, to name a few), a dismaying chunk of your income comes from…T-shirts.

In between gigs, Petersen dabbles as an award-winning visual artist (he has nabbed the Neddy and more than 20 other awards and grants), and his Bellevue Arts Museum exhibit, Merch & Destroy, combines these two worlds in an homage to the two primary loci of life on the road—the tour van and the green room—both reconstructed in glamorous painted cardboard sculptures. That music playing overhead as you tour the exhibit? He made that, too.

Through 4/14. Times and prices vary. Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, 510 Bellevue Way NE; 425.519.0770; bellevuearts.org

Follow Us

Creation in the Balance

Creation in the Balance

Artist Gabriel-Bello Díaz utilizes classic materials and tech-forward methods to produce pieces that straddle the line between past and present—and feel wholly of the moment.

Discover how Seattle artist Gabriel-Bello Díaz blends 3D printing, robotics, and Taino mythology in his "Ancestral Future" show at King Street Station.

Still Googling Vendors? Here's How Seattle's Best Planners Find Theirs
Sponsored

Still Googling Vendors? Here’s How Seattle’s Best Planners Find Theirs

The executive assistant who runs your company’s annual retreat has a secret. So does the board member who somehow pulls off your fundraiser every spring. And the ops lead who makes the holiday party look effortless. They’re not figuring it out alone. They have a secret team. A caterer who remembers the CEO is gluten-free….

A New Home for Seattle Artists in Pioneer Square

A New Home for Seattle Artists in Pioneer Square

Actualize AiR expands its footprint with studios and a public gallery

Three years after launching Actualize Artist in Residency (Actualize AiR), founder Kate Bailey has relocated the venture to Pioneer Square. The women-led arts organization, originally opened in downtown’s Coliseum Theater, focuses on supporting emerging artists through long term residencies in free or low-cost studios. Early this year, Actualize AiR opened its new space—which spans 14,000…

Driftwood Dreams

Driftwood Dreams

Cascadia Art Museum uncovers the lost Surrealist who spent 40 years painting in Seattle.

One of the most compelling parts of Objects of the Elements: The Art of Elsa Thoresen at Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds is a display case filled with the actual pieces of driftwood artist Elsa Thoresen used as source material, mostly in the 1930s and ’40s. They’re ordinary enough at first glance—knotted and gnarled by…