Hosted by Death Dancer
Showcasing 34 Local Artists in Olympia
Hosted by Death Dancer
Showcasing 34 Local Artists in Olympia
In October 2025, 34 local artists came together at the Olympia Fall Arts Walk to showcase their art and creativity relating to their experience of death, dying, loss & living.
Click on the button above to see their galleries.
Read more about the background and purpose
of the project below.
"Art is a mirror. When we look at someone’s piece and read their story and their process, we see our own stories, our own people, our own experiences. Their grief mirrors our grief. Their reflections on death and dying resonate with us deeply and we are left with that weird feeling
- our shared experience of being human.
The fragility and reality that we will all soon disappear, mixed with the awesome exicitedness of currently being alive.
And yet the lines become more blurry. Are we all in fact dying all of the time? And how much are we living in this very moment?
Are we living and dying, all at the same time?"
Jennie Beth Banks
When talking about death, dying, and loss, our society is often stunted and doesn’t know how to talk about or represent the deeper emotional experiences of life.
Though ‘death talk’ is certainly becoming more mainstream, we still have a way to go.
Sometimes Art gives us another language to communicate our experiences and emotions. Sometimes words and other materials combine to tell the story.
Is Art the finished piece we voyeuristicly look at or is it more about connecting to the process the artist went through to create the piece or installation?
At the Olympia Fall Arts Walk in October 2024, Jennie Beth Banks showcased her mixed media art about her experience of this topic in our first exhibit –
ON THE EDGE
– Perspectives on Death, Dying, Loss & Living.
SEE PHOTO GALLERY OF EVENTS FOR
It soon became apparent that many local artists also had made pieces relating to this topic and so the idea developed to host a collaborative curated Art Exhibit for
Olympia Fall Arts Walk in October 2025 –
BEING EDGY
– Perspectives on Death, Dying, Loss & Living.
Rebecca Leach joined Jennie Beth Banks in
curating this collaborative exhibit.
SEE PHOTO GALLERY OF EVENTS FOR
34 local artists, of all mediums, participated. Some were seasoned artists, some quite new at showcasing their talents publicly. Some had already made their pieces, some went deep and made special pieces
especially for this exhibit.
We invite you here to experience each of our artist’s pieces and processes.
All photographs courtesy of Shanna Paxton Photography,
Summerlee Blankenship and Jennie Beth Banks.
Our Arts Walk event was also filmed by Michael Neumann and his team (Get Reel LLC).
Short documentary coming soon!
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