Free First Thursday: Seattle Art Museum

Call your friends and bring the family, admission is FREE to everyone at the Seattle Art Museum on the first Thursday of every month.

In addition to our regular hours, Seattle Art Museum will be open for Free First Thursday evenings from 5–8 pm to provide more opportunities to visit the galleries for free! Evening hours will feature extra activities like live music, drop-in art making, and in-gallery experiences for visitors.

4:30-5 pm

Music and dance by Anokye Agofomma

4th floor galleries

After 10 years, SAM’s African masks have been moved to storage in preparation for a major reinstallation of the African Art galleries. Ghanaian drumming group Anokye Agofomma is filling the space with music to celebrate this time of change.

5–8 pm

Make jewelry inspired by Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams with teaching artist Kulla Jatani

Brotman Forum

5:30-7 pm

Meet SAM Director Scott Stulen

3rd floor galleries

6-6:30 pm

Tour of Lessons from the Institute of Empathy with curator Pam McClusky

4th floor galleries

6:30-6:50 pm

Sculptor Jai Sallay-Carrington on Diego Cibelli: Fiori dei Miei Habiti / La Montagne Enchantée

Porcelain Room, 4th floor

Hybrids: A Queer Landscape of Possibility—Jai Sallay-Carrington (they/them) will speak about how the hybrid figures in Diego Cibelli's porcelain sculptures queer our reality by combining different physical traits. Jai will share how they use the mythology and physicality of hybrids in their ceramic figures as a professional artist. They will also speak about Cibelli’s porcelain sculpting methods.

7-7:20 pm

Farren Rice from Lavender Rights Project on Buddha Gives Basketball to the Ghetto

Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams galleries, 4th floor

Farren Rice, also known as Diamond Lil, is an Afro-Latina artist from the Appalachian mountains of Alabama. By day, she functions as the Outreach Coordinator at Lavender Rights Project, an organization that uplifts and empowers the Black trans and gender-diverse community. By night, she performs on stages across the city as Diamond Lil, dazzling crowds by pairing her sensual athleticism with macabre phantasma. Join Farren for a conversation about the symbolism in Joyce Scott's Buddha Gives Basketball to the Ghetto.

7-7:45 pm

Spoken word performance by artist Christa Bell

Plestcheeff auditorium

Join Artist Christa Bell as she delivers her monologue-mantra/endurance spell celebrating reproductive and spiritual power. Through her unique mix of humor, poetry, and critique, Christa’s performance will “sanctify the bodies of womxn and formally reclaim every word cast at us . . . as DIVINE.” She will share an excerpt from her newest one-womxn show and will end with her chanted mantra.

Content warning: This performance contains profanity, including slang terms for genitalia. We recommend that visitors who find this language upsetting choose to forego participation.

Free tickets are available both onsite and online.

Free First Thursday Evenings Presented by