Tor Lee, John Osebold, and Sara Osebold

Essential City

A love letter to Seattle.

Sara Osebold. Changed by Lightning, 2022. Watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite on Nepal paper. 11 x 8.5 inches

February 2 - 23, 2023
Opening: Thursday, February 2, 6:00 — 8:00pm

The idea for Essential City was born prior to the pandemic. Since then, our world has undergone drastic change as we’ve endured lockdowns and catastrophic losses, experienced the communal power of widespread protests, and witnessed once vibrant urban centers shuttered. Despite this overwhelming transformation, when we look and listen closely, we recognize that aspects of our chosen home have remained constant, providing a sense of refuge and hope.

Like many cities, Seattle is elastic. We’ve grown accustomed to booms and busts. It is a place of stark and, at times, beautiful contradictions: bright dandelions push their way through cracks in the sidewalk, adjacent to the clamorous construction of residential towers; homeless encampments sprout and disappear, while multinational corporations grow ever more wealthy; and rain, like a murmuring mind track, drizzles down, cleaning the air, feeding the earth, and graying the sidewalks.

Through word, image, and sound, poet Tor Lee, visual artist Sara Osebold, and musician John Osebold honor this abiding spirit. Essential City is a collection of their love letters and thank-you notes, gleanings and offerings, valuables and discards woven together as gift for Seattle.

About the Artists

Tor Lee is an outsider poet from New York, who has two abiding goals as an artist: to write another poem and to not be famous. Tor has published poetry in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Australia and, most recently, online at torlee.org.

John Osebold has been making music and theatre in Seattle since 1995, most notably with his band “Awesome,” sketch comedy group The Habit, and under his stage moniker, Jose Bold. His work has appeared at Frye Art Museum, On the Boards, Seattle Children’s Theatre, the Moore and Paramount Theatres, PICA in Portland, Sasquatch Festival at the Gorge, and at theatres in Oregon, Montana, New York, and Canada. He’s also made several animated shorts that have appeared in film festivals in Seattle, Tacoma, Walla Walla, San Francisco, Barcelona, and Žilina, Slovakia.

Sara Osebold is a visual artist who works in sculpture and drawing, finding intersections between the two. She received her BFA from University of Washington in printmaking and an MFA from Pratt Institute in sculpture. She is a past member of SOIL and gallery resident with Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture. Sara has exhibited nationally and internationally in New York, Boston, Connecticut, Japan, the Netherlands, and various venues in Seattle and within the state of Washington.