Donald Fels

Visual artist Donald Fels is active in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Fels has been a Fulbright Fellow to Italy and a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar to India. He has twice received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a grant recipient of the Jack Straw Foundation, 4Culture, Artist Trust, the Ferguson Foundation, the Goodfellow Foundation, the Washington Council on the Humanities, the Ella West Freeman Foundation, and the Northwest Institute For Architecture and Urban Studies in Italy. He was a Whiteley Fellow at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Marine Biology Laboratory from 2002-06. Fels has received multiple grants and commissions from the Seattle area arts commissions.

The Washington State Arts Commission recently purchased an entire series of paintings he completed in South India, for permanent installation at University of Washington Tacoma Honors College. Fels’ work has been exhibited at museums including the Seattle Art Museum, Center on Contemporary Art, Cultural Development Authority Gallery, Tacoma Art Museum, Bellevue Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, NW Museum of Art and Culture, Bologna’s Contemporary Art Museum, Iron Gallery at the University of Washington Tacoma, Bank of America Gallery, Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum, Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art, Penang Museum, and at State University of New York (SUNY) Potsdam, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Puget Sound, Lewis and Clark College, SUNY Plattsburgh, Bellevue College and University of Washington.

He has inaugurated artist residencies at and for Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry, the Steven Holl designed Bellevue Art Museum, the City of Hope Cancer Research Hospital in Los Angeles, and in 2007 was the first visual artist in residence at Seattle’s venerable Cornish College for the Arts. Fels has undertaken a number of projects worldwide that have explored ideas through work in a wide range of media, in museum exhibitions, installations, and in book manuscripts. He started painting and creating collages as a boy, began showing his art in galleries in the 1970s. He has completed major public pieces on the West Coast- including “Six Pitches” for Safeco Field, home of the Mariners Baseball Club. His “Drawing on the River”, a 36’ steel sculpture, was recently installed in Portland, Oregon. In 2010, he installed “Water Plant”, a kinetic fountain for the City of Seattle.

Since 1995, he has been a trustee of the Henry Art Gallery, the contemporary art museum at the University of Washington. He has written about art and culture for The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Seattle Weekly, City Arts, The San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. He writes for Arcade, the NW journal of Architecture and Design, where as guest editor he produced an issue called “The City of Ideas”, and for the on-line journal crosscut.com. In 2011, he had a large exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center and an installation, with his wife, architect Patricia Tusa Fels, as part of Prospect 2, the American Biennial in New Orleans. He also exhibited painted constructions at Du Mois Gallery in New Orleans.

His “What is a Trade?”- a museum exhibition completed with sign-painters in India has been touring since 2008. Fels was artist in residence at the SUNY Plattsburgh campus where the exhibition was featured at their university art museum in 2012. While there he interacted with 15 different classes from four university departments. He has collaborated with a broad group of scientists, many academics, other visual artists, poets, playwrights, architects, engineers, musicians and composers. His work is in collections worldwide.

His most recent public sculpture, the kinetic “Water Plant” was done in collaboration with engineers at Seattle’s Water Treatment Plant. Fels had never worked with water before in his sculptures, but working successfully with the engineers allowed him to develop an entirely passive system that animated the kinetic sculpture, while mimicking the process for treating waste-water at the facility. He prides himself on being a good collaborator, and finds working with others fascinating.

His “Six Pitches”, done for Safeco Field, was a collaboration with the pitching staff of the Mariners. His “Geo-slice” was a collaboration with renowned USGS geologist Brian Atwater. For “Drawing on the River” in Portland, he collaborated with a third generation steel fabrication firm on the site of the sculpture itself. Their experience was heavy industrial fabrication, and they had never before worked with an artist. For the small community of Courtland Place in a neglected area of Seattle, Fels’s research unearthed information that the site had been a refuse dump in the 1920s. He was able to use this information to create Seattle’s first and only urban archaeology dig, completed with a 4th and 5th grade class from a nearby elementary school, with the assistance of 15 Ph.d archaeologists from the University of Washington’s Burke Museum. The Burke, and its curator of public archaeology, Dr. Peter Lape, are now partners with Fels on the project Waterlines, about Seattle’s natural shoreline: www.burkemuseum.org/waterlines.

In 2011 Fels created “Everything”, an exhibition on the reach of Sears for the Chicago Cultural Center. In 2012 he returned to Chicago as artist in residence for a project involving the city’s trees. In 2013 he was In-Situ artist in residence in Paris, where he developed a museum exhibition based on Empress Josephine’s rose garden. His residency was under the auspices of Foundation 93 and the French government. He was the first non-French artist in the decade-long program. With playwright Mark Jenkins, Fels continues collaboration on a play he conceived based on research he completed in Cambodia. Seattle’s ACT Theater will produce the play, “Red Earth, Gold Gate, Shadow Sky”, in its 2014 season.

He holds a B.A. in Art, History and Literature from Wesleyan University, and an M.A. Ed. with Honors from City University where he was the Board of Governor’s Presidential Scholar. He also studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of Washington.

Awards and Honors

2019

Fulbright Scholar in Uzbekistan

2018

Artist in Residence, Google, Seattle

2013

in situ artist residency, La Culture et L’art au College, Seine-Saint-Denis, France. First non-French artist invited to participate in the program.

2012

Five regional and national awards for installation at Milepost 31 exhibition, Seattle

Northwest Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies fellow in Civita, Italy

Peer-review panelist for Fulbright Fellowship to India, US State Dept, Washington, DC

2011

Keynote speaker, “Artist as Researcher”, Sears Roebuck + Co. Annual Meeting, Chicago

Peer-Review Panelist for Fulbright Fellowship to India, US State Dept, Washington DC

2010

Peer-Review Panelist for Fulbright Fellowship to India, US State Dept, Washington, DC

Named Writer in Residence, Jack Straw Foundation, Seattle

Speaker, Seattle University and University of Washington, Bothell

2009

Artist in Residence, Cornish College for the Arts, Seattle

Two grants from 4 Culture, and a Grant from Humanities WA to develop exhibition on the missing town of Snoqualmie Falls

2008

Consultant and Lecturer, Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington

2007

Two American Institute of Architecture National Awards, American Library Assoc National Award, Ballard Library

2006

Panelist, 4Culture and Seattle Art Commission

2004

Fulbright Senior Research Scholar, India

Purchase of entire “West in the East” exhibition by WSAC for installation at U/W Tacoma

Whiteley Fellow, University of Washington Friday Harbor Marine Laboratory

2003

Whiteley Fellow, University of Washington Friday Harbor Marine Laboratory

2002

WA Council on Humanities grant

Two Special Projects Grants, King County Cultural Resources

Ferguson Foundation grant

2001

Whiteley Fellow, University of Washington Friday Harbor Marine Laboratory

Individual Artist Grant, King County Dept of Cultural Resources

Juror, King County Design Team Roster & Seattle Arts Commission Potlatch Trail

Featured speaker, Antioch University and Cornish College for the Arts- “Artist as Researcher”

2000

Featured speaker, Bellevue Art Museum Annual Board Mtg- “Artist Residencies”

Keynote address, “Trading Stories”, Puget Sound Social Studies Educators Conference

Featured artist, “ILVA Bagnoli: Passato/Futuro”, Naples, Italy

1999

Keynote speaker: “Community Resources for Collaborative Art Projects in Schools”, SAC

Recognition for ‘outstanding contribution to area heritage’- Alki/Duwamish Cultural Trail, Association of King County Historic Organizations

1998

Arts Angel Award, Alki/Duwamish Culture Trail, Arts West

Juror, Naramore Trust Art Portfolio Competition for Seattle Public Schools

Chair, Program Committee, Henry Art Gallery Board of Trustees

1997

Grants from Seattle, King County, and WA State Arts Commissions for completion of “Industrial Fish” for Museum of History & Industry, Seattle

1996

Special Project Grant, King County Arts Commission

Board of Directors, Local Access, Seattle

Board of Directors, Friends of Gas Works Park

1995

Panelist, Cheney Cowles Museum, “Understanding Hanford, Looking to Art for Answers”

Artist Support Fellowship, NEA and Jack Straw Foundation

Keynote Address: “Art, Social Science and Science - Critical Thinking” Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

Board of Trustees, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington

1994

GAP Grant, Artist Trust

Featured artist, panel presentation, “Crossing Media Boundaries”, Seattle Art Museum

1993

Two grants from the Bellevue, WA Schools Foundation

1992

Organizer and moderator for panel discussions on art @ “Italia”, Seattle

Founding President of the Board of Directors, REFLEX Magazine

1990

N.E.A. Grant for “In-Transition”

Art Advisor, University of Washington Medical Center

1989

Juror, Individual Artist Grants, King County Arts Commission

1987

“Visionary Seattle”, Seattle Arts Commission

1986-​1985

Fulbright Fellow, Italy

1984

Individual Artist Grants, King County Arts Commission

1978

Individual Artist Grants, King County Arts Commission