SeattlePrintmakersCenter

sp150312  What is Interval Suites?

A division of the Seattle Printmakers Center

It is “Short-term housing for visitors to the Seattle Printmakers Center, including guests and their families who come to the Center to perform or teach in programs of the Center.” This is based on the experiences of a teacher and highlights which follow. 

What is Interval Suites?

“Short-term housing for visitors to the Seattle Printmakers Center, including guests and their families who come to the Center to perform or teach in programs of the Center.”

Thus reads my brief description of Interval Suites. However, as I was in the process of designing the logo for Interval Suites, I was recounting a story—a story of some life experiences while serving as a teacher at the University of Washington. I may as well say, “While I was a student,” because I learned more than I taught.

Thanks to my students (both good students and bad students) the sum of my years of experiences was greater than what may be described in the words on my resume. In hindsight, nineteen years of teaching art classes amounted to less than meets the eye, now that I can look back at the total. This is especially true when viewed in the context of Interval Suites.

Somewhere in my collection of memorabilia from my days at the UW is a handmade book I put together for my last round of promotions. This was around 1978, and I was in the eleventh year of my stay and an associate professor. This meant that I had one more promotion to go and, if successful, I would be in the rank of full professor—the highest rank one can attain in the scheme of things academic.

This handmade book—a plastic ring binder, cheap thing—is a collection of photos and words which outline why I should be promoted. There are photos of my art, lists of accomplishments, snapshots documenting my research. What you don’t see is that it contained the seeds of Interval Suites. What I learned, mind you, and not what I taught; and I learned it from my students and my studies abroad.

Sato-Berry Hotel 

Interval Suites is a hospitality business and reflects what I learned from students like Norie Sato and Ralph Berry—a married couple who, after graduation, bought a craft home big enough for a spare bedroom. Over the next decade, their home became known as the “Sato-Berry Hotel” because, whenever an out-of-town guest came to speak, have an art show, or do a workshop, Norie and Ralph opened their home to them—free of charge.

Norie was the video curator at And/Or Gallery, which was an alternative art space and the only show in town for events that otherwise would not happen in Seattle. And/Or had a limited budgets; most of the money for And/Or came from gifts and grants. By providing out-of-town guests with a place to stay, the Sato-Barry Hotel helped make things happen for the Seattle art world.

Another influence for Interval Suites was my round-the-world trip in 1983, when I met people who opened their home to me and my family, like the first time (on another study abroad experience) when Rolf Nesch arranged for my wife and I to stay at the Munch Museum Scholar’s apartment in Oslo.

My list of inspirational and convivial experiences goes on. One has many opportunities when you are a college professor with tenure, and Interval Suites is my hope for repaying the worlds’ artists, teachers and students for the hospitality that was shown to me and my family.

I am not alone when I say that the artists, teachers and art students of Seattle will join me to help make Interval Suites another positive force in the Seattle Printmakers Center and add to its value as a city asset.