New handmade book White Center

My handmade book White Center is now available in an edition of 10.

It was designed and created with Sarah Maker this summer at Editions, a bookmaking studio, in Georgetown. The loose leaf book contains 16 archival pigment prints.

The street studio portraits in White Center were made between 2001 and 2019 in White Center, Washington, a working-class neighborhood south of Seattle. It is diverse in a way much of Seattle is not. Of the 222 portraits made during this period, 16 were chosen for the book.

Those who joined me in making these images are much like the people I worked with on the Boeing factory floor. I photographed barbers, housekeepers, restaurant employees, small business owners, barista, construction, airport and postal workers, teachers and others. I often set up a backdrop and chairs to create an outdoor studio.

This was a labor of love — both in making the box containing the prints and the prints themselves. Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing it.

Exhibit at Solas Gallery

I was so pleased to be asked to exhibit at the new Solas Gallery in Seattle this past spring and summer!

We are all excited to have a new gallery in town dedicated to showing photography opened by Al Varady and Cian Hayes. Already they have gotten a good response and we wish them great success. Support them by showing up for exhibits, buying some prints and buying the catalogs of shows. https://www.solas.gallery/catalogs

They invited me to exhibit as part of the Solas Inaugural Group Show May 4 to June 10, 2023 which included: Lisa Ahlberg, Brennan Cavanaugh, Selena Kearney, Sarah Dawn King and Jody Poorwill.

Later I was invited to have a solo show of work from White Center, Washington, entitled Rat City Streets July 22 to August 26, 2023.

I spent over 20 years photographing in White Center making portraits that reflect the rich diversity of the neighborhood. The work also documents how the urban landscape has shifted over time as Seattle’s gentrification has encroached on the neighborhood.

Opening reception for Rat City Streets with Al Varady and Cian Hayes.

I photographed Stuart at Wild Bill’s Auto Body and was so pleased he came to see the exhibit.

June was in many of my photographs in White Center. Here she is at 98 years! She came to the opening.

June behind the peonies.

First Thursday Art Walk.

First Thursday Art Walk.

First Thursday Art Walk.

RAT CITY zine and mini portfolio boxes

My RAT CITY mini portfolio boxes and my first zine, Rat City Streets, are out and available for purchase!

It’s my love letter to White Center, Washington. After 20+ years of taking portraits and wandering the streets, fairs and festivals.

RAT CITY is a portfolio with four chapters.

Each box has 15 sequenced images taken in White Center, Washington.

Each box has 15 Giclée prints, printed on Canson Photographique Rag.

The boxes measure 4” x 4” and sell for $30. A complete set of 4 sells for $100.

They are a labor of love and got a great reception at Photographic Center Northwest’s first ever Photo Zine and Book Fair. I sold out of the first printing of my zine that day and sold many boxes. I’ve reprinted more.

My zine, Rat City Streets, was a product of a class I took at Photographic Center Northwest with Eirik Johnson on the Photo Book. The class was a wonderful exploration of the photo book and all that goes into making one —from editing and sequencing to deciding on the physical characteristics of the book. I decided I was most happy self publishing in zine form.  The zine sells for $15.

Email me at lisaahlberg@mac.com to purchase.

Rat City Streets zine & RAT CITY Boxes at Photographic Center Northwest Photo Zine and Book Fair, 2022

First ever Photo Zine and Book Fair held July, 2022 at Photographic Center Northwest in Seattle, Washington.

A year of protests

George Floyd was brutally murdered May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis.

An unprecedented wave of protest spread across the country and the globe for two months. The Seattle-Tacoma area exploded in demonstrations.

May 30, downtown Seattle ** June 7, 20,000 or more in the Rainier Valley ** June 12, 60,000 on the “Silent March” that spoke volumes ** Juneteenth protests including one led by the International Longshore and Warehouseman’s Union (ILWU) **Actions also took place in cities, small towns and neighborhoods all over including: White Center, Kent, Highpoint, Capitol Hill - CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest), Federal Way, Tukwila, Tacoma, West Seattle, Alki Beach.

I joined these powerful, magnificent events as a participant and a photographer.

Rally and March in Kent,Washington June 6, 2020

Justice for Manny Ellis,Tacoma Washington July 10, 2020

Rally and March in White Center, Washington June 10, 2020

Rally and March in Kent, Washington June 6, 2020

CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Zone), Seattle, Washington June 13, 2020

CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Zone), Seattle, Washington June 13, 2020

Justice for Manuel Ellis March, Tacoma, Washington July 10, 2020

Rally on Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington June 3, 2020

Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington June 3, 2020

Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington June 3, 2020

Capitol Hill March to Garfield High, Seattle, Washington June 4, 2020

March Capitol Hill to Garfield High, Seattle, Washington June 4, 2020

March and rally, Tacoma, Washington July 10, 2020

March in High Point, Seattle, Washington June 14, 2020

Participant in “Silent” march of 60,000 in Seattle, Washington June 12, 2020

Distinction Juried Exhibition at Photographic Center Northwest

Charles Robinson, Wing Line Mechanic from my Wing Line Series was chosen to be part of the annual juried exhibit at Photographic Center Northwest. The exhibition was juried by Kris Graves, March 26 - June 14, 2020.

23rd annual juried exhibition, Distinction. One of the most anticipated shows in the gallery program, this exhibition features a wide range of visually rich images that were selected from artists from across the world: 309 artists, from 36 states in the US + artists from Canada and China, submitted a total of 1950 images.

Street Bands in White Center - Honk Fest

Honk! Fest West 2018

This impressive three-day celebration of a “global renaissance of community street band culture” arrived in White Center, WA on Saturday June 2. 

The musicians go all out in every way. The music is loud and raucous. So are the wardrobes, hairstyles and general demeanor of the musicians who give every impression of having more fun than anyone. But the audience is deeply appreciative as it roves from one “stage” to another. This is a high energy/low resources operation. The stages of a well-financed music festival are absent. Here the street is the stage, which only makes everything feel more authentic and down to earth, as befits community street band culture.

16th Street the main drag in White Center — “Not so white. Not so centered” as the local bumper stickers say — offers a great backdrop for the musicians and their music. Rather than the ubiquitous sponsors’ logos at high-powered music festivals White Center local business store fronts provide the backdrop: Beer and Wine Source, Los Potrillos Tacqueria, Angkor Market, Bok A Bok, Proletariat Pizza, Locker Room Tavern, We Buy Gold and more.

Most bands hail from the Pacific Northwest but some come from as far away as Lowell, Mass as Honk! Fest is a national operation. The band names are as creative as the music and the bands’ appearance including among others, Brass Liberation Orchestra, Chaotic Noise Marching Corps, Filthy Femcorps, Neon Brass Party and, one of my favorites, Rise Up! Action Band singing/chanting “Say Their Name!” and “You and I must fight!”

The entire day was a cacophony of music, color, dancing and a great deal of unbridled joy, much of it led by women who seemed to be everywhere and in every band. I hope the photos capture some of that. I had a blast!

http://www.honkfestwest.org

Red head from The Party Band, Lowell, Mass

Rise Up!Action Band, Seattle

Give Back Brass Band, Seattle

Filthy Femcorps, Seattle

16th Ave SW, White Center

Filthy Femcorps, Seattle

Filthy Femcorps, Seattle

Brass Band at Brass Knuckles Bistro

16th Ave, SW White Center

Chaotic Noise Marching Corps on 16th Ave SW

Chaotic Noise Marching Corps on 16th Ave, White Center

Filthy Fem Corps, Seattle

Horn Player from The Party Band, Lowell, Mass

Too much fun on 16th Ave SW, White Center

Ed and Andrew from The Party Band, Lowell, Mass.

Horn Player outside Angkor Market

Brass Band exiting Brass Knuckles Bistro

"Say their Names" from Rise Up! Action Band

Notions of Home Exhibit at Photographic Center Northwest

Two of my photographs from On the Wing Line are in the exhibit Notions of Home at Photographic Center Northwest this fall. 

The Boeing factory is home for a large part of my life, more than I’d like. Those I work with are my extended family. We work on the factory floor building wings at an incredibly fast rate of 47 airplanes a month. Perhaps because we’ve worked the swing shift for so long, it has intensified our sense of it being a home away from home. Instead of dinners with our kids or spouses, we spend them with each other. 

We are together with each other more than our immediate families. We care for each other. We see each other through cancer treatment. We talk about difficulties in marriage together. There are births and funerals. We laugh and get irritated with each other, like any other family.

There’s a certain comfort I feel when I’m there that I don’t feel elsewhere. When I clock in, I feel the sense of coming home. I’m among people who care about me. It doesn’t mean I love my job. The pace is demanding and the pounding, drilling and blasting of horns is deafeningly loud. Like most blue collar jobs, our wages and working conditions are deteriorating, but it’s still possible to make a decent union wage. They are not what they used to be and we wonder if they ever will be again.

Many of us are very far from our birth homes. We come from all over the world and have been thrown together. This series is an exploration of my extended family who work on the Wing Line.

Aman, Horizontal Build Line Inspector

I grew up in Punjab, and moved here when I was 12 years old. I come from a family of 4 girls and 2 boys, I am the youngest of all. I grew up on the farm where we had chickens, parrots, peacocks, and 2 dogs.  My house is built in the middle of fields of mustard, wheat, corn, We grew our own vegetables and food. We had cows and buffalos for our dairy needs.   I love my job and people I work with. I feel blessed to have great co-workers as friends, as guides, and I appreciate their care and support. I feel my coworkers are my second family.

I would like to go back and visit my homeland every few years, but I would like to settle down here in the States permanently.   I dream to own some land and build a home similar to the one I had back home in country side, with a few chickens, dogs, and rabbits as my pets since I can’t have fields of mustard, wheat or cotton or corn here in the States. I would settle down to be surrounded by the natural beauty of Washington State.

Olga, Parts Inspector

I come from the little city on the Pacific ocean called Soviet Skaya Gavan’ (Soviet Harbor). To work on the wing line means for me lots: new friends, like a family relation, new info on how to do things - food for the brain. 

My passions are any kind of creations — including designing shirts and dresses. I created a Medusa from tree roots with snakes and I painted her and put a dress on her in my garden … I did decor on our fence around the house with spikes made from tree branches. Last month I did the first felting top for myself, felted home shoes, hats and cat domes. Any kind of art is my passion.

Thunderbird on 16th Ave., White Center

Long Shot, 2017

I've participated in the Photo Center Northwest's Long Shot event since it's inception. This year 695 individuals from 32 states and 14 countries participated and we raised over $26,000 for the Photo Center.

I submitted five images to the jurors and this shot from 16th Ave in White Center was chosen to hang as part of the exhibition. It was the end of a long day that started at the Georgetown Carnival and later included watching the Rainier Roller Girls bout against the Spokannibals at South Gate Roller Rink. This was was the last subect I photographed that evening after wandering a bit in White Center with my friend Ann-Marie.