Creating Art From South Seattle's 'Beautiful Energy': A Q&A With Harrison Clark
The South End artist talks gentrification, nature, and bringing his live anthology home to Black & Tan Hall.
Harrison Clark is an artist from South Seattle whose work has made him a modern-day Renaissance man. Diverse in thought and expression, his artistry consists of writing, rapping, singing, producing, and most of all, storytelling. Notable in Clark's history is his live album Orbiting Lovers & Contraband, which premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He has also performed at New York's famed The Jazz Gallery with his current band FUGITIVE, a "fire-spitting experimental quartet."
This week, Clark will bring his talents home to South Seattle to perform an original, three-part live anthology Mistaken for a Fault Vine. The performances will run over three consecutive nights — part 1 on Thursday, Jan. 15, part 2 on Friday, Jan. 16, and part 3 on Saturday, Jan. 17 — from 8 to 10 p.m. at Black & Tan Hall. Clark will perform a collection of original stories and poems that explore themes of nature, gentrification, memory, and climate catastrophe. The performances are supported by a grant from the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.
To discuss the upcoming performances, we met at Hood Famous Bakeshop. There, Clark, whom I'd first met in 2024 through a mutual friend, talked about improvisation, his connection to South Seattle, and jellyfish.
Mistaken for a Fault Vine is a live anthology in three parts over the span of three days. What will the audience experience in these different parts?
The anthology will be a collection of stories I have written and prepared, and a mix of new and improvised words as well. Each night will have its own storyline, and the improvisation will be the way we connect them. As of now there are three independent stories.
Night one, "On Becoming a Fault Vine," involves a boy spending so much time in the forest that he begins to think himself a vine. We will world-build and hopefully by the end, you feel as if you've been walking through a forest.
Night two, "Liquified," involves all the soil in the forest liquifying. Everything becomes a dirt ocean and a breeding ground for little jellyfish. This is to represent change, especially within climate and displacement.
Night three, "Land of The Upright Jellyfish," is about the jellyfish growing legs and walking around the forest while messing with the boy. This is in reference to Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso and their liberation movement. They called their country the "Land of Upright People." In this story, we'll explore the psychedelic nature of gentrification and displacement, and returning to a spot that should be familiar in your memory but it's been distorted beyond recognition.
You've been writing this anthology since your return to Seattle in 2023. What inspired this work, and what was the process in making it?
This anthology is definitely my coming-back-to-Seattle story. It's my reconnection with the city and everything that's changed about it. It's the shock of walking past a corner and seeing a building that you know wasn't there or riding a bus and seeing people on it that you don't know. It's reconnecting with all the beauty of this city, and reconnecting with a different version of the city from the one I grew up in.
I wanted to make a record that captured the joy and comfort of being back in the city. But I wanted to make something that also tracked all the difficulties with change on a personal, family, city, and national level.
Your jazz experimental band, FUGITIVE, will be joining you on stage for this live performance. Can you tell us about them, and how they will add to the anthology?
The principle of the band is that we improvise every show, and we play straight through for all of our shows. We play continuous, 60-minute sets. During the show, they'll add shifting and unstable soundscapes. This is a band that is everywhere all the time, and can create whatever soundscape is necessary to evoke a feeling or story. The way they interact with my words is really special, so I'm excited for people to witness this.
You have always been true to your South Seattle roots. This anthology is through a grant by the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Tell us about your decision to use the grant to bring your work back to South Seattle?
It's a big honor to win the CityArtist grant. Coming home, I really wanted to make work for Seattle so this means a lot to me. In terms of South Seattle, and specifically Black & Tan Hall, it's right across from a studio I used to play at. When I came home, that's the community I was creating in. There's a lot of beautiful energy on that corner specifically. I wanted to do it in a neighborhood spot where people could support the people that are really hosting our community.
What do you hope community members who attend will be able to take away from the anthology?
I hope that it makes them think about Seattle. I hope it makes them think about their relationship with the city. I hope it makes them want to go outside, and makes them think about the true magic that surrounds us here through the natural landscapes. I want people to leave feeling magical.
All three performances of "Mistaken for a Fault Vine" are open to all ages and are free or available on a sliding-scale basis. Tickets are available through the Humanitix event page.
The Emerald's arts coverage is supported in part with funding from 4 Culture and the City of Seattle's Office of Arts & Culture. The Emerald maintains editorial control over its coverage.
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