yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective Expands Its Footprint in Rainier Beach With the Acquisition of Neighboring House

by Jas Keimig

Last week, Native-led arts organization y™haw" Indigenous Creatives Collective announced its recent purchase of a 1,270-square-foot home directly next to its 1.5-acre plot of land in Rainier Beach. It intends to transform the building into a Native arts center, bringing together its work of tending to the greenspace and of fostering cultural connection.

"By creating an inclusive space where young people, Elders, and all our relatives can create and experience art together, we are sowing the seeds for the vibrant Indigenous futures we want to see bloom for generations to come," said Asia Tail (Cherokee), y™haw"'s executive director, in a press release about the news.

Outside the home, two bushes of fluorescent pink azalea and bright-red Pacific rhododendron greet visitors. Inside, the 86-year-old brick building retains many original features, such as a fireplace, as well as lots of built-in storage. Tail says the home will be useful during long days spent outside working on the land by increasing their access to bathrooms, hand-washing, and trash disposal, as well as giving them the opportunity to host art-focused programming. Several rooms have windows with views of the collective's land, dense with cherry laurels, cedar, a creek, and rich black soil, whose care is headed up by land programming lead Shameka Gagnier (Pure'pecha).

The nonprofit closed on the home in early March 2024 and purchased it for $600,000 (with the sellers making a $20,000 donation at closing, making the final total $580,000 plus closing costs) using funds raised from individual donors, giving campaigns, and grants from the tribes, community foundations, and City and County governmental resources. Built in 1938, the home contains a kitchen, basement, living room, bathroom, and several bedrooms that y™haw" will put to use for offices, art residences, and community gathering spaces.

y™haw" envisions the building as a Native arts center and, at the end of this year, it's planning on beginning a community engagement process before breaking any ground. The organization will work with an Indigenous architectural team and hear from the community about how the building could best serve their needs and what that would look like. y™haw" sees this future Native arts center working in concert with other areas of the 1.5-acre property it's still developing, like walking trails, greenhouses, greeting figures, outdoor kitchens and working spaces, public art areas, treehouses, and other private infrastructure, such as sweat lodges.

"We want to make sure we do this in a thoughtful way where we can keep all these options open and really see what the land wants, what our community wants, and do that through relationship building and intentionality," Tail said. "Not rush it."

The idea for acquiring the home grew during the group's first year on the land. "One of our practices as Indigenous people is to try to really listen to the space and to the land as much as we can," said Tail. As the need for access to water and dry space to host art activities grew, the collective didn't want to take away any greenspace on the land that it could use for outdoor markets or powwows. Members began to eye the rental home abutting their property, and after a year or so of saving, y™haw" put in an off-market offer early this year.

"As Indigenous folks, holding space and being able to buy this property outright is rare. It feels really important in the rapidly gentrified neighborhood where we're losing a lot of BIPOC single-family homes," said Tail. "Even without doing any construction, we're just super excited to have the option of staying here right away, starting to occupy the space, and bring in the community in a way that we were able to on the land, but [now] we'll be able to host different kinds of programs."

Right now, y™haw"'s immediate goals are taking care of urgent property safety needs, like clearing asbestos from the basement and getting permits in order before putting out a national call to artists later this year. As for the plot of land itself, y™haw" has spent the last year clearing out invasive blackberry bushes and ivy, planting native plants, hosting soil-testing workshops, bringing in community members, planning public programming for the spring, and listening to the land to determine what it needs.

"Our staff comes every week to do land care. We really feel like it's important to have that relationship with the site and understand what's happening on all the different levels to inform all our programming and relationships with artists," said Tail. "So just being here, you kind of start to … get ideas and vision together around what we want to see in the future and what would be helpful."

Featured Image: A soil-sampling workshop from last summer. (Photo by Mel Carter, courtesy of y™haw".)