Esther Ervin

 

 

Esther Ervin: Sculptor, Jeweler,  Curator

Esther Ervin was born in a small town in New Jersey, but moved to California at the age of 16. Her house was near the Irvine ranch where she actually saw cowboys herding cattle, now, of course, developed with housing. She went to Palestine /Israel as an undergraduate in high school in California and after college with a BA in Biology she went into the Peace Corps for three years from 1977 to 1980. She was assigned to Columbia where she worked with street boys who were wild  and poor and sometimes homosexuals. She gave them language training in both art and science. From there she went on to work at a Catholic school and then to Bogota. Finally she was home economist part for the families of a coffee grower committee where they did food canning and created mats from fique ( a type of grass).

In 1980 she returned to California and went to Graduate School at Cal State Long Beach where she studied art and science medical illustration. In 1994 she came to Seattle where she pursued another career in insurance and securities. She connected to the Festival Sundiata where she had seen an art show and began  meeting artists  in the late 1990s. She first met Al in 1997. Meanwhile she began making jewelry.

 

She went to a Native American workshop where they used gourds to make art . She was inspired to make her own gourd art. (Her father was raised on a Cree reservation). She is holding one of her gourd pieces n the photograph at the top)

 

A major turning point in her career was receiving a residency at Pratt Fine Arts Center where she learned jewelry making, metalsmithing and welding.

 

Another important honor was a residency at the  Dr. James W. Washington, Jr. & Janie Rogella Washington Foundation where she made  sculpture  from materials that were in the house.

 

Ervin was also Acting Director of the Washington House 2013-2018.

In 2016 she collaborated with Doggett on the extensive Liberty Bank Building artist project. On Union Street near 24^th avenue  Esther created drum shaped seats with a tiled basketweave pattern and

 

above them transparent  window designs of the redlined area of the Central District.

 

In the central courtyard of the building are several bronze salmon struggling to go upstream. There is a sporadic flow of water that does not support them, a metaphor for the struggles of African Americans to succeed.

 

Ervin has created other public art works in the neighborhood, most visibly at Jackson and 23^rd street, an abstract design based on cowrie shells.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And at Boren and Yesler, in the Wayfarer complex. As Ervin explains “The Wayfarer building works are large jewelry art pieces with one having a cedar tree and the other having a Douglass fir tree. The works speak to the deforestation of the CD. They are made of glass and semi precious beads, potato pearls, bronze chain, steel support structure, laser etched wood trees.

 

Even as Ervin creates more public art, she also works as a curator for an exhibition with Black Arts West Alumnae Association and the Garfield Super Block. In addition she continues to create exquisite art in many media, ceramics, jewelry, metal, and sculpture. Her work is imbued with a sense of history. One of her missions is to celebrate the work of lesser known black artists and history .