Fremont Abbey Arts Center

Our mission is to curate vibrant & welcoming spaces where people of all ages and incomes can grow in their artistic & social development through arts & cultural experiences. Built in 1914 the Fremont Abbey is a beautiful old brick church building (originally St Paul's Lutheran) that went from being vacant in the late 90's, to being a temporary shelter, and then undergoing major renovations in late 2007. Major work culminated March 2008 with a Grand Re-opening party and ongoing improvements do continue each year. Abbey Arts' Creative Director, Nathan Marion (www.LonelyBuildings.com), managed the renovation & "greening of the Abbey" project including final designs & interiors. A broad base of support from many volunteers from the nearby community made it all possible along with major donations of materials and labor from Belfor, Hermanson, and other contractors. Approximately $50-80k value was added to the project via volunteer hours and in-kind product & service donations. Architectural plans developed by Vandervort Architects with initial design work supervised by Karen Ward & Ryan Marsh. And of course special thanks goes to Church of the Apostles (COTA), a young progressive church with Lutheran & Episcopal roots who bought the building in 2005 and invited the Arts Center to manage the building and curate community activities Monday-Saturday. The Arts Center is a separate nonprofit entity and COTA only asks us to pay our share of the Operations & Maintenance expenses. Since we are fulfilling a portion of their mission to serve the community, they do not charge the Arts Center market rate rents. This unique new model of sharing a beautiful old building means you know your donations are going to support programs at the Arts Center and helping to grow our important community work (not to a corporate entity charging high rents for a space in such a busy part of Seattle).

Abbey Arts focuses on music, dance, visual, literary and culinary arts in formats including multi-arts performances, group classes & workshops, individual lessons, new exhibits, community gatherings, and artistic life celebrations. We are a nonprofit arts organization presenting and curating creative events at unusual spaces around Seattle and at our home venue, Fremont Abbey Arts Center. We create experiences where people can learn & develop through education & performance in many different art mediums. Striving to be a community driven, volunteer powered organization in North Seattle, the Abbey is a comfortable & welcoming space where a wide variety of people from different income levels, skills, ethnicities & backgrounds interact. Both art students & the general public experience high quality performances by artists from Seattle and around the world. Abbey Arts programs are non-religious. Our niche is providing a space for both instruction & performance opportunities in a beautifully restored historic building. We encourage 100's of developing artists from 1 years old to 81 years and older! We strive for collaboration and multi-arts events (like The Round), concerts, dance events, workshops, and more. Our unique location in the center of Seattle & low operation costs allows audiences to attend events & performances that are accessible for all ages, incomes, and skill levels. The Fremont Abbey also fulfills the Fremont Neighborhood Plan?s directive to have a community Arts Center. We pull in people from many other neighborhoods who do not have Arts Centers such as Ballard, Greenwood, U-District, and Wallingford as we are currently the only remaining community arts center in all of North Seattle (as far as we know). We also provide space for local nonprofits and artist groups to create exciting new events and programs, not to mention lots of benefit auctions and events!