Space Grants Recipients, Spring 2026
OAA Space Grants Support Local Artists
This spring, Olympia Artspace Alliance (OAA) awarded a new round of Space Grants to support artists throughout Thurston County.
As a dedicated advocate for our local creative community, OAA understands that having access to affordable, functional space is essential for artists to create, collaborate, and thrive. Whether it's a studio, rehearsal space, or the costs of maintaining a creative workspace, these grants help remove barriers so artists can focus on what they do best.
About the Space Grants
This year, OAA awarded 10 Space Grants, each valued at $500, to help artists cover essential space-related expenses, including:
Studio or living rent
Rehearsal space
Storage
Utilities and repairs
ADA accommodations
Other space-related costs
In addition to the grant funding, each recipient receives a complimentary one-month membership to Lacey MakerSpace, providing access to equipment, workspace, and opportunities to connect with fellow makers and artists.
Why This Matters
Artists strengthen our communities through creativity, connection, and cultural expression. By helping artists maintain safe, accessible, and sustainable creative spaces, OAA is investing in the long-term vitality of Thurston County's arts community.
Every grant represents more than financial assistance—it's an investment in the people who enrich our region through music, visual arts, theater, writing, dance, and countless other creative pursuits.
Growing the Program
The Space Grants program was originally launched in 2020 to help artists continue their work during the challenges of the pandemic. Since then, the program has continued to grow and evolve.
Thanks to a generous gift from the Freas Foundation, a former arts-focused organization, OAA will be able to continue awarding Space Grants for at least the next five years.
We are deeply grateful to the Freas Foundation and to all of our funding partners whose generosity helps strengthen our local arts ecosystem and ensures artists have the resources they need to succeed.
Meet the 2026 Space Grant Recipients
We are proud to recognize this year's recipients and celebrate the incredible creativity they bring to our community.
Ayda Rose
Artist Bio
I am Ayda Rose, a self-taught painter, illustrator, & muralist living in downtown Olympia. I began my professional practice in 2017 primarily as a digital illustrator working on book illustration and poster design. In 2019, I shifted focus towards traditional painting and murals. Since that time, I have shown in several Washington galleries for both group and solo exhibitions and completed over a dozen murals across the country.
Artist Statement
The creation of my work begins with a focus on the aesthetic. I determine composition followed by subject matter, style & color. My choice of subject matter comes primarily from mythology and the occult, though much of the meaning behind my work is determined after it has been fully designed. The painting process is a chance to meditate on the design and interpret it like a dream. My art often explores themes of duality. I enjoy exploring concepts that seem to be in opposition but often complement or are even derived from one another: creation & destruction, ‘good’ & ‘evil’, the mundane & the mythic.
Instagram.com @aydaintheoffing
Theater Artists Olympia (TAO)
Artist Bio
Theater Artists Olympia (TAO) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to producing accessible, experimental, and “untamed” theater serving the greater South Sound community.
Founded in 2003, TAO focuses on underrepresented and avant-garde productions. Our shows range from Shakespearean adaptations and original scripts to experimental interpretations of contemporary work, often exploring provocative themes.
Originally a traveling company, we first settled at the Midnight Sun Performance Space in downtown Olympia, then moved to the Oly Theater, a black box space at the Olympia Mall. While at the mall we also hosted Juice Box Theater offering twenty-minute shows for children at an affordable price. During each of the summers of 2022 and 2023 we presented one of Shakespeare’s plays outdoors at Lakewold Gardens in Lakewood. We lost the theater space in the mall in 2024. Lakewood Playhouse hosted our production of "The Head that Wouldn’t Die" in 2025, which was also presented at Worldcom that summer.
Most recently, we are thrilled to have acquired space in the former Johansen Dance Studio after their move to new accommodations. From April 1-23, we accomplished an extremely rapid conversion of a portion of the dance studio into a versatile black box theater seating seventy-five patrons. Our first production in this space, "Anna Considers Mars," opened on April 24. The name Oly Theater will move to the new space with us.
TAO is known for its experimental and provocative productions, often reimagining classics or presenting original works. We collaborate with other local theater groups, provide a platform for local artists and, sometimes, host visiting companies. We emphasize inclusive participation, offering opportunities for all kinds of live theater experiences.
With the return of an operational theater, our annual summer program, "An Improbable Peck of Plays," will be offered again by TAO and The Northwest Playwrights Alliance in 2026. It features a collection of short, varied plays from local playwrights, actors and directors showcasing a mix of comedic, dramatic, and absurd or romantic plays designed to highlight local writing, acting and directing talent.
Since 2003, Theater Artists Olympia (TAO) has been a significant part of the South Puget Sound artistic community. From conception, TAO has been committed to pushing boundaries, emphasizing innovative performances. Often praised for our presentation of original works by new playwrights and for delivering high-quality, quirky, bold, and occasionally controversial productions, Theater Artists Olympia has enriched the cultural fabric of Olympia and surrounding communities by making theater more accessible and engaging for diverse audiences.
View performances here:
https://www.youtube.com/@OlytheaterTAO
Website:
Smitty Buckler
Artist Bio
Smitty is an intersectional feminist and an expression of the intersections of art, writing, performing, healing, & advocating. An amalgamation of intersectional identities which they express through their work as an artist, organizer, writer, illustrator, performer, dancer, coder, researcher, healer, and advocate. They have been creating opportunities for individuals within intersectional, QTPOC, Disabled, Native, and Latinx spectrum artists since 2004 through the Conspiracy of Geniuses (aka CoG & qtbb.org). CoG is now working to bridge the gap between art as social change and essential healing tools with a project called RAD* Care and an app called UXMAL**. Enthusiasts say their best quality is phlebotomizing the patriarchy's blood, replacing it with glitter - evident in their artful fierceness they bring to intersectional art and activism. RAD = Radical, Accessible, & Decolonizing. *UXMAL = User Experience designed Mutual Aid and Liberation.
Artist Statement
My work is driven by a single question: How do we care for each other without institutions? I am a puppeteer, dancer, writer, and community technologist. My process is relational—I start with consent, collaboration, and the messiness of real human connection. I build puppets, install interactive street art, code mutual aid apps, and facilitate workshops on harm reduction and anti-oppression because art is not separate from survival. My motivation is rematriation: returning stories, language, and space to those who have been pushed to the margins. I work slowly, with disability and chronic illness as part of my process, not an exception to it.
Rebekah Erev
Artist Bio
Rebekah Erev centers the beauty of life in their practice as an artist, ritualist, teacher, community herbalist and politicized somatic healer. They are trans, neurodivergent and chronically ill with ancestors from the Pale of Settlement, British Isles & Mediterranean living on Squaxin land with their partner, animals and a magical garden. They work in the Jewish diaspora using ritual, political theatre and art practices to move towards greater solidarity for #LandBack with Queer Mikveh Project & in local and national anti zionist space for Palestinian liberation. They love facilitating workshops & creating ritual tools, liturgy and art in service of collective liberation with a feminist, mystical, abolitionist orientation.
Artist Statement
I’m moved by the beauty of the natural world, political movements for #LandBack, abolition and ancestral reverence. I’m interested in the work of re-remembering. Re-remembering what’s been forgotten because of white supremacy. Before colonization, humans lived in harmony with the flora and fauna, mycelium and bacteria that give us life. I create ritual tools, community rituals, writings and workshops to invite people back into their bodies and their own natural intelligence. As a trans, neuroexpansive person with chronic illness I experience directly the impacts of harm from systems of oppression. I have a strong belief that those of us who have been most impacted hold the knowledge to weave our culture back into connection and heal from the trauma of colonialism.
I work by listening to the natural world, meditating with plants and paying attention to animals who come into my life. I also spend a lot of time researching plants, animals and my ancestors' traditional arts and rituals. I am currently working on two bodies of work. One that will become an oracle deck, a ritual tool anyone can use, along with lesson plans and a coloring book for children that accompany the images (images below are from this project). The other is a series of writings and images connecting the gifts of neurodivergence with plants and somatics (these can be viewed on my website under, “Writing”)
Website: www.rebekaherevstudio.com
Maureen Murphy
Artist Bio
I was born north of Detroit, Michigan, into a creative, working-class family of ten. My homemaker mother was also a naturalist and painted in watercolors and oils. My father was a performing piano player as well as having a "day job". Of my seven siblings, all chose visual arts, licensed crafts or music as the heart of their life. I have created and observed visual arts all my life, while traveling or working as an office administrator and industry-based writer in many states prior to retirement. For several years, I focused on landscape and botanical watercolor, studying under Hazel Foley in Missoula, Montana. In 2007, I moved to Olympia, Washington, near my daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons. After moving to Olympia, I was a nanny to my first grandson while I experimented with digitally manipulated photography, creating abstract and semi-abstract works. This spurred my interest in abstract painting and printmaking, which is now my focus. I still write short stories and poems and hope to eventually publish a book of my art accompanied by my writing. I am a member of Arts Olympia and Olympia Arts League and have displayed art in over twenty shows curated by these groups. I displayed art at Lamplighters Olympia for six months in 2025. I was chosen to display art in the 2022 and 2025 Southwest Washington Regional and Juried Exhibitions at South Puget Sound Community College. I have exhibited a solo show at Schwartz's in Olympia. I show prints and paintings at Art Journey Studio and Gallery for several months each year. I live and work in my studio in west Olympia.
Artist Statement
I am an abstract painter and printmaker using acrylics. My art is influenced and inspired by the earth's complexities, the human experience, my own spirituality, my love for nature and the wonders of science. I do monoprinting on glass and gel plates. My prints are on rice and other plant-based papers and are not run through a press; I hand-print/press them. Often, I make a collagraph (raised surface) to make an impression on the plate prior to hand printing. I make my own masks and stencils and tools for the designs. I also make collage using torn pieces of my prints and found papers or fabrics. My prints are typically framed under mats and glass, although I have had some of them professionally reproduced on metal. Sometimes I adhere a print to a canvas. Hand printing supports my imagination with a new freedom of exploration and spontaneity, and is a medium that has drawn out my emotions and memories, enabling expression.
My abstract acrylic paintings on canvas show my appreciation of movement, form and color.
Mary Anderson
Artist Bio
After graduating with a BS in art education from the University of Maine in 1986, I devoted 23 years to teaching art to K-12 students at private schools in Maine. I have continued my practice as a painter in the Pacific Northwest for 12 years. My works have been based on theosophical investigations inspired by Eastern studies, Jungian psychology and my personal experiences on my spiritual path. I have exhibited in Sequim, Port Townsend and Olympia at several galleries. I currently create art in a studio space in Olympia.
Instagram @maryann101564
Leslie Khounsombath
Artist Bio
I am a self-taught artist living in Olympia, WA. I currently work part-time as a dental assistant, and I focus the rest of my time on my art.
One year ago, I made a commitment to myself to pursue my art intentionally and without fear. This was inspired by witnessing my friend's passing at age 27 four years ago.
Within the past year, I have participated in multiple gallery exhibitions (The Copper Wolf, Tumwater Craft District), including a duet show at the Asia Pacific Cultural Center in Tacoma. My art has been displayed in businesses in downtown Olympia (The Crypt, Lamplighters, Lanter Records, Super Silver, Olympia Baking Co.), and I have painted murals in Tacoma and Renton.
Art itself has given me purpose, a reason to live and a sense of belonging to a community. My endeavor is to create large-scale installations, bring joy and give back to my community through my talent and imagination.
As a child of Lao immigrants who escaped the Secret War of Laos in the 1970s with nothing, there has been no generational wealth passed along to me. Along with a lack of familial support, I am a survivor of CSA and incest, and have been estranged from family most of my adult life.
The disabilities I live with are CPTSD and a chronic eating disorder as a result of incest.
Despite my hardships, I continue with therapy and persevere in cultivating my own light, for myself and to pass it along to others.
Artist Statement
My dream is to create larger art installations like Chihuly.
I am inspired by my paternal grandmother, who crossed the Mekong River with her 4 children to escape the war in Laos during the 1970s. Unknowingly passing along her resilience through our genetics.
I am inspired by my maternal family, who, after the war, were placed in a refugee camp in Thailand for 5 years. Awaiting to come to America, waiting for new life in the liminal.
I am inspired by transforming tragedy into beauty, and communicating that through this gift we call artwork.
Instagram.com @a.groovy.bloom
Heron (James) Martinez
Artist Bio
My name is Heron (James Martinez) and I've been a lifelong artist, writer, and musician. I’m a member of the theatrical metal band Returning, which has two full-length albums and two West Coast tours under my belt. In the past, I have worked as a liaison between the Forest Service and Tribes & Tribal organizations. In that role, I led several cultural education projects, including a Tribal Relations newsletter that I designed, wrote articles for, edited, and distributed nationwide. Currently, I'm devoted to publishing through my independent business, Severed Branches Press LLC. Through this effort, I’ve published four books including Fight Like an Animal, Defending the World Tree, Unsettling Ecologies, and Woundscapes. As a person of Irish, German, and Mexican ancestry, my work engages with themes of ecological grief, cultural orphanage, ecological education, building relationships with the land, and bridging communities through collaborative stewardship and storytelling.
Artist Statement
Severed Branches Press is an independent eco-poetic publishing effort rooted in the South Salish Sea. We are wild-hearted animists devoted to ecology, spirituality, land defense, and community, offering our work to the living world and its protectors. My work as a designer and distributor provides essential support to people who need empowerment to build a reciprocal relationship with the Earth.
Website: severedbranchespress.com
IG: @severed)_branches_press
David Hoekje
Artist Bio
David Hoekje (he/him) is a photographer and community arts organizer living in his hometown of Olympia, Washington. His self-directed photographic practice explores the convoluted relationship between images and their subjects, alienation, and authenticity. He also works as a freelance photographer primarily serving small businesses, artists, and musicians in the Pacific Northwest. Since 2022, he has worked as a lead organizer and curator for the Thurston County Museum of Fine Art.
Artist Statement
I am currently working on a series of photographic works titled "Domestication". This series of images depicts domesticated animals in a variety of roles: as companions, laborers, and/or resources. Within all these roles, there is an underlying subjugation of the animal. It is my hope that these images belay some of the tension inherent in this subjugation- a tension between the natural and unnatural, owner and owned, the photographer and subject.
I spend a lot of my time cooking and cleaning in the home, and I think about my own domestication and the transformations that take place over a lifetime. Am I subjugated by my domestic routines, or is it a luxury to be able to spend as much time as I do attending to the minutiae of daily meals and tidied rooms?
The process of domestication is historical rather than intentional. It spans thousands of years, hundreds of lifetimes, and I wonder how it is I have managed to arrive at home.
Betania Ridenour
Artist Bio
Hi, I’m Betania (they/she). I’m a queer mixed Chicanx, a survivor of foster care and institutional systems, and a formerly incarcerated person. Trauma has shaped much of my journey and I’ve spent my life learning how to tend resilience for myself and in community. I’m a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a community trauma care worker, holding space for folks to feel seen, safe, and supported.
I’m deeply committed to mutual aid, collective care, and the belief that healing happens in connection with people, with nature, and with our ancestors. Craft and making are central to my practice. I’m a multi-disciplinary artist and broom maker at Bristle & Stick, exploring how working with our hands and natural materials can bring embodiment, reflection, and spiritual nourishment.
I approach my work and life with empathy, humor, and authenticity, always learning, always listening, and always tending the resilience that emerges through struggle. I believe in honoring each person’s story, creating spaces that are trauma-informed, queer-affirming, and intersectionality-aware, and celebrating the small acts of care, reflection, and connection that sustain us all.
You can learn more about my work here: www.bristleandstick.com www.tendingresilience.com