When: Saturday, January 28th from 12:30 to 3:30pm. Career in the Arts will also feature booths from various organizations and educational institutions with an emphasis in music. The panel will begin at 1:00pm. Group conversations afterwards, speakers will break off into groups where attendees can ask questions and more specific information can be addressed.

Why: To address the severe lack of information available to high school and college students and other interested young adults about careers in the arts, to provide information about the wide variety of careers in the arts that are not limited to conventionally thought of careers like music and dance performance.

Where: The Vera Project (located on Seattle Center on the corner of Warren & Republican)

Panelists Include :

Ashley Graham founded music website The Wig Fits All Heads in college and later Wig PR, where she managed publicity for dozens of local bands. She has a bad habit of turning hobbies into careers and is currently Marketing Coordinator at Live Nation and knows a thing or two about Sasquatch. In her free time, she writes TV and gum reviews at tvandgumareawesome.com.

Ben London, former board member of the Vera Project, is the Media Rights Manager Hewlitt-Packard. He has been all around the local music scene, serving executive roles at the Recording Academy, EMP Museum, KEXP, and Seattle Music Commission.

Greg Williamson is the owner of Greedtone Pedals and Kill Room Recording Studio, where he recorded albums by Sunny Day Real Estate. He is a former Vera sound engineer and is responsible for creating our sound program. He has over twenty years experience performing music, recording, and building sound pedals. In 1996, he founded Williamson Management and then started selling guitar pedals in 2000 under the name Greedtone. He currently has 6 pedals and a tube guitar amp out and all the gear that Greg builds is handmade. Last year, he opened Kill Room in a studio in Georgetown.

Monica Martinez, as Sup Pop Records first ever A&R Intern, brings 5 years of experience booking all ages shows. She started Black Mamba Productions, a promotion company and monthly sample of unsigned bands, and supplies fresh talent to record labels and radio stations. She knows her way around 107.7’s local music show and Mt. Fuji Records and has a finely tuned ear to finding new talent.

Natalie Walker spent some time after graduating from the University of Washington with a BS in Psychology working as an intern for acclaimed music journalists who she helped with interviews, transcription, and took copious notes on how to become a rock star. She later attended Ladies Rock Camp in Portland, where she came to realize her own musical potential, and also the potential of social change via music education and personal empowerment. She co-founded Girls Rock! Seattle (now Rain City Rock Camp for Girls) and has been serving as Executive Director since 2008. She is also active in the Seattle music community as the bassist and vocalist for the all-female band, Another Perfect Crime.

And your host Jeffrey McNulty!