Federal Way Public Schools Curated Collections, curated by Asia Tail, 2024

"Printmaking has radical origins. It’s an accessible art form for the people, by the people. This curated collection for Star Lake Elementary, Evergreen Middle School, and Thomas Jefferson High School features artists with ties to the South Sound who use a variety of printmaking, stenciling, and carving techniques.

These graphic artworks are as bold and diverse as the scholars across all three schools. In finely cut paper, a reader offers a book with head and feet in the clouds. Butterflies circle like ancestors, lifting each next generation higher. Raindrops and salmon eggs remind us that the water from our drinking fountain is connected to the ocean and rivers that shape our region. Images of language, alongside portraits of people and the natural world, create a collective poem for this place where we live and learn.

Whether from far flung homelands or the territories right under our feet, school is a place where we can connect with new families. And families are always strongest when working together."

–Asia Tail, curator for Star Lake Elementary (Kent), Evergreen Middle School (Kent), and Thomas Jefferson High School (Auburn), in Federal Way Public Schools, in South King County, Western Washington (April 2024).

Asia Tail is an artist and community organizer based in Tacoma, Washington. Her studio practice includes painting, collage, beadwork, and other media. Asia is a co-founder and the executive director of yəhaẃ Indigenous Creatives Collective, a community of intertribal Indigenous artists re-matriating 1.5 acres of land in South Seattle. She is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, born and raised on Coast Salish territories.

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