Calico Dress #9 Workshop (2 of 2)
Saturday, May 30 | 1 - 4PM
All Ages | FREE

Kirstie Macleod's Red Dress Project started an international movement of community-created garments, and in 2025 Seattle started it's own dress! Join facilitator Jen Treese and participate in a community embroidery event held over two sessions, on May 9th and May 30th. 

Participants are invited to add their own piece of hand embroidery to a shared dress. Through embroidery, the stories and cultures of Auburn will be captured on fabric to be shared and celebrated for years to come.

All materials will be provided, no prior skill is needed!
Jen is happy to provide instruction to those interested in learning more about embroidery. 

Made possible by 4Culture!

Poets at the Postmark
Wednesday, June 3 | 6:30 - 8PM
All Ages | FREE

Join us for Postmark Poetry Nights, held on first Wednesdays by the City of Auburn and Auburn Avenue Poets!

Arrive early to peruse artwork by local artists, bring a poem to share during the open mic, and bring a poetry book to swap for a poetry book at our book exchange!

June's featured poet is  
Janée J. Baugher, MFA (writer, editor, and lecturer)!

Janée J. Baugher, the author of the only craft book of its kind, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020), has been a featured poet at the Library of Congress. She’s a longtime assistant editor at Boulevard magazine (St. Louis) and lives in Seattle where the Office of Arts & Culture awarded her a 2024-2025 City Artist grant to complete her memoir, “Suicide in the Mirror.” Her third full-length poetry collection, The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles, was selected by Shane McCrae for the Dorset Prize (Tupelo Press, 2026). ​Janée was educated at Boston University and Eastern Washington University.

To learn more about Janée and her work, please visit her website at janeebaugher.com.

Painting with Paper: Integrated Surrealist Collage
Thursday, June 4 | 4 - 7PM
Ages 16+ | FREE

Visit Postmark Center for the Arts for a FREE workshop with collage artist Melanie Reed! This workshop is designed to investigate the possibility of taking collage-making to a new level, bringing out the best of what it’s best potentially suited for as a medium. We will be taking a close look at source material, story-telling, and composition principles, and examining unique ways to combine disparate imagery for surreal effect.

All materials provided.

Auburn Art Showcase
Saturday, June 6 | 1 - 4PM
FREE

The Auburn Junior City Council is inviting high school artists from across the Auburn School District to showcase their creativity at the inaugural Auburn Art Showcase on Saturday, June 6 at the Postmark Center for the Arts.

Selected student artwork will be displayed during the event, giving young artists an opportunity to share their talents with the community and celebrate the arts in Auburn. Students interested in participating can submit their artwork online ahead of the showcase at the following link here: Auburn Art Showcase online submission form. 

Rhythm & Rhymes Story Hour
Saturday, June 13 | 10 - 11AM
All Ages | FREE

Join Auburn Symphony Orchestra and the Auburn Public Library for Rhythm and Rhymes Story Hour! Enjoy a fun, interactive musical story time for children with Auburn Symphony musicians and a story read-aloud with an Auburn librarian. This FREE program is best for ages 3-8 but families of all ages are encouraged to attend.

Made possible by 4Culture!

Second Saturdays
June 13, 12 - 4PM | FREE
Every Second Saturday

Visit Postmark Center for the Arts, open to the public each Second Saturday from 12-4PM! Each month features FREE, all ages performances, crafts, and events!

Planting Seeds for Stories
Session One: 1 - 2PM
Session Two: 2 - 3PM
Session Three: 3 - 4PM

In dialogue with artworks in the Postmark's current gallery exhibition, Discovered Narratives, plant seeds of ideas and create your own written stories and poems from the exhibition’s imagery. A short group-led activity will provide fertile groundwork before you begin to dig into your own free writing exercise with one (or more) of the works in the show.

Feel free to bring your own writing instruments but paper and pencils will be provided. Group-led activity starts hourly beginning at 1PM (lasting approximately 1 hour). Drop-ins are welcome!

Made possible by 4Culture and the Kiwanis Club of Auburn!

Screenprint 101 [Thursday/Saturday]

Take a deep dive into analog printmaking and learn the fundamentals of water-based screen printing on paper! Students will get a crash course in screen printing and learn to prepare artwork, to coat and burn screens, to register a print, and learn general printing techniques to produce a cohesive edition. No prior screen printing experience is required, though drawing/design experience is recommended for stencil creation. Students will participate in a print trade at the end of the course. All supplies provided by the Postmark, but please bring the following:

• Ruled notebook and something to write notes with
• Sketchbook
• Book or roll of tracing paper, minimum size 8.5x11"

This class meets 2 times a week for three weeks on Thursdays and Saturdays.
Please note there are different meeting times for weekday and weekend.
Email jirvine@auburnwa.gov with questions.

Dates: May 14 - 30 | Thursdays 6 - 8:30PM & Saturdays 10AM - 1PM
Ages: 18+
Fee: $80/$100 Resident/Non-Res
Instructor: Jessamyn Irvine

Register now!

2026 Postmark Center for the Arts Gift Shop

The goal of the Postmark Gift Shop is to provide a platform to support local Washington State artists and create a retail destination offering a variety of unique handcrafted items for Auburn residents and visitors to enjoy. 

Eligibility: Only Washington State artists will be selected for the gift shop, with a preference given to artists residing in the City of Auburn and surrounding areas.

Deadline: June 15, 2026 at 10:59PM

For more information or to apply, please view the gift shop application.

2027 Galleries in City of Auburn

The City of Auburn is seeking artists and/or artist groups working in two-dimensional or small three-dimensional media to exhibit their work at City of Auburn gallery spaces in 2027. Galleries are within City operated buildings including the Auburn Senior Center (Cheryl Sallee Gallery) and the Community & Event Center.

Artists and/or artists groups of diverse mediums are encouraged to apply, including but not limited to: printmaking, painting, drawing, mixed media, textiles, mosaic, glass, recycled materials, photography, calligraphy, collage, fiber art, ceramics, jewelry, metal sculptures, etc.

Eligibility: Established and emerging artists and/or artist groups working in two-dimensional or three-dimensional media will be considered.

Deadline: September 2, 2026 at 10:59PM

For more information or to apply, please view the gallery application.

2027 Site-Specific Art Galleries

The City of Auburn, Washington, seeks applications from regional artists to install 3-dimensional or multi-media art installations in two site-specific gallery spaces in downtown Auburn: the Art on Main Gallery and the Vault Gallery. Both spaces provide a $1,000 artist stipend to support the creation of new work and site-specific projects, or the installation of existing work.

Eligibility:

• Any individual artist or collaborative artist team in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho) may apply.
• Past participants of Art on Main or Vault Gallery are welcome to reapply

Deadline: September 2, 2026 at 10:59PM

For more information or to apply, please view the site-specific arts galleries application.

Every Wednesday | 10AM - 12PM

Make and Mingle
This is a free, quiet, no-pressure environment for artists and creatives to gather. You can talk with other visiting artists, ask for feedback or critique from on-site staff if available, bring your sketchbook to work out ideas, or just quietly draw in the gallery or work on your art!

Every Friday | 10AM - 12PM

Drop-In Drawing
Draw from a still life or the gallery, bring tools to either shade or color with, and your own sketchbook or drawing pad. Staff are on site to help with critique/questions/advice.

Drop-In Chinese Gongbi Painting
Drop in and paint with Amy Sie! Draw, paint or work on your whatever you like in the company of a watercolor artist. Interested in Chinese Gongbi Painting? Amy will be more than happy to provide guidance on how to get started! Please bring your own watercolor tools and materials.

Discovered Narratives
Exhibition Dates: Through July 3, 2026

The three artists in this exhibition express visual narratives, separate in technique, but sharing space as storytellers and dreamers. Snapshots of memory, surrealist dreamscapes, and symbolic realism create elements of surprise and intrigue, inviting the viewer to interpret their own narratives from each painting and collage. Through the artwork of Marit Berg, Sarah Dillon, and Melanie Reed, this exhibition seeks to compare, and contrast, shared expressions of human experience and stories waiting to be discovered.

Footsteps in Shallow Water
Artist: Reed Peck-Kriss
Exhibition Dates: Through July 6, 2026

We are excited to introduce Footsteps in Shallow Water by Reed Peck-Kriss!

Footsteps in Shallow Water is an exploration of light, texture, and presence. Rendering the landscape in forged aluminum, and offering the viewer space to imagine and empathize with the unseen traveler who has so recently stepped throughthe space, and to reflect on their own motion through the world, and the steps that they leave behind.

Reed Peck-Kriss is an architectural and sculptural blacksmith, whose work draws on aspects of form, connection, and composition to reflect and examine aspects of the natural world, and explore the inherently distortionary nature of representative art.

Art Commons 2026/27 Teaching Artist Residency Program

Are you a teaching artist, art docent, or an artist eager to inspire the next generation?

We invite you to apply to Art Commons’ Teaching Artist Residency in the Issaquah School District, where there are no visual art teachers on staff in grades K-5. 

The Teaching Artist Residency is a pilot program, so you will be a part of building a new resource in the community with potential for growth across the district. We are hiring three part-time teaching artists for the 2026-27 school year.

We highly encourage applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply, especially those who share lived experience with students with the least access to consistent, high quality arts education, including people from BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, immigrant, and low income communities. When children recognize parts of their own identity in a mentor and authority figure who is an artist, they can better see a pathway to becoming an artist and arts lover themselves.

Eligibility:

• You have a meaningful background in visual arts (painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, mixed media, etc.)
• You have a profound love for art education
• You are willing to collaborate with school staff and adapt lessons for diverse learners
• You can demonstrate the ability to create and implement schedules, timelines, and deadlines
• You are comfortable communicating in person and over email
• You have reliable transportation to and from school sites, sometimes multiple times a week, from October 2026 through May 2027

Deadline: June 20, 2026 (early submissions are encouraged)

For more information, please visit artcommons.org/applytobeateachingartist.

To apply, please send your resume, examples of artwork and teaching experience, and a teaching artist statement to info@artcommons.org.