[SPOKANE, Wash.] --Spokane Falls Community College’s newly established Building 32 will redefine the way students and locals engage with the region's vibrant art community.  

The SFCC Fine Arts and Photography Building opened for instruction in mid-September and hosted a private grand opening celebration on November 13 where key stakeholders gathered to celebrate the landmark achievement and all that it gives to students and the region's art community.

 The building is formally named “sƛ̓x̣etkʷ” (ska-hét), which is the traditional place name of Spokane Falls and means "fast water" in Salish. 

"Today the word sƛ̓x̣etkʷ resonates with our past, our present, and our future." Spokane Tribe member Elizabeth Johnstone. "For the Spokane Falls Community College and it's students, it symbolizes the flow of creativity, innovation, and the fast pace of learning and growth. Just as the sƛ̓x̣etkʷ has always nourished the Spokane people, the sƛ̓x̣etkʷ fine arts building will nourish the students and people who come here to learn, create, and thrive."

 

 

Building Up 

The 13-year-long project was long awaited by artists, students, and educators eager to have dedicated spaces to test and showcase their fine art and photography capabilities. 

SFCC first sent this to bid with the Washington state legislature in 2011. In 2019, the budget was finally approved, and the process began, paving the way for new facilities and expanded educational opportunities for the community. 

Building 32 opened to students this fall and the payoff for the faculty, staff and administration who spent years bringing this dream to life was hard to put into words. 

Since the completion of the 60,000 sq. ft. project in the fall, enrollment in the Fine Arts programs as a collective has gone up more than 17%, as compared to last fall.  

“I was in there middle of the day when they were holding classes, and I was walking around looking in classrooms and seeing the instructors teaching students, and I just couldn't help but smile,” said Director of Capital Construction Clinton Brown. “It was so awesome to finally see it come to fruition and have the instructors in there doing what they do best. This building was for them and for our students.” 

 

Redefining Regional Arts 

With high-level curriculum and facilities to match, SFCC’s fine arts and photography graduates are going to be pouring their skills back into the arts community tenfold.  

“Not only are we continuing to offer the same high-caliber curriculum we always have, but we're boosting it up a level with the added resources within the building,” said Dr. Ashley DeMoville, Interim Dean of Visual and Performing Arts at SFCC. “I’ve been in fine arts buildings around the state, around the region, and around the country. These facilities are unparalleled.” 

Housed in building 32 are studios for photography, filmmaking, painting, drawing, woodworking, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, and jewelry making. There is also a full dark room for film developing, a crane with an industrial sandpit for metal casting, and two dedicated gallery spaces.   

This is the first time photography students will have their own gallery, creating yet another opportunity for various disciplines of the local art community to enjoy the space.  

Beginning in the spring quarter, the SFCC Fine Art Galleries will be introducing the sƛ̓x̣etkʷ Artist-in-Residence Program, and applications are open now through Dec. 5. 

The three-month long residency program is fully funded to provide leading-edge studios to an Indigenous artist for the entire spring quarter from April 1-June 18.  

Artists will have the opportunity to connect with students and local artists to expand their creative expression. 

“The world is our oyster at this point,” said Erik Sohner, SFCC photography instructor and Applied Visual Arts department chair. “This facility will elevate our programs perception within the local and regional Community.  Our program has a well-established, solid reputation that has stood the test of time, but now we have a state-of-the-art facility and equipment that will take our Photography and Filmmaking programs well into the future to provide our students with the finest industry standard education available.” 

 

Staple of the Community 

There are eight degree tracks and over 15 program disciplines housed in the $43 million state of the art facility. 

Degree options include digital filmmaking, digital media production, two-dimensional and three-dimensional art, photography and general fine art transfer.   

The intention of the space goes far beyond the technical pieces of the new construction. 

“The entire vision was to bring the outdoors in, and I think it does that very well with selection of materials,” Brown said. “Bringing stone to the inside and the glass that allows you to see right through the lobby and to the trees outside really makes it seem like it fits into the environment.”  

12,000 sq. ft of glass covers the building’s exterior. Of that glass, 1,400 square feet of it is imported from Germany and designed by Jill Anholt with a golden texture representing the pattern of the Spokane River that flows just beneath sƛ̓x̣etkʷ.  

Anholt is an internationally recognized artist for her artwork in public spaces that simultaneously prioritize sustainability and storytelling.  

“There’s this transitional space where you're welcomed by that gorgeous glass work by Jill Anholt, that brings the river and the energy of the river into the building, and then as you progress through and you see the view outside, because as soon as you get into the front doors, you see the huge wall of glass and the view and the river,” DeMoville said.  

The space is designed in a way that wraps the river around the building, connecting art students with a sense of place and providing a source of inspiration for their studies.  

sƛ̓x̣etkʷ was named by Barry Moses, a longtime advocate for the recovery of Spokane’s Salish language.  

"Historically, this was one of the many names the Spokane Tribe used for the Spokane River which is very sacred to our people," Spokane Tribe member Elizabeth Johnstone said. "The Spokane River has always been at the heart of our way of life. It has provided sustenance, cultural connection and a deeply profound spirituality for our people."
 

Incorporating pieces of the land's cultural DNA, sƛ̓x̣etkʷ becomes a beacon of creativity and inspiration that resonates with the history of the region.  

“Not only are we providing state-of-the-art instructional resources and spaces for students, but we also have this gigantic statement that says the state of Washington cares about the arts and SFCC cares about the arts,” DeMoville said. “It’s huge when we bring students in.” 

 

For additional information and contacts, please contact CCS Strategic Communications Manager Kayla Friedrich. CCS provides education and services in a six-county region of Eastern Washington, operates Spokane Falls Community College and Spokane Community College and is the largest provider of Head Start and Early Childhood Education in the region. Each year, nearly 30,000 people – from infants to senior citizens – are provided educational services by CCS.