AMOCAT ARTS AWARD WINNERS
Honoring Tacoma’s arts champions
The AMOCAT Arts Awards celebrate the people and organizations who uplift Tacoma’s cultural scene. These awards honor those who create space for the arts to thrive, build lasting community connections, and reflect Tacoma’s rich diversity of voices. Each year during Tacoma Arts Month, we recognize individuals, organizations, and patrons whose creative work and leadership inspire us all!
COmmunity outreach by individual
Saiyare Refaei
Saiyare Refaei (they/them/she/her) is a Chinese Iranian artist based on the occupied lands of the Puyallup people (Tacoma, Washington). Saiyare graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 2014 with a Major in Environmental Studies and minors in Anthropology, Hispanic Studies and Studio Arts. They have been a community artist making public art since 2013. Their mediums include community murals, printmaking, digital drawings and poetry. They are a member of Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and strive to utilize art as a bridge for community building, education and healing.
Visual artist, cultural organizer, and educator
Saiyare is proud of collaborative community art projects that have actively included community voice and participation. They have them so much too: Parkland Community Mural Project (2013), 5 Stages Mural with Tiffanny Hammonds (through Spaceworks 2017), Re-emerging in Healing Mural (through Spaceworks 2018) and recent mural with high schools from Franklin Pierce High School, Washington High School and Gates High School in their new classroom at the Farm at Franklin Pierce Schools.
“Saiyare builds community through co-creating public art with incarcerated youth, zine-making with immigrant communities, and multilingual healing workshops. She is a generous collaborator, a skilled educator, and a visionary artist.”
IRINA RASPUTniS
Irina Rasputnis is a Tacoma-based arts organizer who uses music and art as vehicles for community building. Irina is behind Tacoma Porchfest, a music festival that takes place on porches and connects neighbors throughout Central Tacoma and beyond, and Tacoma HONK! Fest, a vibrant music festival of street bands in Tacoma’s McKinley Hill neighborhood. Irina also runs the Tacomarama Community Street Band, an all-ages, all-levels, everyone-can-join ensemble. Throughout Irina’s projects, there is a common theme of creating spaces for people to connect with each other. Over time, these connections will lead to meaningful exchanges and mutual care.
Grassroots cultural organizer and radical joy cultivator
Tacoma Porchfest has grown to a not-to-be-missed status in a very short time, doubling in size each year from its inception in 2022. This year’s Porchfest featured over 300 performers on 110 porch stages across Central Tacoma, the Sixth Ave Business District, and the North End neighborhood.
The Tacomarama Community Street Band brings together skilled and amateur musicians to experience the joy of creating music in community. The band has become a mainstay at community festivals throughout Tacoma at such events as Tacoma Arts Month Opening Celebration, Tacoma Light Trail, Parks Tacoma Healthy Kids Day, and recently got to play in Council Chambers!
“Irina is the reason Tacoma has Porchfest, Tacomarama, and HONK!—each one a joyful, DIY, inclusive festival that makes space for disabled, queer, immigrant, and working-class people to thrive and celebrate together.”
Community outreach by organization
MI CENTRO
Mi Centro is a community-based non-profit based in the Hilltop neighborhood since 2001. Under it’s former namesake, Centro Latino-SER: Jobs for Success, the organization has served the greater Tacoma Pierce County region since 1983. They have provided support to Latino Indigenous families through educational programs, crisis intervention, family outreach services, arts & culture programming, and advocacy efforts. A fundamental aspect of their philosophy is not only to support the Latino Indigenous communities with high quality programming, but also to enhance their life experience with culturally relevant Latino Indigenous arts and promote healing through the preservation and celebration of their identity.
Latine arts and cultural organization rooted in community service
Key strategic goals are centered on the provision and accessibility of holistic community support that promotes community engagement and self-sufficiency of our target population via 4 core departmental programs. These include the Maru Mora Centro Familiar, the Dolores Huerta Institute, the Camino al Exito: Centro de Negocios, and lastly the Arreguin Arts & Culture Center. Over the years, Mi Centro has organized and supported wrap-around family support services, youth programming, education support, workshops, arts programming and events, both independently and through our esteemed community partnerships.
“Mi Centro centers Indigenous and Latine culture through dance, music, visual arts, and storytelling. Their programs are free, intergenerational, and deeply rooted in the community.”
REMakery
Remakery is a Tacoma creative reuse nonprofit with a mission to provide the people of Tacoma access to education, tools and resources on the remaking, repair and reuse of post-consumer materials and waste; reducing waste while encouraging a circular economy.
Creative reuse center and community education hub
Since 2023 the Ramkery has hosted fun workshops, classes and pop-ups where the public can create with existing materials. Workshops attempt to find resources in everyday material like turning plastic bags into rugs, crocheting with t-shirt yarn, sewing quilt coats from actual quilts, using fabric scraps to make slugs, or recycling plastic trash into sewing buttons. On the 4th Friday of every month, folks are encouraged to get together and spend time mending their clothes. Remakery has also hosted other community events like filling a room with cardboard play structures, free craft swaps and an annual event highlighting different types of creative reuse. They love working with local Tacoma artists and highlighting community resources
“Remakery is a model of sustainable community arts. They provide access to reused materials and teach skills that help people create instead of consume. It’s where people go to learn, make, and belong.”
Arts patron
tacoma public library
Tacoma Public Library has a mission to empower our community by bringing people together to discover, connect, create, learn, and thrive. They work to provide free access to information and ideas from diverse points of view and encourage our community to explore new ideas, perspectives, and experiences. Through their collections, services, resources, knowledgeable and friendly staff, and year-round programming, they strive to be a radically welcoming community hub where all people can find joy, compassion, and inspiration.
Champion of creative access and cultural collaboration
Tacoma Public Library hosts year-round, all ages programming in its eight neighborhood locations as well as through outreach and collaborative events throughout the city.
In 2019, Tacoma Public Library and Tacoma Creates established a partnership for arts, culture, heritage, and science organizations to offer programs in libraries throughout Tacoma’s diverse neighborhoods, significantly expanding public access to high-quality arts programming while boosting support and collaboration in the local arts and culture sector.
Tacoma Public Library has also been honored to host the Tacoma Wayzgoose, a community letterpress, printmaking, and book arts extravaganza,” for the past two years as a partner of Write253 and other local literary arts organizations.
Write253 is an anchor partner in Tacoma Public Library’s Community Hub, as well. The Community Hub at Main Library is an ecosystem of local partners (currently, those partners are Remakery, Tacoma Tool Library, and Write253) whose work aligns with the mission, vision, and strategic priorities of Tacoma Public Library.
Tacoma Public Library partners annually with the Mayor’s Office for Tacoma Reads, a season of all-ages literary programs that explore contemporary themes. Tacoma Reads often brings in artists of varying mediums (dance, music, sculpture, book arts, storytelling) for programs and performances that promote dialogue, empathy, and shared experience.
These are just a few of the programs that Tacoma Public Library participates in, partners for, and hosts in order to create a more resilient, informed, and inspired city.
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“Tacoma Public Library has consistently supported cultural programming—not just by offering space, but by investing in relationships with artists and organizations.”
ʔuk’ʷədiitəb ʔuhigʷətəb čəɫ txʷəl tiiɫ ʔa čəɫ ʔal tə swatxʷixʷtxʷəd ʔə tiiɫ puyaləpabš dxʷəsɫaɫlils gʷəl ʔutxʷəlšucidəbs həlgʷəʔ.
We gratefully acknowledge that we rest on the traditional lands of the Puyallup People where they make their home and speak the Lushootseed language.