Lisa Myers Bulmash 7/13/18 Lisa Myers Bulmash 7/13/18

Liberty Bank Building: new (old) faces

Back to work on the collage portraits for the Liberty Bank Building. This week I'm staring down some formidable faces.

*Dr. Rev. Samuel B. McKinney (from the Liberty Bank & McKinney family archives)*

Dr. Rev. Samuel McKinney was an activist who moved mountains. During his tenure as leader of the iconic Mount Zion Baptist Church, he co-founded Liberty Bank as well as a housing complex for the elderly and working poor. He was also a gracious person with a resonant, Morgan Freeman-as-God-level voice. I just hope I can do his portrait justice.

And just a few days ago, I learned about the architect DeNorval Unthank Jr. He and fellow architect Mel Streeter teamed up to design the original Liberty Bank. "De," as he was called, was also the first black man to earn an architecture degree from the University of Oregon. One of the university residence halls has been renamed for him.

*Unthank Hall sign unveiling (credit: Around the O/University. of Oregon)*

So... just making a couple more collage portraits of Northwest icons. No pressure.

Lisa Myers Bulmash 6/29/18 Lisa Myers Bulmash 6/29/18

Book of Bulmash, chapter 149

Behold the empty bed of the nine-year-old child! Look, and see the glee this absence hath bestowed in the heart of this boy's mother.
The boy had ignored the radio alarm designed to wake him. He slumbered despite the family dog's whine to be let out for bodily relief.
But the boy could not ignore the sound of his mother breathing,
For she had crawled into her son's bed and laid her head directly next to his own, so as to weaponize the breath of life.
As the air left her nostrils, it roared inside the semi-conscious boy's ear like the sound of a thousand vengeful bees pursuing their prey.
Of course, the child turned his head away from the sound. But this solution was short-lived,
For his mother simply began breathing heavily in the other, newly-exposed ear.
The child squirmed and grunted in protest, but to no avail.
At last the boy cried, "Begone, mother!
"I am awake and shall rise from my bed anon! Only thou must remove thyself and allow me to exit!"
"But my son," the mother responded, "thou hast plenty of room to exit, if thou climbest to the foot of thy bed.
"There and only there doth an escape route wait for thee."
Thereupon the mother resumed wielding her exhalation as a method of driving the child out of bed.
The boy leapt out of his cozy nest, desperate to flee his mother.
And once he retreated to the silence of the bathroom, the mother was wracked with a fit of giggles that buoyed her throughout the remaining morning routine.

Lisa Myers Bulmash 6/15/18 Lisa Myers Bulmash 6/15/18

Liberty Bank co-founders: George Tokuda

I'm starting to make faces -- collaged faces -- for the Liberty Bank Building portrait series.

This is George Tokuda, one of the original Liberty Bank's nine co-founders. He and his family owned Tokuda Drugs, a longtime fixture of Seattle's Central District. community.

His daughter Wendy Tokuda was kind enough to send me the original photo of George; she remembers "how proud he was to be on the bank board. It’s where I got my college loan!"

George was a native Washingtonian, born around 1913 in Mukilteo where Japanese immigrants worked for a lumber company. The area (now a hiking trail and nature preserve) is still known as Japanese Gulch.

George's family later moved down to Seattle, where he opened the drugstore in 1935. But as a Japanese American in the Pacific Northwest during World War II, he was one of thousands rounded up and sent to the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho.

*Photo credit: Minidoka Historical Site/ NPS*

Learning how much George gave to his communities -- and how much was taken from him -- I find the city of Mukilteo's logo and welcome sign painfully ironic.

So I altered my photo of this lighthouse sign...

... replacing the lighthouse tower with the ruins of the Minidoka guard and entrance gate.

I'm deeply grateful to Wendy Tokuda, the Mukilteo Historical Society, HistoryLink and the Liberty Bank photo archives for the opportunity to honor Mr. Tokuda.