Out of the Picture is a feature-length documentary that explores the role of art critics and the rapidly evolving landscape of art, arts writing, and criticism at large. Filmmaker Mary Louise Schumacher follows critics from across the country, examining how writers and publications have responded or adapted to monumental shifts in media, while revealing the enduring impact of arts writing along the way.

Following the screening, join a conversation with former arts writer for The Stranger Jen Graves and artist Barbara Earl Thomas, Seattleites who are featured in the film. Together, they will explore what is lost and who is most impacted when art critics are absent from cultural conversations. Drawing on examples from the films, including works by Frye exhibiting artist Mary Ann Peters, the discussion will highlight the symbiotic relationship between those who make and those who look, before opening it up to audience questions.

About the Presenters

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For three decades, Jen Graves has loved being in conversation with artists. The Pulitzer Prize committee chose Jen as a finalist in 2014, citing “her visual arts criticism that, with elegant and vivid description, informs readers about how to look at the complexities of contemporary art and the world in which it's made.” She received a Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant and has published in Art in America, ArtNews, The Believer, and The Stranger, where she held the full-time staff role of visual arts critic for 11 years. She retired from journalism in 2017 when her paper’s long-standing support of arts journalism withered, leaving nowhere in Seattle for her to do the work she’s always cared about. Jen found meaningful, engaging work as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Recently, she returned to writing occasionally about art and life on her free Substack, Still Looking.

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Barbara Earl Thomas is a critically acclaimed Seattle-based visual artist with an active art-making career spanning more than 35 years. She is a skilled painter who now builds tension-filled narratives through papercuts and prints, placing silhouetted figures in social and political landscapes. She draws from mythology and history to create a contemporary visual narrative that challenges the stories we tell ourselves about who we are as humans.

Since 2020, Thomas has completed commissioned work at Yale University's Hopper College, and at the Multnomah County Courthouse in Portland, Oregon. She has also had major exhibitions including at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Wichita Art Museum, Arthur Ross Gallery at University of Pennsylvania and Seattle Art Museum.