Foraging through garbage, taking over roadside motels, and reimagining open space—learn how four local artists, Von Coffin, DK Pan, Maria Phillips, and Amanda Manitach, are pushing the boundaries of how art is made and experienced. In this conversation, moderated by Public Programs Manager Anna Buxton, the panelists will share how they’ve identified and reallocated resources in innovative ways, making the most of what’s available as space to create and exhibit work becomes increasingly scarce in the Seattle area. Hear their inspiring stories of experimentation, resourcefulness, and collaboration, revealing new possibilities for creative practice in our community. 

This talk is part of our annual Ground Floor conversation series that highlights artists who build creative spaces from the ground floor up. 

About the Panelists

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Von Coffin lives in Redmond, Washington with their wife and two young children. Coffin received their MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University (2016) and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2008). They run Coffin Farm, an experimental sculpture park on their family’s farm. They identify as nonbinary, transmasc, and use they/them pronouns. The experience of raising animals, working at grocery stores, and building museum display cases evolved directly into the objects, paintings, and food works that constitute their practice. These modes act to render painful experiences of psychosis and gender dysmorphia into, or onto, something else. Color is used as both symbol and signifier, triggering nostalgia through specific imitations of candy and other material.  

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DK Pan is a Seattle-based artist who investigates the intersection of place and memory—exploring the interstices and histories of site, and the personal and collective body—through visual art, video, performance, public art, installation, interventions, and arts programming. They have organized art interventions/cultural events such as TUBS Memorial Project and Bridge Motel, and projects with Sound Transit Art Program and Seattle Housing Authority. Professionally, DK has worked for Plymouth Housing Group and Community Roots Housing over the past 10+ years to address homelessness and create affordable, vibrant communities in support of the maxim, ‘Housing is a Human Right’. Currently, DK is the community and property steward for Equinox Studios/Watershed Community Development - the largest arts community in the US.

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Amanda Manitach is a Seattle-based multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator whose work explores the power and plasticity of language through large-scale drawings, installations, and text-based works. Blurring the boundaries between word and image, her practice channels desire, endurance, and resistance in hand-rendered compositions. Over the past two decades, she has exhibited widely across the Pacific Northwest, including the Frye, Bellevue Arts Museum, and Tacoma Art Museum. Beyond the studio, Manitach has worked extensively in journalism and publishing, serving as Visual Arts Editor at City Arts Magazine and Editor of Public Display Art. She co-founded and contributed to several artist-run spaces and her curatorial work spans both DIY and institutional contexts, including three years as Curator of Seattle University’s Hedreen Gallery (2013–2015). Following a residency at Recology King County in 2023, Manitach joined as a manager of its Artist in Residence program.