‘Faces of Olympia’ honors the people who have helped make the city what it is

Though plans to turn it into a museum have stalled, Olympia’s old City Hall and Firehouse is aglow with an art installation celebrating the city’s vibrant history.

Olympia Arts + Heritage Alliance’s “Faces of Olympia,” in the east-facing windows of the building at the corner of Capitol Way and State Avenue, is an assemblage of photos honoring some of the people and organizations that have helped to make the city what it is — including Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart, one of the nuns who established Providence St. Peter Hospital; the late environmental leader and treaty advocate Billy Frank Jr.; and papercut artist Nikki McClure.

“Our history and culture are best told through individual stories from the people who make up, and have made up, our diverse city,” AHA states on its website, which offers information about those shown plus more faces of Olympia past and present. “As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary in 2026, AHA wants to emphasize that it is ‘We the People’ that we celebrate.”

Above the photos, a row of silhouettes — illuminated at night — serves as a reminder of all of those who aren’t part of the show.

“It’s impossible to represent all of the people who’ve contributed over time,” said painter and teacher Nathan Barnes, who worked with members of AHA to create the installation. “The silhouettes were an opportunity to represent the people who comprise our diverse community.”

“One of the silhouettes is of a very young person, probably a 6-year-old,” he said. “I was thinking about contributions in the future. For me, that’s a way of capturing the big picture.”

Barnes, who lives in Olympia, also wanted to capture attention from a distance. “The most traffic this exhibition is going to get is people in their cars, not people walking by,” he told The Olympian. “I wanted to get the attention of people driving by without them going off the road.

“I was hoping for something visually spectacular.”

The row of silhouettes ties together the three multi-paned windows along Capitol Way.

“I thought about the top row as an architectural frieze,” Barnes said, adding that his role was mostly to design the final form of the exhibit. “It was a team effort, which was part of the fun,” he said.

“Faces” is the fourth exhibition installed in the building by AHA, which formed in 2018 with the intent to develop a museum of art, history and culture. In 2023, the group applied to transform the old City Hall and Firehouse into that museum.

“While we’ve been waiting for the city to be in a position to move forward with leasing a building to us, we’ve done temporary programming in those lovely red-framed windows,” said Kris Tucker, AHA’s secretary. “It used to be that fire trucks would drive in through that side of the building.”

Tucker and fellow board members Laurie Mott and Megan Ockerman came up with the idea for “Faces” and gathered images from community members and organizations, the Nisqually and Squaxin tribes, the Olympia Historical Society and the Washington State Archives.

“We did a lot of outreach,” Tucker said. “We had to work together to figure out which photos to include, and part of it was photo quality.”

“It was a team effort, which was part of the fun,” Barnes said. “My role was mostly working out how to present the content.”

Also part of the team were artists Barnes has taught at Grays Harbor College, where he’s an art instructor: Student Chloe Long and former student Alexa Amarck worked with him on the silhouettes. The exhibition poster was designed by Kylie Wyberg, also a former student.

“One thrilling thing for me was to get to work with these emerging artists,” Barnes said.