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More About

• Bumbershoot Festival
• Labor Day
• Jacob Lawrence
• Visual Arts
• Graphic Design

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Wait—Bumbershoot wasn’t always on Labor Day Weekend? That’s one of the small surprises to the poster exhibition Umbrella for the Arts: 40 Years of Bumbershoot Artwork. Another, to those who were also young when the fest was founded in 1971: The city originated and ran the thing until One Reel took over in 1980. And the roster of artists who’ve contributed posters includes Jacob Lawrence, Dawn Cerny, and Claes Oldenberg. Given that Flatstock, Bumbershoot’s poster show, is always extremely popular with the music-and-comix crowd, it makes sense that graphic arts should remain a strong component of the event. And a bit of Bumber-trivia: If you take the elevator down to the hard-to-find Anne Focke Gallery, it’s named for the woman who in 1973 gave the fest its official name; before then, it was called Festival ’71 and Festival ’72. Fortunately the posters were more imaginative. BRIAN MILLER
Mondays-Fridays, 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Starts: July 9. Continues through Sept. 7, 2010