Greet Kirkland: Kathy Feek
By: Jessica F. Kravitz
Originally published in the March 2025 Issue of Greet Kirkland Magazine, for Women’s History Month - Moving Forward Together: Women Who Inspire, Create, and Give Back.
If you are involved in the local arts in Kirkland and in the broader region, you know Kathy Feek and the impact her expertise and dedicated work has made in the arts community. For more than two decades her service to the community has spanned from serving as founding chairperson of the Kirkland Cultural Arts Commission, former president of the Greater Kirkland Chamber of Commerce Board to the advisory board of the Kirkland Arts Center, board member emeritus of the Kirkland Performance Center, and chair emeritus of the University School of Drama Advisory Board to name a few of her contributions. Kathy says interacting with people, her community, is her favorite part of her work. Most recently, Kathy has been working hard on her contributions to the Kirkland Community Foundation as a board member raising funds to support the needs facing Kirkland residents surrounding homelessness and education.
Downsizing from the Magnolia neighborhood in Seattle and a thriving arts scene, Kathy took the opportunity to meet everyone she could in the arts community when she and her husband moved to Kirkland more than twenty years ago. The Kirkland Cultural Arts Commission was burgeoning and gave her the opportunity to immediately shine as she was selected to be the founding chairperson of the new organization. As she began to meet people in the community, she was asked to make an arts presentation to the Rotary where she met the CEO of Evergreen Hospital. That meeting led to a career in the arts that has flourished since then and solidified Kathy’s role in the Kirkland arts scene.
Her doctorate in arts education equipped her to undertake an effort that has brought art to hospitals and healthcare centers across the region from Kirkland and Seattle to Snoqualmie Valley. Kathy perceives each space where she installs art as a “blank canvas” enabling patients to find healing and solace as they come across unexpected pieces of art throughout the healthcare facilities. The response from patients has inspired Kathy to create environments that convey to patients that care and thoughtfulness is central to their journey. As patients walk from one area to another within the facilities they are met with a welcoming place created by the art that hangs on the walls. “Art heals” Kathy says and adds to the “feeling of a community of people who care.” She has created art maps, art brochures and art tours at the hospitals, for all visitors and especially for those who spend many hours waiting.
When she selects the art for the spaces, she involves the clinical staff so that they have a voice in the process. She tries to incorporate local history and has been able to showcase WWII nursing posters, for example. These bits of history of the locale add to the deep understanding of place that Kathy brings to her work. She says creativity and the vibrancy of color allows for patients and the community to engage with the art which uplifts and “takes you away from the negativity of life.” For Kathy, it is of utmost importance to positively add to what may for some be a difficult experience and the art she curates reflects that idea.
Kathy is passionate about the role healthcare facilities play in our community. She says she has seen firsthand the hard work happening to take care of people and the art she places in these facilities aids in this healing that is happening. Her service to the community in her various roles sets an example for future generations of arts leaders to give back to their communities and help make art accessible to the public. She says she loves working and talking with young people interested in the arts and is open to anyone to call her and discuss art.
“Art makes a difference in healing,” Kathy says. The feedback she receives from patients and stories they share about their experience propel Kathy forward in her work, bridging the gap between health and healing, and for Kathy the art she is able to bring to her community is key to this process.