An experiment in applied philanthropy, funded by the Conru Art Foundation, to develop exceptional artists and explore how their skills can serve community connection and healing.
The Seattle Prize
A fellowship dedicated to identifying and nurturing exceptional artists to create masterful works that explore profound human experiences. This program is the foundation of our mission, cultivating the high-level skill necessary for creating art that can truly heal.
Explore the Fellowship →
The Love Portrait Program
Our warm-up phase where we commission meaningful portraits using Rehumanist themes. These works explore emotional states and human experiences, serving both the subjects and the broader community through public display at the ArtLove Salon.
Learn More →Our Mission
We believe in the power of traditional art to connect us, to heal divisions, and to remind us of our shared humanity. Our programs are designed to be a living demonstration of this belief—art as a service, a gift, and a bridge.
Meet the Team
Andrew Conru
Founder & Rehumanism Guide
Pushing for excellence: Andrew's role is to challenge the artists to reach deeper—to push harder toward technical mastery and meaningful content. As both founder and practicing artist, he brings the perspective of someone committed to art's highest potential.
With a background bridging technology success and serious artistic practice, Andrew guides the conceptual dimensions of fellows' work, helping them understand how exceptional skill can serve broader human purposes through the Rehumanism framework.
Working alongside: Andrew will be painting alongside the fellows, participating in the creative process while providing guidance and leadership through his own artistic exploration.
Tenaya Sims
Master Artist & Technical Director
Technical mastery: Award-winning gallery artist (ARC Salon Best in Show 2016) and experienced instructor, Tenaya focuses on the craft fundamentals—color, light, form, composition—that enable fellows to execute ambitious visions.
Classically trained at Watts Atelier and former apprentice under Juliette Aristides, Tenaya brings proven expertise in developing high-level painting skills through structured, intensive practice.
Active participant: Tenaya will also be painting alongside the team, demonstrating techniques while creating his own work within the collaborative atelier environment.
Andrew in the atelier space— where historic architecture meets contemporary vision, providing abundant natural light and an inspiring environment essential for masterful art-making.
The large windows offer plenty of natural light, while the high ceilings and open spaces create an atmosphere conducive to both focused individual work and collaborative artistic dialogue.
Bringing the Process to the Public
We believe the public should be part of this artistic journey. These masterworks take months to complete, and the process itself is as compelling as the final results.
Documentary Filmmaking
- • Film crews documenting the artists' background stories
- • Behind-the-scenes process documentation
- • Capturing the creative journey from concept to completion
- • Exploring what drives these artists and their work
Live Interactive Content
- • Live streaming of painting sessions and critiques
- • Video infrastructure for real-time public engagement
- • Interactive elements allowing viewers to follow progress
- • Educational content about techniques and philosophy
This isn't just about the art—it's about entertainment and education. Watching master-level art being created over months offers a unique window into the dedication, skill, and creative problem-solving that goes into meaningful work. We're making this traditionally private process public and accessible.
The Love Portrait Program
A Practice Project in Rehumanist Art
The Love Portrait Program is our pilot initiative—a practice project where we commission 6-12 exceptional local artists to create meaningful works that explore profound human experiences through a Rehumanist lens. This approach is guided by our philanthropy philosophy. Funded by the Conru Art Foundation, this isn't a commercial service; it's an artistic experiment designed to demonstrate how masterful skill can serve deeper human purposes.
Each commissioned work will be filmed and documented, creating a public record of the artistic process while celebrating the incredible talent that exists right here in our community. These works will be displayed for public benefit at the ArtLove Salon and other venues, ensuring that this investment in local artistic excellence serves the broader community.
🎬 Launching August 2025
Watch it happen live! Starting in August, we'll begin commissioning these works with live streaming and real-time updates available on this website. Follow along as our local artists develop relationships with their subjects and create meaningful portraits over the coming months.
Why This Project Matters
Honoring Our Teachers
Many of our most skilled local artists have spent years training the next generation. This program gives us a chance to thank them by supporting their own creative work.
Demonstrating Excellence
By commissioning works from classically trained artists, we show what's possible when technical mastery meets meaningful intention.
Building Community
This program connects artists with each other and with the broader community, fostering dialogue about art's role in healing and connection.
Creating Documentation
Each work will be filmed and shared, providing educational content about both artistic process and the deeper purposes art can serve.
The Inspiration: A Portrait for Mom
"The inspiration for this program came from a portrait I painted of my mother. It was an act of love, an attempt to capture her spirit and create something of lasting therapeutic beauty. This program extends that personal mission to our broader artistic community."
- Andrew Conru, Founder
Watch Andrew discuss how creating art as a gift can be a profound act of love and healing, and how this personal experience inspired the Love Portrait Program's mission to serve artists and communities.
Andrew Conru discusses the portrait of his mother that inspired the Love Portrait Program
Learn More About This Project
Interested in understanding more about our approach to supporting local artists and creating meaningful art? We'd love to share more about this exciting initiative.
Contact us at larine@conruartfoundation.org
About Seattle Atelier
"What if we could resurrect the conditions that produced the greatest art in human history—but for our time?"
This question drives everything we do at Seattle Atelier, where we're conducting the most ambitious experiment in artistic patronage since the Renaissance.
Seattle Atelier represents a paradigm shift in how contemporary art is conceived, funded, and created. We are not another gallery, residency, or grant program. We are building a new ecosystem for artistic excellence—one that recognizes technical mastery and meaningful content as the foundation for art that can genuinely heal and connect our fractured world.
In an era where the art world often prioritizes concept over craft, market trends over meaning, and shock over substance, we propose a radical alternative: art as service. Art that doesn't just reflect our problems but actively works to address them. Art that requires the highest levels of skill precisely because it serves the highest purposes.
A Revolutionary Model for 21st Century Patronage
The Problem We're Solving
- • Market-Driven Creation: Artists forced to create for sales rather than significance
- • Fragmented Support: Grants that fund projects, not artistic development
- • Skill Depreciation: Technical mastery undervalued in contemporary discourse
- • Purpose Deficit: Art that asks "why not?" instead of "what for?"
- • Community Disconnection: Art that speaks only to insiders
Our Comprehensive Solution
- • Total Life Support: Full stipends freeing artists from commercial pressure
- • Master-Level Mentorship: Working with established artists at the height of their powers
- • Craft Excellence: Emphasis on technical skill as foundation for meaningful expression
- • Purpose-Driven Creation: Art explicitly designed to serve and heal
- • Community Integration: Direct connection between artists and public benefit
Learning from History's Greatest Artistic Achievements
The works that have endured for centuries—from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel to Sargent's war paintings—share common conditions: sustained patronage, master-level instruction, technical excellence, and profound purpose. These weren't created in isolation or under market pressure, but within supportive ecosystems that understood art's highest potential.
Renaissance Workshops
Master-apprentice relationships lasting years, with patrons supporting entire ateliers focused on significant commissions.
19th Century Academies
Rigorous technical training combined with exhibition opportunities and state support for ambitious public works.
Public Art Programs
Historical examples of commissioned art for public benefit, demonstrating how systematic support can serve broader social purposes.
Seattle Atelier synthesizes these proven approaches with 21st-century insights about art's therapeutic and connective potential. We're not trying to recreate the past—we're building the future of serious artistic practice.
Our Integrated Approach
Seattle Atelier operates through two complementary programs that create a complete cycle of artistic development and community service:
The Seattle Prize Fellowship develops the next generation of master artists through intensive, fully-supported training, while The Love Portrait Program commissions masterful portraits that celebrate love stories and provide therapeutic beauty to the community.
Why Seattle, Why Now
Seattle offers the perfect conditions for this experiment. As a city built by innovation and supported by tech wealth, it understands long-term investment. As a community grappling with rapid change and social challenges, it needs art that can heal and connect. As a cultural center with strong institutions but room for new voices, it welcomes bold experiments.
Our Pioneer Square Location
In Seattle's historic heart, we're renovating a landmark building (311 1/2 Occidental Ave S) to include:
- • Individual artist studios with optimal lighting
- • Collaborative workspace for group projects
- • Professional gallery for public exhibitions
- • Research library focused on Rehumanism
- • Community gathering spaces
The Timing is Critical
Several factors make this the optimal moment:
- • Post-pandemic hunger for authentic connection
- • AI forcing questions about human creativity's unique value
- • Growing recognition of art's therapeutic potential
- • Renewed interest in technical mastery among young artists
- • Availability of exceptional artists seeking serious support
Our Historic Building & Space Development
From historic landmark to modern atelier—see the transformation of our Pioneer Square location as we create custom studio spaces designed for masterful art-making.
The historic Occidental Fine Art Center building at 311 1/2 Occidental Ave S in Pioneer Square
Andrew Conru outside the future home of Seattle Atelier
Andrew Conru with construction manager Kirk planning the custom studio spaces
Studio development in progress - transforming historic space for contemporary art-making
This isn't just renovation—it's the creation of purpose-built spaces where traditional artistic mastery can flourish in service of our time's greatest needs.
Ready to Learn More?
Discover how we're putting these principles into action and why this experiment is urgently needed now.
Explore Our Mission →Our Mission: Art as Essential Infrastructure
Our mission is to demonstrate that art, when created with masterful skill and profound intention, functions as essential infrastructure for human flourishing—healing division, fostering connection, and providing the beauty and meaning necessary for a healthy society.
This is our vision: art as a public good, supported like essential infrastructure because it serves essential human needs. Technical mastery not as elitism but as service—the highest skill in pursuit of the highest purpose.
We're not just making art. We're making the case for art's highest potential.
The Urgency of Our Mission
Art has never been more needed, or more neglected. While we face unprecedented challenges—social isolation, environmental crisis, political polarization, technological disruption—the cultural response has too often been cynicism, irony, or retreat into purely aesthetic concerns.
We propose the opposite: art that meets crisis with beauty, division with connection, despair with dignity. Not art that preaches or oversimplifies, but art sophisticated enough to hold complexity while offering genuine nourishment.
What We're Racing Against
- • Loss of traditional skills as master artists age
- • Increasing cultural fragmentation and polarization
- • Mental health crisis among young people
- • Decline in shared aesthetic experiences
- • AI threatening human creative relevance
What We're Racing Toward
- • New generation of purpose-driven master artists
- • Art that actively heals community divisions
- • Creative practices proven to enhance wellbeing
- • Shared experiences of beauty and meaning
- • Human creativity as irreplaceable gift
This is not just about making beautiful objects. This is about preserving and advancing humanity's capacity for meaning-making through the highest forms of creative expression.
We're Starting a Movement
The Seattle Prize is more than a fellowship program—it's the foundation of a broader movement. We're creating a platform where artists, patrons, and communities can come together around shared values that unite rather than divide us.
A Platform for Shared Values
In a time of increasing fragmentation, we believe there are fundamental human values that transcend political and cultural boundaries. Values like the pursuit of beauty, the importance of truth, the power of love, and the dignity inherent in every person.
Instead of Division, Connection
Art that reminds us of our shared humanity rather than what separates us
Instead of Cynicism, Hope
Work that acknowledges difficulty while pointing toward healing and possibility
Instead of Exclusion, Welcome
Beauty and meaning made accessible to everyone, regardless of background
Instead of Destruction, Building
Art that contributes to human flourishing rather than just critiquing what's wrong
This movement needs a philosophical foundation—a clear understanding of what we're building toward and why. We need principles that can guide not just individual artists, but entire communities of creators and supporters who believe in art's power to heal and unite.
Why We Need a Guiding Philosophy
Art without intention is just decoration. A movement without principles is just noise. That's why we've developed what we call Rehumanism—a philosophical framework that gives artists and supporters a clear direction for creating work that truly serves.
Beauty
Not surface prettiness, but the kind of visual harmony that speaks to the soul
Truth
Honest portrayals of human experience that reveal deeper understanding
Love
Art created as a generous gift, with genuine care for the viewer's wellbeing
Rehumanism isn't about limiting artistic expression—it's about empowering it with purpose. It's about helping artists understand that their technical mastery can serve something greater than themselves, and showing supporters how to recognize and champion art that truly makes a difference.
This philosophy is integral to everything we do because it provides the foundation for building the kind of artistic community we all hunger for—one where excellence and service work hand in hand, where beauty and meaning are accessible to all, and where art becomes a force for healing rather than division.
Explore Our Philosophy
Understanding Rehumanism is key to understanding our mission. Discover how these principles can guide art toward its highest potential, and see how artists throughout history have put these values into practice.
Study Our Philosophy →What Do We Mean by "Rehumanism"?
A Simple Question
"What if art could do more than just look impressive? What if it could actually help people feel better, think more clearly, and connect more deeply?"
That simple question is at the heart of Rehumanism. It's not a rigid movement or style—it's more like a gentle invitation. An invitation for artists to combine their highest technical skills with a generous spirit, creating work that truly serves the people who encounter it.
Think of it as "art with intention"—where exceptional craftsmanship meets genuine care for human experience.
Three Simple Ideals
When we talk about Rehumanism, we're really talking about three things that most people already value deeply:
BEAUTY
Not superficial prettiness, but the kind of visual harmony that makes you pause and breathe a little deeper. Something that speaks to everyone, regardless of their background.
TRUTH
Honest portrayals of real human experience. Art that doesn't pretend or manipulate, but shows us something genuine about what it means to be human.
LOVE
Not sentiment, but genuine care. Art created as a gift to the viewer—work that considers "How can this help? How can this heal? How can this connect us?"
Why This Matters Right Now
Look around. We're living through some challenging times. People are feeling isolated, anxious, and disconnected despite being more "connected" than ever before. Political divisions seem unbridgeable. Many are questioning what really matters.
In moments like these, art has historically played a crucial role—not as decoration or intellectual exercise, but as something that actually helps. Art that reminds us we're not alone. Art that shows us beauty still exists. Art that helps us feel more human.
What We're Trying to Do
Instead of art that's only for experts, we want art that speaks to everyone.
Instead of art that divides, we want art that connects.
Instead of art that cynically reflects problems, we want art that thoughtfully offers healing.
Instead of quick, disposable content, we want art made with deep skill and intention.
Instead of art made only for personal expression, we want art created as a gift to others.
Instead of art that leaves people empty, we want art that nourishes.
What This Looks Like in Practice
If those three values—Beauty, Truth, and Love—are our foundation, how do we actually build on them? Here are the practical principles that guide Rehumanist artists:
Skill as Service
The better your technical ability, the more you can offer others. Mastery isn't about showing off—it's about having the tools to truly help and inspire.
Ask "How Does This Help?"
Before, during, and after creating, the artist considers the work's impact on the viewer. Will this bring comfort? Understanding? Joy? Connection?
Beauty for Everyone
Great art shouldn't require a PhD to appreciate. Like a beautiful sunset or moving music, the best art speaks directly to our common humanity.
Honesty Without Cruelty
Show reality, but show it with dignity. Every subject—powerful or vulnerable—deserves to be portrayed with respect for their humanity.
Create Bridges, Not Walls
In a time of division, art can remind us of what we share. Focus on universal experiences rather than what separates us.
Does It Actually Help?
The real test isn't "Is this art?" but "Does this make people's lives a little better? Does it heal rather than harm?"
Think Long-Term
Will this work still matter in fifty years? Will future generations be grateful it was created? That's the kind of lasting value we're aiming for.
Trust Human Goodness
People hunger for beauty, meaning, and connection. When you offer these genuinely, people respond—because you're feeding something real.
This Isn't New—It's a Rediscovery
We're not inventing something from scratch. Throughout history, when art has been most powerful and lasting, it's followed these same instincts: combine the highest skill with genuine care for people.
Think about the art that still moves us centuries later. It wasn't created just for the artist or just for critics—it was made to serve something larger.
What We Learn from History
Ancient Greece
Artists created beauty to honor the divine and unite communities, not just to showcase their individual talents.
Renaissance Masters
Michelangelo, Leonardo, and others combined supreme skill with spiritual and civic purpose—art in service of something greater.
19th Century Realists
Artists like Millet and Repin used masterful technique to honor working people and explore social justice—skill serving humanity.
What We Add for Our Time
Modern Understanding
We now understand more about how art affects mental health, builds community, and can actually contribute to healing.
Democratic Access
Technology lets us share meaningful art more widely than ever before, making beauty available to everyone, not just the elite.
Contemporary Urgency
In times of division and stress, we need art's healing power more than ever—but it has to be art that truly nourishes.
So What Does This Actually Mean?
Here's the thing: Rehumanism isn't really about a particular style or technique. It's about intention. It's about asking yourself, as an artist: "What if my work could actually help people?"
If You're an Artist
You don't have to paint differently or change your style. You just have to ask yourself: Could this work bring someone comfort? Could it help them see beauty in their own life? Could it remind them they're not alone?
When you start creating with that kind of generous intention, people feel it. They respond to it. Because you're offering something real.
If You Love Art
Look for work that nourishes you. Art that leaves you feeling more connected to your own humanity, more hopeful about the world, more aware of beauty around you.
Support artists who are trying to contribute something positive. When you find art that truly serves, share it. Help it reach the people who need it.
The Big Picture
Imagine if art didn't just reflect our problems but actively helped solve them. Imagine if beauty wasn't a luxury but something everyone could access. Imagine if the most skilled artists felt called to create work that heals.
That's not naive idealism—that's just art doing what it has always done at its best. We're not trying to return to the past. We're trying to help art live up to its highest potential in our time.
This is about art as a gift.
Not art as product, not art as statement, not art as career move—but art as a generous offering to the world.
Contact
We welcome inquiries from artists, journalists, and partners who share our passion for art that serves humanity.
For all inquiries, please contact us at:
info@conruartfoundation.orgVisit Our Atelier
Occidental Fine Art Center
311 1/2 Occidental Ave S
Seattle, WA 98104
Located in the heart of Pioneer Square, Seattle's historic arts district. Our beautifully restored building houses individual artist studios, collaborative workspace, and a professional gallery opening in 2025.