While Washington State may seem removed from Washington, D.C., Bellingham was not an arbitrary selection. Many Wests is the latest result of the Art Bridges Foundation, a national project based in Arkansas that partners with and financially supports museums, allowing their various partners to lend and borrow each other’s exhibits.

Art Bridges’ funding allowed SAAM to acquire works from Whatcom as well as the Boise Art Museum in Idaho, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Oregon, and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, which captures a fairly large slice of the American West. SAAM’s incorporation of pieces from several different museums from the region in a concentrated effort to feature an array of artists aligns with the exhibition’s focus on a plurality of Western voices.

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