Washington State Magazine

Spring 2011

Letters in the Spring 2011 issue

Civility

Professor Cornell Clayton’s article in the winter issue, “Understanding the Civility Crisis” is thought-provoking. However, he betrays the liberal bias common to the majority of today’s college professors. All of the examples he mentions depicting “incivility” in political discourse are attributed to conservative commentators or politicians, as if the right had a monopoly on it.

Hardly. He fails to mention, for example, the current king of media incivility, MSNBC’s character assassin Keith Olbermann, who regularly violently trashes anything conservative and has in the past called President Bush a liar and told him to shut up. The current climate of political discourse was … » More …

Spring 2011

About the cover: Hinoki House by Michael Mathers

Architect Rex Hohlbein ’81 sits with clients Jim and Ann in an open sliding window of their home in Clyde Hill, Washington. The Hinoki House, a new view home in Bellevue’s 1950s Clyde Hill neighborhood, is exemplary of what has become known as “Northwest style.”

A hallmark of the house is walls made out of windows which lets in light and views of the trees, pond, and courtyard. In the living room, where the windows slide away, it opens … » More …

Winter 2010

About the cover: Civility in Politics by Joe Ciardiello

Winter 2010 cover
Avid readers of the New York Times Book Review will undoubtedly recognize the illustration style on the Washington State Magazine Winter 2010/11 issue cover is that of Joe Ciardiello. “Civility in Politics” depicts three prominent WSU alumni at the Washington state capital: State Representative Sam Hunt ’67 (left), Secretary of State Sam Reed ’63, ’68 (middle), and State Senator Linda Evans Parlette ’68 (right).

Representative Hunt represents the 22nd District which includes Olympia and surrounding areas. He is chair of the State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee, serves on the Education Committee and the Ways and … » More …

Fall 2010

About the cover: Stone City West by Robin Moline

WSM Fall 2010 cover art

The cover illustration for Washington State Magazine’s Fall 2010 issue—Cultivated Landscapes—pays homage to Grant Wood’s famous Stone City, Iowa painting of 1930. It was Wood’s first major landscape and is now on permanent display at Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum. Wood is most closely associated with the American movement of Regionalism and advanced figurative painting of rural American themes in an aggressive rejection of European abstraction.

Stone City, Iowa, Grant Wood, 1930

Stone City, Iowa was painted the same year as his seminal American Gothic. Wood by now had abandoned his earlier Impressionist-inspired … » More …