(gentle music) (lively music) - Welcome to "The Newsfeed."

I'm Paris Jackson.

Masterful, resilient, trailblazing, describe the stories of Black Seattle Visual artists, musicians, playwrights, and painters from the past and present, some of whom you may have never heard about until now.

- [Tifa] These are necessary conversations.

- [Artist 1] Ideas come from everywhere.

- "Cascade PBS" is launching the new fourth season of "Black Arts Legacies,' a mixed-medium storytelling project.

The series director and producer, Tifa Tomb reflects on who and what makes this project a must-see.

(energetic music) - [Artist 2] We're in an interesting time.

A time where people are at least listening and open to hearing more diverse stories.

- What stands out to you when you reflect on these past four years?

- Honestly, it's been a joy and a challenge and I'll tell you why.

The joy part has been just getting to sit down and talk to artists, and just really be curious about their processes, their struggles, and their triumphs.

I don't know if people always have the chance to tell their stories.

And so, just having someone sit across from you and be curious about who you are and how you came to the place that you are in your life right now, and talk about, give you the chance to talk about something you're actually really passionate about, that you do day in and day out, I think has been really powerful to stand in as a witness.

It's been difficult as an editor just to tell the smallest parts of their stories.

'Cause we own, each episode's only like eight minutes long.

So it's been really tough to condense like the totality of their careers and their practice in just that short amount of time.

'Cause there's a couple of them that I'm thinking of that I feel like need full-length documentaries.

- One of the goals was to explore the facets of Black Seattle artists and the commonalities, you know, were there anything that was connected, a connectivity among them that you found?

- Yeah, I think one of the strongest connections that I feel like all of the artists had, was this sense of gratitude to community and to family.

So, I think the life of an artist can be difficult, especially monetarily, especially like continuing to do things even when you're like in the face of a lot of nos and things don't seem to line up, and it seems like all of the artists credited the people that were close to them with encouraging them to keep going.

- [Artist 2] It's within me to be a creator, a maker of something.

- Was there any artist that have over this time that you've been connected to the project that stuck out?

- Yes, so there's a couple I'm really excited about, and I want everybody to know.

Tina Bell is considered the Godmother of Grunge music.

So Seattle's really known for grunge music.

She predates Nirvana in terms of style and sound, and she's passed on, but really encouraged people to go back and listen to her music.

(lively music) ♪ This side of ground zero ♪ ♪ Doing time with Stevie and Frank ♪ - Not to give too much away, but what can you share that can give folks a taste of what's to come?

- I think you can expect to be surprised honestly.

Some of the work that we profiled this season, it kind of defies what you might expect from a smaller art scene.

But the pieces that these artists put together, they're so intentional and they're so breathtaking.

(gentle music) - I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching "The Newsfeed," your destination for nonprofit Northwest News, go to cascadepbs.org for more great local coverage.

(lively music)