When Diana Adams opened Vermillion she wanted it to feel like an art opening every night. People always have fun at openings, she reasoned, but the rest of the time they don’t necessarily feel comfortable in galleries. She formulated a simple philosophy: “If you give people freedom to express themselves and treat them with respect, they will come up with the most amazing shit,” she says.
This month, Vermillion celebrates ten years as an insurgent hive of creativity and booze on Capitol Hill. The front space is devoted to visual art exhibits and a random assortment of arcade games. In the back, on any given night you’ll find a wide range of cultural happenings, from poetry readings to socialist slide talks to musical performances. It’s a hub for local hiphop emcees, DJs, and jazz musicians, a haven for visual artists operating outside the “cool kids” clique, and a last bastion of stubborn independence in a sea of velvet-roped meat markets catering to the bridge-and-tunnel crowd.
Vermillion’s continued survival on a shoestring budget seems miraculous in the face of the market forces bearing down on one of the city’s densest and most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. Adams has a surprising explanation.
“My place has been subsidized by customers who come over on the weekends from the Eastside to get way drunk and crazy,” she says, “The art is subsidized by bros, basically. It’s my favorite ironic twist to this whole situation.” Continue reading