MAKING SPACE: TAKIYAH WARD'S ART OF HISTORY, POSSIBILITY, AND PLACE
- Vivian Phillips
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 6 hours ago
by Vivian Phillips
For Takiyah “T-Dub” Ward, being an artist has never been confined to a particular medium.
“I feel like I've always been an artist,” she says. “I feel like from as young as four, when I first started doing ballet at Spectrum, you know, I was an artist. When I picked up a basketball and knew I could dribble well, I was an artist.”
For Ward, creativity has always been less about producing something and more about finding a way through.
“I've always found the most joy in figuring out ways to be creative about how I go about life,” she says. “Because there's always gonna be challenges and bumps in the road and trying to fit in and trying to find respect and acceptance and all these things. And I feel like the ways in which I've always done that is through art and through creativity.”
That expansive understanding of creativity is evident in the work Ward has created across Seattle—from dance and visual art to the monumental Central District mural that has become one of the neighborhood's most recognizable contemporary landmarks.
At Midtown Square, Ward's 120-foot mural, Central District: Not So Hidden Figures, stretches across the wall facing the Public Square, presenting a visual timeline of Black history in Seattle alongside the presence of Chief Seattle. The work emerged from a community-centered development process involving Black Dot, Africatown Community Land Trust, and the development team at Midtown Square, and from an art call centered on the themes of reverence and discovery.
For Ward, the mural was an opportunity to occupy space—literally and culturally.
As conversations about development unfolded, she remained at the table, watching the Central District change while also learning about the intentions of those involved in shaping its future.
“It's easy for us to get jaded by what we see, the rapid change, the rapid growth,” she says. “But I also think it's important for us to be a part of those conversations.”
As an artist, Ward saw another way to participate. “I'm like, okay, let me occupy this art space.”
History as Discovery
Ward's process began with research.
Born and raised in Seattle and now part of a family with five generations rooted in the city, she admits she thought she knew its history. Her mother, she says, is “straight-up griot,” able to remember people, houses and stories across generations.
Still, the research required to create the mural revealed connections she hadn't previously understood.
“I found that I learned so much from that research process,” Ward says. “I was able to take my sort of timeline and compare it to this written history and be like, ‘Oh, now I see why these things took place when they did.’”
That discovery became central to the mural.
Her goal was to bring forward stories she had not heard and place them within a larger chronology—allowing viewers to see relationships between people, events, and eras that might otherwise remain disconnected.
The mural includes figures such as labor leader and civil rights activist Larry Gossett and Seattle's early Black pioneers, including Horace Cayton, alongside other significant figures in the city's Black history like Zoe Dusanne, Seattle's first modern art gallerist and Syvilla Fort. Chief Seattle's presence acknowledges the Indigenous history that preceded the arrival and settlement of Black communities.
Ward says the research process was “pretty therapeutic” because it allowed her to see the parallels and contrasts between her own experience and the city's larger history. But the timeline is intentionally unfinished.
At the far right of the mural, near ARTE NOIR, is an expanse of blank space.
“For me, that is representative of the time before us,” Ward explains. “I think it's important for us to also consider that as much as we consider our present and our future.”
The blank space is an invitation to imagine what comes next. It also reflects Ward's concern about historical erasure.
“One of the statements that my mom made in those original meetings and design reviews was, ‘We want to see our history etched in stone because that's what Africans do,’” Ward recalls. “It just rang, and it still rings.”
The mural, she believes, can be added to and reconsidered, but its existence now creates a record for generations to come.
“I think that its essence and its existence right now is exactly what's going to be necessary for the next few generations that look back on it and be like, ‘Okay, you know, this is what it was.’”
Takiyah throughout the mural creation process at Midtown Square (top, middle + bottom images).
A Place to Be Seen
Ward's relationship with the mural is different from most of her public work. Much of her art is commissioned and experienced after she has moved on to the next project. But her studio and business, The Re-Sole 206, sit directly across from the mural.
“I've been staring at this mural nonstop for the past four years,” she says.
That proximity allows her to witness its evolution as a public gathering place.
Every time someone stops to photograph it, or poses in front of it, she says, the response is affirming. “It’s affirming that it needed to exist.”
She hopes the mural prompts more than admiration.
“I hope that the conversations people have about and around the mural are conversations of discovery,” Ward says. “I hope people are asking themselves, like, who are these people? Why are they here? Why are they important? Why are they in this order?”
For Ward, knowing where you are is part of knowing who you are.
“Regardless of if you're from a place or you just moved there, you are a part of the fabric,” she says. “You're here now. You don't get to exist above the fray. You're in it.”
That sense of rootedness is increasingly important to Ward in a rapidly changing Seattle.
“I would hope that I could be home wherever I'm at,” she says. “And how you make that connection is up to you, but how I make it is through art.”
From the Wall to The Re-Sole 206
That philosophy of creativity, community and possibility extends into The Re-Sole 206, Ward's sneaker restoration and customization business located across from the mural.
The business began modestly during the pandemic, when Ward was customizing and resoling shoes from her home. The possibility of a storefront emerged after conversations with Midtown Square developer Pat Foley, who told Ward about the development's intention to prioritize Black-owned businesses.
“He was like, ‘I know you do the customizing thing. Would you ever consider opening a store?’”
Ward wasn't necessarily looking for that next step. “But it was the invitation, honestly, that put the battery in my back,” she says.
After becoming seriously ill early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Ward had been reconsidering what she wanted her life to look like.
“I knew that whatever opportunity came my way I would have to grab it,” she says. “And that was an opportunity that came my way. So I just grabbed it.”
The Re-Sole 206 has since become more than a sneaker-care business. Its mission is to turn new and used shoes and clothing into wearable art while educating consumers about maintenance, consumption and the environmental impact of the fashion and sneaker industries.
Ward's Soles Up Entrepreneurship program introduces young people to the sneaker-care industry while also exploring its history and ecological footprint.
Her own relationship with consumption changed when she became a creator.
“If it was something that I knew I could make, I'm not going to go to the store and buy it,” she says.
Working in retail also gave Ward an early glimpse of the scale of consumer culture. She remembers standing in a stockroom surrounded by racks of clothing and realizing just how much was being produced.
Today, she sees her work differently.
“What started for me was customizing. Looking fly and looking cool,” she says. “Now I'm like, what is the actual ecological footprint of these products?”
That question has become part of her creative practice and her work with young people.
“We can consume ourselves to death if we want,” Ward says. “We can also consume ourselves to life.”
For Ward, creativity offers a way to rethink the relationship between desire, consumption and responsibility. She imagines a future in which products are designed with their entire life cycle in mind—and where the fashion and sneaker industries embrace circularity rather than waste.
Seattle as Home
Ward's creative life continues to expand. She recently became creative director of Coleman Commons, an emerging art and event space in downtown Seattle, where she is exploring new skills in curation and art direction.
She also remains focused on family, community and the possibilities that come from staying connected to place.
Five years from now, she imagines herself traveling internationally, speaking more, building The Re-Sole 206 into something larger and continuing to represent Seattle beyond the boundaries of the city.
She sees herself as an ambassador for a Seattle that outsiders often overlook.
“They come here for the coffee or the rain or the mountains, which are all wonderful,” she says. “But when I think about the people, you know, and the history and the stories and the connections that I get to partake in on a daily basis, I'm never without something to do.”
What she wants most is for Seattle's creative community to be recognized on its own terms.
“So many people get to kind of be from where they are,” she says of cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Miami. “We always have to leave to solidify what Seattle is.”
Her vision is different.
“I would rather see a situation where our stars get to be stars right here, and be respected by the world right here in Seattle.”
It is a fitting extension of the philosophy embedded in the mural across from her studio: remember where you come from, make room for what comes next, and understand that the space between those two things belongs to all of us.
For Ward, that space is where art lives. And increasingly, it is where possibility does too.
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