SURROUNDED BY SISTERS: RHONDA LEWIS FINDS CONNECTION, JOY, AND INSPIRATION IN ART
- Vivian Phillips
- 12 hours ago
- 7 min read
by Vivian Phillips
Like many Black people who came to Seattle in search of opportunity and a different kind of life, Rhonda Lewis arrived without knowing exactly what she would find. She found a city that would eventually become home—and a creative community that would profoundly shape how she saw it.
"Collecting art is a way of finding joy,"
Lewis had never been to Seattle when a group of women she met through a YWCA fundraising effort invited her to join them on a trip. Originally from Oklahoma, where she remained through college, Lewis had initially hoped to make her way to San Francisco. But attempts to find employment that would support a Bay Area lifestyle stalled.
Seattle was essentially a cold call.
Her only connection to the region was an uncle who had spent a short time at Fort Lewis. Otherwise, she had little reason to believe Seattle would become home. She figured that if things didn't work out, Oklahoma would always be there.
Still, she came.
"I'd heard that Seattle was a very easy place to live and that people got along well," Lewis recalls. "I was told that in Seattle you are not isolated to one particular neighborhood or a particular school."
Lewis arrived in Seattle in 1978, a decade after passage of the federal Fair Housing Act and shortly after Washington State enacted legislation addressing discriminatory lending practices. Seattle's Black community was still relatively concentrated, particularly in the Central District, and the city was continuing to grapple with the legacy of housing discrimination and segregation.
More than four decades later, Lewis has become deeply woven into the region's civic and cultural fabric.
In December 2025, Lewis was appointed to the Martin Luther King, Jr. County Council, representing District 2 and becoming the first African American woman to hold the position. Her appointment followed Girmay Zahilay's election as County Executive. But Lewis was hardly new to county government. Before joining the Council, she served as Zahilay's Chief of Staff and as Chief of Operations for Executive Dow Constantine, where she oversaw nine departments and approximately 12,000 employees. She also served as Director of Equity and Social Justice for Public Health—Seattle & King County and helped lead the development of King County's Equity and Social Justice Strategic Plan.
Her public career has been grounded in people, relationships, equity, and a strong sense of history.
Those same qualities are visible in another part of her life: her relationship with art.
A FIRST ENCOUNTER
Lewis can pinpoint the beginning of her collecting journey.
"Shortly after I moved here, I went to Mount Zion Baptist Church, and there is this beautiful textile piece behind the pulpit that captured my eye. That's where it started," she says.
The piece she remembers is the appliquéd tapestry designed by Larry Metcalf, then a professor of art at Seattle Pacific University. Commissioned by the Mount Zion Building Committee, the tapestry was created for the church's Afrocentric sanctuary, completed in 1975. Suspended above the baptistery and serving as a focal point of the sanctuary, its imagery carries layers of spiritual meaning, including the Eye of God, rainbow, dove, water, hyssop, and fish.
For Lewis, the work was more than something beautiful to look at. It was an introduction—to the power of art to tell stories, create identity, and make a place feel like home.
Her immersion in Seattle's creative community deepened through relationships. A friendship with Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates exposed Lewis to artists and creative experiences throughout the city. She saw theater at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, experienced the Paul Robeson Theater and Black Arts/West, and encountered Pettiford-Wates' Conciliation Project.
Then came travel.
A trip to Europe broadened Lewis' understanding of art and deepened her appreciation for the work of Black women artists. Her growing exposure to artists, performances, exhibitions, and creative communities eventually became something more personal.
She began collecting.
COLLECTING COMMUNITY
Lewis' collection is not simply an accumulation of beautiful objects. In many ways, it is a record of her relationships and experiences.
The wall facing her desk features an array of prints of Black women positioned almost like sentinels watching over her work. Their presence seems to invite her eyes to rest on their reflections—to pause, find guidance, and renew herself.
Artists Fin'es Scott and Cristina Martinez are among those represented.
For Lewis, the art is far more than decoration. It is inspiration.
She describes the feeling of being surrounded by a group of sister protectors—women whose presence, even through their representation in art, reminds her of strength, creativity, resilience, and possibility.
As her experiences with the arts grew, so did her desire to collect. What began with the textile at Mount Zion Baptist Church evolved into an intentional practice of discovering and supporting the extraordinary creative talent found throughout King County.
"Collecting art is a way of finding joy," Lewis says.
And joy matters.
Especially in a life devoted to public service, where the demands of leadership can be relentless, the art surrounding Lewis offers moments of reflection and renewal.
But the collection does something else, too. It opens doors.
ART AS A BRIDGE
People who enter Lewis' office often notice the artwork before anything else. They ask questions.
Who is the artist?
What's the story behind the piece?
Where can they see more of the artist's work?
A conversation begins.
For Lewis, those moments are more than pleasant exchanges about art. They are opportunities to build relationships.
As a policymaker, she understands that effective leadership requires breaking down barriers—between elected officials and constituents, between communities, and sometimes between people who arrive in the room with very different perspectives.
Her art collection becomes an unexpected tool for doing exactly that.
A piece on the wall can become a point of connection where a policy conversation might otherwise begin with distance.
The approach is consistent with how Lewis thinks about her role on the County Council. She has watched District 2 evolve and understands that the Black community is no longer as geographically concentrated as it once was.
In addition to her service to both County Executive Constantine and Council member Zahilay, Lewis had the opportunity to observe notable King County Council member Larry Gossett, who served on the Council from 1994 - 2020, representing District 10, which was redrawn and expanded, becoming District 2 during his tenure.
"Larry was dealing with a whole different set of issues and social activism was at the core," Lewis says. "The Black community was more concentrated at the time, and there was a legacy-minded approach to policy."
Lewis believes that legacy remains important, perhaps even more so as the Black community has become increasingly dispersed throughout the region.
Her approach is to bring people into the process.
"Rather than just read a proclamation on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, I've brought in groups like Rainier Scholars to talk about their work, or on Juneteenth I've brought in a member of the Northwest African American Museum board to talk about what that organization is doing," she says. "I'm very intentional about adding real people to the record along with proclamations."
That instinct—to move beyond symbols and bring real people into the room—is also evident in her relationship with art.
A DISTRICT ALIVE WITH CREATIVITY
District 2 is enormous and remarkably diverse, encompassing the University District, Laurelhurst, Ravenna, Eastlake, Capitol Hill, the Central District, South Seattle, Allentown, and Skyway.
Each community has its own history, personality, and creative expression. Lewis is eager to understand it all. She speaks enthusiastically about the creative life she encounters across the district: hearing about the Green family and the creative community surrounding Wa Na Wari; supporting high school students pursuing their theater dreams through a student production of Jesus Christ Superstar; and seeking out the artists, makers, performers, and cultural organizations that contribute to the character of the communities she represents.
For Lewis, these aren't peripheral interests. They are part of understanding the district. And collecting art becomes another way of paying attention.
Every artwork represents an encounter—with an artist, a place, an idea, a story, or a moment.
In that sense, Lewis isn't simply collecting art.
SHE'S COLLECTING INTENTIONS
Connections to artists.
To Black history.
To Seattle.
To women.
To places.
To moments in her own life.
And those connections continue to inform how she sees her role as a public servant.
MAKING ROOM FOR CREATIVITY
When asked what the creative community in District 2 can do, the question opens onto something larger than the role of art in her office.
For Lewis, creativity is not peripheral to the health of a community. Artists help communities understand themselves, tell their stories, preserve memory, create connection, and imagine what comes next.
Her own journey illustrates that evolution.
She arrived in Seattle knowing almost no one. A chance invitation brought her here. A church textile caught her eye. Friendships introduced her to theater and other forms of creative expression. Travel expanded her understanding of art. Artists became part of her world. Collecting became a source of joy.
And now, decades later, the art surrounding her has become part of how she connects with the people she serves. There is something fitting about that.
Lewis came to Seattle because she had heard it was a place where people got along, where you weren't necessarily isolated by neighborhood or school.
She found that sense of connection through people—and eventually through art.
Now the women on the wall face her every day, watching over her work like sentinels. They offer beauty, inspiration, memory, and perhaps a little protection.
And when someone walks into her office and asks about the art, another connection is made.
A CONVERSATION BEGINS
For Rhonda Lewis, perhaps that is the greatest value of collecting: not simply surrounding herself with beauty, but creating another pathway toward understanding one another.
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