By SOPHIE BONOMI
Editor, sbonomi@soundpublishing.com
PORT GAMBLE — Suicide is never an easy topic to discuss.
Suicide in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) community seems to be even more difficult.
Students at West Sound Academy hope to open up those conversations in an alternative way, through the creation of art and music.
West Sound Academy hosts its second Listen to Your Art Festival noon to 9 p.m. Aug. 6 at the baseball fields in Port Gamble. Admission is free, but a suggested $5 donation is encouraged.
The goal of the music and arts festival is to foster open dialogue about the challenging topic, in a safe and neutral environment.
“It’s an intimate festival,” student Ben Taylor said. “Last year, we raised over $9,000 for the Trevor Project.”
The Trevor Project is the nation’s leading organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ teens and young adults. They offer resources, workshops, suicide prevention hotlines, and training for students and professionals.
All proceeds from the festival are donated to the cause.
Fundraising is open through the month of August. Sponsors, vendors, musicians, and the community are invited to participate.
West Sound Academy is an International Baccalaureate World School offering a college preparatory curriculum for middle school and high school students on the Kitsap Peninsula in Poulsbo. It provides an educational and social experience for students, with an emphasis on fine arts and sciences.
So, when the teenagers had the opportunity to develop an art festival featuring a cause for change last year, they jumped right in.
After their success of Listen to Your Art in 2015, they have enhanced the event. This year will showcase eight local bands along with a showing from a variety of local artists and restaurants. Other events include a raffle and an interactive art wall — where everyone is invited to create and buy art.
Students say they expect anywhere between 250-300 participants.
“It kind of becomes this community art project,” student event organizer Espen Swanson said of the art wall. “It changes throughout the day and is representative to what happens.”
Listen to Your Art was founded by Ben Taylor, Megan Hall, and Aidan Moore in 2015 as a way to raise money and awareness for the Trevor Project.
They say the festival has a deeper meaning to them after one of their own classmates committed suicide that same year.
“It’s a small community at West Sound,” explained Taylor. “Listen to Your Art has more of a meaning to the students now.”
“It’s really about starting those conversations with people,” Swanson said. “This fun and artistic side is interpretive of suicide. We want to create an environment to discuss it through art.”
Listen to Your Art is completely student-run and organized. Students have been preparing on top of their academic work since September. They meet weekly on Tuesdays after school to organize bands, contact artists and organize a successful advertising campaign.
After shattering all expectations last year by donating $9,000 to the Trevor Project, the students have high hopes for this year’s event.
The Listen to Your Art staff has put together a Go Fund Me page to collect donations at www.gofundme.com/84quccn8.
As of July 12, Listen to Your Art became fully funded with a generous sponsorship from the Dry Eye Company, and has transferred its full financial attention to direct donations to the Trevor Project.
In the future, the team hopes to incorporate more local artists and bands into the event. Ultimately, the staff would like to reach more people to promote the message of the Trevor Project and attend Listen to Your Art.
“The environment of this festival is pretty impactful,” Aidan Moore, recently graduated student organizer said. “In focusing on these issues there was a wide web of accepting, and open dialogue — it was comforting.”
“It’s about overcoming fear,” Taylor added. “Fear of yourself, and the fear of others around you.”
“Acceptance is really just the first step,” he said. “We need to open up the conversation and share those recourses.”
Sponsors include: The Dry Eye Company, Toland Home and Garden, Squamish Tribe, Squamish Clearwater Casino Resort.
Food vendors include, but aren’t limited to: Tizzley’s Euro Pub, Coffee Oasis and Mó Pockets.
The band lineup includes: Isthmusia, Mathew the Animal, House of Blue Leaves, Iffy Comma, Henry Mansfield and the Bearded Scooter Gang, and Mt. Lake Eleventy One.
