The Fishbowls Seattle is a gallery space in Uptown focused on QTBIPOC accessibility to art. I started with facilities support by supporting art handling, organization, patching & painting, and installation support. I now also work with a larger group of volunteers on community outreach by contacting potential partners, organizing poster hanging for events, welcoming new attendees and volunteers, and participating in grant writing for the space.

I led the marketing committing from August 2024-December 2024 where I managed 6 volunteers who covered graphic design, video production, copy writing, photography, and more. Our responsibilities include sending out our monthly newsletter, managing our instagram content, updating our linktree and eventbrite, and creating physical advertising materials. Over my 5 month period we increased our followers by +23% (+750 followers), increased reach by +54.3%, increases engagement by +76.1% (+85% on posts, +26.4% on reels). We’ve also increased total number of posts month over month (August: 14, September: 22, October: 30, November: 25, December: TK). Some highlight accomplishments include improving the overall color story month over month on the instagram feed, maintaining set posting timelines for our newsletter and monthly events posts for our community, and posting calls for art and vending opportunities earlier allowing for more time for our community to create work. We also created our first ever Holiday Gift Guide highlighting our communities work!

I co curated a show with 3 friends which took place at Slide Gallery. “Contaminated water, people living on the streets, the rich host parties while people are dying; social media ingrained into everyday life, showing bombings from across the sea. And we just live our lives, business as usual. People passing one another everyday, communities crumble into individualism. We are living in a mundane dystopia. This show seeks to highlight the many different dystopian realities we are living in and highlighting the absurdity of what has become normal.”

Coming soon

ACES is a BIPOC-led community-curated program presented by Shunpike. They come together with intentionality to value our work and see the community and one another as resources while focusing on the challenges and solutions we face as artists of color in the Pacific Northwest.

I was able to debut my pieces “Rice Farmer” and “Rice Bazaar.”

ACES is a BIPOC-led community-curated program presented by Shunpike. They come together with intentionality to value our work and see the community and one another as resources while focusing on the challenges and solutions we face as artists of color in the Pacific Northwest.

I was able to debut my pieces “Rice Farmer” and “Rice Bazaar.”

Amazon Expressions Studio held a show for Amazonian Artist to share their work. I showed 2 pieces – “Lightbulbs” and “Bookshelf” – which I used to have on my deck in my office.

Page Tuner was a show focused on the viewer “turning a page” in order to see the other side of a piece. The exhibit was interactive and I submitted 2 pieces “Where Stories Take Us” and “A Window into our Future/”

The show “Cowboys and Campfires” was a celebration of summer and the wild wild west. I created a piece called “Cowgirls and Indians” to flip the idea of traditional wester cowboys and Native Americans on its head. She’s a jewel thief out to steal from the rich.

My Name Story was a show about Asian American women and their relationship to their names. I participated in My Name Story as a featured story and also participated on the closing artist panel.

I created a piece for this show titled “Tiffins and TacoBell.” Making sure someone has a hot meal is such a quintessential part of love, but over the years it’s taken different forms. My parents would use tiffins to pack lunches for work or leftovers for their friends. These little capsules of home cooked food are made with love and care. My form of doing this is buying my friends and siblings their favorite food, particularly Taco Bell. Taco Bell has a deep history of feeding Indian immigrant families through the 90s and 2000s due to its low cost and wide variety of vegetarian options. Many Asian families grew up eating there and it is a familiar and consistent meal to many. Knowing someone’s order and getting them a late night bite after a stressful day is my favorite way to show love. I juxtaposed the traditional image with classic henna application and the modern interpretation with a tattoo styles application.

Just Keep Swimming was the 1 year celebration show for The Fishbowl Seattle in Uptown. I created a large koi fish in honor of this special place!

Soft Animals was a community show that challenges artist to make 2 pieces in a call and response form. I created me 2 favorite childhood drinks.

Feb 2, 2024 – Feb 24, 2024

Have You Eaten is a multi-pronged investigation of the Asian diaspora relationship to identity, otherness, and belonging. What does it mean to be from neither here, nor there? To be both of this place yet not completely, with traces of your you-ness from a different land, in a different tongue, where the sun feels different and perhaps closer. Where a familiar face is followed by “Have you eaten?” and an offering of a morsel to take with you. Where, exactly, do you belong? How have you come to know the feeling of belonging, or not? Where is your home, and what makes it thus? What transports you there? Or how have you created a sense of home, or felt the absence of one? Is home tied to a specific place? Person? Sound? Flavor? Smell? 

At HYE part 3, I showed 4 pieces – Space Noodle (sculpture), Space Noodle (Digital), Rice Bird, and Koi Fish.

An inclusive art exhibit at Slip art gallery focused on miniature art (any work under 9”). All proceeds of sales went to Vibrant Pallet.

Gentry Grasping was a show focused on interactive, touchable pieces. I showed my piece “The Void,” a stark, white textured piece.

Nepantla held an end of year under $150 show in their cultural art gallery. This piece was inspired by a painting of a humming bird and cactus featured at Nepantla the first time I visited the space. I was happy to sell this piece during this show.

“Hummingbird”

The Fishbowl White Elephant community show was the outcome of a “Pitch Party” event which I hosted two months prior. Pitch Party brought together dozens of community members to share gallery theme concepts. The White Elephant theme was proposed by Derya Gumustel and it was picked up by Rya Wu of the Fishbowl. I support execution logistics, gallery set up, and day of hosting for the event. The show brought over 40 local artists together and raised over $500 for a Palestine relief fund. I contributed 2 pieces for the show, “Waffle” made of acrylic and “My Garden” made of glass bottles, dry, dried flowers, rice, lentils, tea, and other dried goods.

“Waffle”

“My Garden”

Shifting Sands was a community show open to anyone. I created a textured mixed media piece out of multi colored wild rice and mung beans.

Unwritten was a community show open to anyone in the community. I created a textured acrylic flowers inspired by the color of Pike Place tulips in May.

Have You Eaten is a multi-pronged investigation of the Asian diaspora relationship to identity, otherness, and belonging. What does it mean to be from neither here, nor there? To be both of this place yet not completely, with traces of your you-ness from a different land, in a different tongue, where the sun feels different and perhaps closer. Where a familiar face is followed by “Have you eaten?” and an offering of a morsel to take with you. Where, exactly, do you belong? How have you come to know the feeling of belonging, or not? Where is your home, and what makes it thus? What transports you there? Or how have you created a sense of home, or felt the absence of one? Is home tied to a specific place? Person? Sound? Flavor? Smell? 

I created a piece for this show titled “Tiffins and TacoBell.” Making sure someone has a hot meal is such a quintessential part of love, but over the years it’s taken different forms. My parents would use tiffins to pack lunches for work or leftovers for their friends. These little capsules of home cooked food are made with love and care. My form of doing this is buying my friends and siblings their favorite food, particularly Taco Bell. Taco Bell has a deep history of feeding Indian immigrant families through the 90s and 2000s due to its low cost and wide variety of vegetarian options. Many Asian families grew up eating there and it is a familiar and consistent meal to many. Knowing someone’s order and getting them a late night bite after a stressful day is my favorite way to show love. I juxtaposed the traditional image with classic henna application and the modern interpretation with a tattoo styles application.

“Tiffins and TacoBell”

Basecamp’s June show showcased artwork related to the theme of “The Title is Thick” which encouraged artists to used thick, textured paint to create sculpture-like work. I created a piece titled “The Egg” for this show. This piece was created with molding paste and acrylic.

”The Egg”

Basecamps 1st Anniversary show challenged artist to showcase celebration. I submitted a digital piece titles “Party Taco” for the occasion. This piece sold on opening night of this show!

”Party Taco”

Eggshells and Coffee Grounds was a show celebrating what makes up all human. It was “A Space Inside’s” debut community show. I showed 3 pieces for this show, including “Garba Girl,” “Not So Space Needles” and “Mother Earth.”

Nepantla’s show “Art of Movement” challenge artists to show works showcasing social justice movements. I displayed and sold my piece “The Ferocity of Women,” inspired by feminine rage. This piece is part of a larger series of digital works capturing angry women.

”The Ferocity of Women”

Neptantla is a Nahuatl (Aztec language) term which describes being in the middle or the space in the middle. Most often the term references endangered communities, cultures, or gender who due to colonialism/marginalization or historical trauma, that engages in resistance strategies of survival. I showed 2 pieces, “Blinded by Gold” and “Peacock” in this show.

coming soon

I participated in a one night sake tasting event where I was able to share my koi fish piece made of rice. What better medium to enter a sake night around than rice!

I shared my paintings and punch needle pieces as a local children’s clothing store and was a featured artist for April Capitol Hill Artwalk.

”Pineapple” “Lightbulbs” “Bamboo”

I had the honor of showing 20 original pieces at Victrola Coffee in Beacon Hill. This show ran for a month and was my first solo show in a single place. I sold one piece titles “The Egg” at this show.

Elliott Bay Book Store held a design competition for their 50th Anniversary and I had the honor of being chosen to share my work on the bookstores tote bags!

”Story Ship”

Coming soon

King 5’s Gloria Angelin met with me to discuss my series of food related pieced. She featured “Space Noodle” along with my series of Rice Farmer pieces. For their feature story: “Yaminee Patel creates art honoring where food comes from. Patel connects her South Asian and American backgrounds to turn food into art. #newdaynw.”

View the full story on King5 here or YouTube here.

My Name Story is a portrait-video project that examines the AANHPI experience through the lens of our names at the intersection of race, gender and class. This project explores themes of identity, belonging, and reclamation in a country that oftentimes labels AAPIs as the other and perpetual foreigner. The project includes women from different generations, ethnicities and experiences who have had, at one point or another, struggles with their names and the meanings attached to them. I had the honor of sharing my story along with 9 other incredible Asian American women.

See my name story here.

See article here.

Summer internship highlight on GeekWire.com. I talk about being an intern during the 2020 covid pandemic. View full article here.

Moderated a panel of 3 artists for a Fishbowl exhibit titled “Unwoven: Threads of American Identity.” I spoke with artist Val Espinal, Kri Yamada, and Maria Zamora about their pieces in the show and their connection to what being American means to each of them. They each help unique experiences as individuals who are non binary, queer, disabled, immigrant, or children of immigrants. It was an honor to hold space for these artists!

I hosted 2 Pitch Parties which acted an opportunity for artists with little to no curation experience to pitch an idea for an exhibit. I worked to match their ideas with local galleries to help them come to life. This program brough 2 shows to life at The Fishbowl include a community shows “White Elephant” in Dec 2023 and “Page Turner” in June 2024. White Elephant was such as success we brought the show back for a Part 2 in December 2024. These shows kicked off the Fishbowl Guest Curator Program which gave artists their first opportunity to curate a show with the support of Fishbowl Volunteers and completely free of cost. I supported our guest curated shows “Sunbleached” and “Comfi.Space” through marketing materials. I hope to see more artists get their very first opportunity to share work with this kind of support!