Her name is Franchesca Vargas, but everyone calls her Fancy, and when she’s not spending her time curating art galleries in Bellevue, she is curating cultural community events in Renton.
When asked how she got started in the art world, Vargas said that it actually started through protesting and her four children.
“During the [Black Lives Matter] movement, I was protesting a lot in Seattle and my older children wanted to come, but the police were way out of control, so I’m like, ‘This is not a safe option, but I still want to allow you guys to exercise your voice and understand that even as a child, you still have the power to make a difference,’” she said, referring to her kids. “So I put together a protest here in Renton specifically for children and families, where I invited the community youth to come out and basically lead the protests.”
Vargas did the organizing and the promoting, but allowed space for Renton’s youth lead the chant.
“I let them lead just the protests in general. They came out and shared art and shared how they were feeling. Some kids even wrote songs, which I thought was really cute,” she said of the protest in 2020.
From there, Vargas became involved with the Renton Arts Commission in Sept. 2020, helping with the Art Walk, and the rest was history.
“We had the art placed in all the storefront windows. We had 12 different businesses that were willing to host the Black artists that we were working with and then I was able to organize 14 different Black performance artists, with a professional videographer, and created essentially like a movie of all the performances, and four businesses played it on the loop in their flat-screen TVs,” she said.
Vargas started her own public relations business called Elevate (often written as “Elev8”) PR Management, where she is the owner and creative director.
“It’s essentially like our mothership,” she said. “Underneath that comes all the other community initiatives that we work on. CULTIVATE the Collective is our art-focused initiative where we’re providing financial and beneficial opportunities for local artists. We work with almost 100 local artists now.”
One of Vargas’ more recent gallery events was at the Bellevue Arts Museum where she curated the exhibition “Rebel Beauties 2: A Women in the Arts Showcase,” which ran from March 15 to April 24. The exhibit showcased over two dozen local female artists, some of whom are from Renton, including TheAmazonArtist and Ashley Dobson.
“She is just a cheerleader for us,” said Dobson, referring to Vargas.
Originally from Maryland, Vargas moved several times before her family settled in Washington state.
“My mom had ants in her pants and we just moved around way too much,” she said. “I went to 16 different schools before I graduated high school in Everett.”
Since settling in Renton, Vargas and her business have helped put on several key city events, including the annual Black History Forum that takes place every February and the city’s Juneteenth celebration.
She has also created several community events that celebrate Black voices in Renton and South King County from the Melanin Magic Disco in Renton to The Black Rodeo in Bellevue to the Culture Couture workshop at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, where Vargas is a guest curator.
“This is a very diverse community, which I think is an opportunity to create so, so much beauty because of the diversity,” Vargas said. “I love learning about different people’s culture and I think that education is such a wonderful way for community to be able to connect.”
To learn more, visit elevateprmanagement.com.
Artists and art-lovers alike admire the art displayed at Vargas’ “Rebel Beauties” exhibit. The piece on the far right was created by Renton’s own Ashley Dobson. Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing.
