Nathan Vass
Nathan Vass is an artist, filmmaker, photographer, and author by day, and a Metro bus driver by night, where his community-building work has been showcased on TED, NPR, The Seattle Times, KING 5 and landed him a spot on Seattle Magazine’s 2018 list of the 35 Most Influential People in Seattle. He has shown in over forty photography shows is also the director of nine films, six of which have shown at festivals, and one of which premiered at Henry Art Gallery. His book, The Lines That Make Us, is a Seattle bestseller and 2019 WA State Book Awards finalist.
We arrive twenty minutes late at the food bank on Rainer. It's just closed. A streetwise couple hoping to go there steps off, dejected but uncomplaining. If you're two minutes late in an affluent neighborhood, you'll get an earful. People don't really do that out here; bigger fish to...
"Hey, do you know what time it is?"
Southbound Third and Marion, as the world is going home. I love it when I know people's names.
"Hey, Mr. Weyling! It's 7:17." He's a spirit I know from the late-night runs, thirties maybe, angular, with a childlike sensibility unnoticed by those distracted...
There she is. I'm swaggering onto the 7 at Genessee, like so many youngsters have done on my own bus. Just a humble passenger today. There's almost always a familiar face on board when I step on the 7. As I fistbump with Gregory, the driver, I notice a...
You're way out at the end of the route, just you and the bus, doing the turnaround in a residential setting. It's a different headspace now, miles removed from the clamor and heat of the city's vortex, out here where the stories echo only in your memory and you're...
"Wait, what kinda music?"
There'd been a long pause lasting several stops. With some folks you can comfortably switch in and out of silence during such circumstances when you know you'll be together for a while– plane flights being the prime example. With others there's this odd pressure to fill...
On a long enough timeline, all clothes worn in the elements turn brown. It's a muted shade of that hue which cloaks these two men now, but that's not to say they're lacking in personality.
"Do you go as far as Broadway?" says the first, before stepping in. I couldn't...
I feel a sense of comfort when low-income or working class people get on. Maybe it's because I come from a similar background. It might have to do with our often sharing in the outsider status of being non-white. Or perhaps it's simply because these folks are generally nicer...
I'm telling them about 12th Avenue, by way of the microphone. "Okay here's 12th Avenue, 12th, good for Youth Services, Labor Union Hall, King County Recovery. First stop for Seattle University." Part of me wants to announce the Arco gas station and the new Korean place, but I hold...