Fall 2026

Seattle Atelier 

Fall 2026, Plein Air Season 

West Seattle

Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays 

Saturday August, 29-

10 AM-1PM

Lunch 1PM-2PM

2PM-6PM

 

We will be parking in the usual place.

We will be having lunch in the home of our host midway through the sessions before resuming work..

Feel free to contact me for more details and/or to be placed on a waiting list. 

We will be meeting here every morning this quarter, final crits of the day will take place on the back deck of our host. 

Michael 206-420-7287

 michaellanemcdonald@gmail.com 

The Art of the Nerd Reich (continued).

It is Thursday August 13, 2026, almost ten months after the arduous and costly fight to save my business and some of the proof of the attempted theft, by people closely linked to Gage Academy of Art, is still online.

Mapquest still reads that my business is operated by the evangelical, white nationalist, oligarch Andrew Conru. 

(below)

That is my business location on the map

This is the general search result (below) with a photo I took of my students, Tabitha Brown, Jennifer Small and Sabella Wells next to it.

Here’s the link:  https://www.mapquest.com/us/washington/seattle-atelier-365214677

At one time all the search engine results went to them.

The people who did this have been lying about me (and my unblemished teaching record) to people for years. 

The targeted harassment of my business got so bad (at Gage Academy of Art) and so devious that the police had to become involved. 

When a full investigation was conducted by the Seattle PD, a key independent contractor and a now former school manager were asked by Gage to move on. 

Every Gage person affiliated with Conru’s current enterprise (formerly called Seattle Atelier) are close friends with the people deemed too unethical to remain at Gage. 

Figures, huh? 

Despite all of this I am very glad and proud to have created a school for perceptual painting in Seattle.

My loyal following has sustained me over the years and I am eternally grateful to them.

Intro to Conru articles: 

“One of We Heart Seattle’s most generous benefactors helped launch a pseudoscientific racist research network. His other charitable contributions suggest he knew exactly who he was giving a $1.3 million check to. He’s given sizeable chunks of cash to the anti-immigration Center…” a.k.a. (ICE)

Article: https://www.divestspd.com/p/we-heart-seattles-donors-include

“Andrew Conru is a conservative American entrepreneur and activist. Conru is heavily involved in funding right-wing extremism around race science and sex science”

Article: https://www.transgendermap.com/people/andrew-conru/

“J. D. Vance, Gangs, and "Scientific Racism"

And you think Trump is bad...“

Article: https://beforewewerewhite.substack.com/p/j-d-vance-gangs-and-scientific-racism

“For six months, Chris met with some of the most vicious activists in the intellectual far-right, building up a picture of a powerful network. 

• The company dedicated to the advancement of race science, backed by a multimillionaire tech tycoon.”

Article: https://hopenothate.org.uk/eugenics-revival/

Harassment Campaign Against Me and My Business.

People connected to Figure Ground Art Advisors and The Conru Art Foundation recently published that I, Michael Lane, “attempt to use a teaching blog to make claims about (their) groups’ misappropriation of the name Seattle Atelier”

Do the documents created by that same group (below) show that they took the name Seattle Atelier, or not?

“Seattle Atelier provides fully funded, one-year-plus fellowships.”

“Conru…purchased Pioneer Square’s Occidental Fine Arts Building…as the future home of Seattle Atelier.”

And this, from Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, Summer 2025:

“But Holverstott isn’t abandoning Pioneer Square”