Arts reporter and critic Rosemary Ponnekanti keeps you in touch with the arts and culture scene with the help of other News Tribune writers, critics and editors.
Rosemary Ponnekanti is the arts reporter at The News Tribune, and has been a classical music nerd nearly all her life. Besides spending way too much time in galleries, museums and concert halls, she occasionally brings a whistle or double bass to Celtic jam sessions, and insists on singing "Happy Birthday" in four-part harmony.
Other contributors include:
> Arts & entertainment editor Craig Sailor
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The call to redesign Tacoma Art Museum's plaza and perimeter garnered 95 submissions. And now TAM has winnowed those down to six design firms, it announced today.
Submissions for the $3 million project were received by individuals and firms from Tacoma to New York.
The shortlist of finalists are BCRA (Tacoma), the design team led by E. Cobb Architects (Seattle), Johnson Architecture and Planning LLC (Seattle), Mithūn (Seattle), NBBJ (Seattle), and Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen & Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture (Seattle).
The museum wanted the proposals to address landscape, art and signage elements to increase visibility and approachability.
The museum’s Plaza Redesign Task Force reviewed the submissions and determined the finalists. Task Force chair Steve Barger said, “The submissions showed impressive creativity and a wide variety of approaches. The selection process was arduous. We now look forward to meeting the finalists for interviews on July 9.”
TAM will announce a finalist sometime this fall.
Don't look now, but there are aliens in the library.
Facetious, maybe, but on first sight, that's what Justin Hahn's sculptures in the main branch's Handforth Gallery look like. Four of them have skeletons of steel rod, draped with melted green or white plastic with the texture of goop. Another is a chunky bronze with clunky white polycarbonate hands like minstrel gloves. A bunch of others are tiny stick-figure people about a foot high with steel rod bodies.
Fun for the kids, maybe. But Hahn's work is more than just a sci-fi film set. His skill at working metal and polymers shows in the delicate machinery of the Dresden figures--two adult-and-child couples built of bent rods attached with hinges, clips, wires and whatnot to achieve a slightly apologetically hunched look. Taller than humans, with protruding round alien bug-eyes, the figures wear melted plastic for flesh, their anatomy just deformed enough to make you look twice. Their brains look carefully sculpted out of red shiny play-dough. Benevolent, they're frozen in the act of wandering through life, slightly bemused and almost pitiable in their warped plasticity.
Across the room, "BPA Hyatt" is a bronze man with plastic-coated hands. Hahn, who works daytimes in the Bronze Works, has manipulated the metal into Cubist chunks, the man faceless and chestless, with cancerous protuberances. The white coating on his hands, held out as if desperately begging, is the contaminant Bisphenol-A polycarbonate.
What's the point here? Hahn, a plastics engineer and self-confessed plastic geek, is showing us ourselves. Deformed and diseased, our bodies have taken on our plastic consumption.
In the corner of the gallery is a different set of bodies. In collaboration with Steve Kanick, Hahn has created tiny stick figures of steel, who earnestly rearrange Kanick's polymer chairs, pressed and molded like bronze relief.
Also on show is metal sculpture by Marsha Glaziere and Steve Barnard. The show is part of MetalUrge, and is open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays through August 29. The Handforth Gallery is at the Tacoma Public Library's main branch, 1102 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma. 253-591-5666, www.tacomapubliclibrary.org</div>
AACTFest: the best of community theater
Community theater groups from around the country gathered this week in Tacoma for the biennial AACTFest; there are three public performances left. 1:30 p.m. today: “Nine” and “Catfish Moon.” 7:30 p.m. today: “Minnesota Moon” and “Intimate Apparel.” 7:30 p.m. tomorrow: “John and Jen” and “Hold Me.” $7. Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway, Tacoma. 253-591-5894, www.broadwaycenter.org, www.aactfest09.org
Nancy Worden’s “Loud Bones” at TAM
The work of Seattle jewelry artist Nancy Worden makes a good complement to the Drutt collection now on display at Tacoma Art Museum. Opens today. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. third Thursdays, noon-5 p.m. Sunday through Sept. 20. $7.50/$6.50/five and under free, third Thursdays free. 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma. 253-272-4258, www.tacomaartmuseum.org
“Buddy” closes at TLT
“Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story,” a musical on the life of the rocker legend, closes this weekend at Tacoma Little Theatre. 8 p.m. tonight and tomorrow, 2 p.m. Sunday. $18-$22. 210 N. I St., Tacoma. 253-272-2281, www.tacomalittletheatre.com
Bags and cans at Envirohouse
At the latest Envirohouse recycled art show, Lucy Carpenter sculpts a human organ from plastic bags and Lorna Scruggs takes African inspiration for tin can art. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Saturday-Sunday. Free. Tacoma Landfill, 3510 S. Mullen St., Tacoma. 253-573-2426, www.cityoftacoma.org/EnviroHouse
Big news for the BareFoot Collective: the contemporary dance company and its studio is moving into the Merlino Arts Building on the corner of 6th Avenue and S. Fawcett Street to share space with Tacoma City Ballet. The move will begin next week, and a farewell brunch to the old space at 1604 Center St.
It's a perfect fit. Tacoma City Ballet has a wonderfully large, airy studio with sprung wood floors, enormous windows and 19th-century atmosphere, plus two other rehearsal studios. But they, like most arts groups lately, have been feeling the pinch of the recession. BareFoot, meanwhile, have been producing great events (like the SiteWorks dance festival outside the Museum of Glass in June and regular cutting-edge contemporary dance concerts in the studio) but their Center Street location, near Party World and Tacoma Screw, wasn't exactly a happening arts precinct (or even easy to find.)
The companies will be sharing space and the upcoming 2009/10 season. While the move is happening, BareFoot will be offering just one class, an all-levels contemporary dance class at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays at the Merlino, 508 6th Ave., Tacoma. Their usual busy teaching schedule will resume in fall.
Meanwhile, fans of the chartreuse-and-violet-painted Center Street studio get the chance to say farewell at a BareFoot Brunch this Sunday. At 1 p.m. Carrie Goodnight will lead a masterclass in modern dance, followed by a potluck brunch.
For more information, call 253-627-2273 or visit www.barefootcollective.org. For info on Tacoma City Ballet, call 253-272-4219 or visit www.tacomacityballet.com
In the ongoing battle to convince the rest of the world that Tacoma is something more than an affordable Seattle suburb with high crime rates, our art community--led by the indefatiguable Lynn Di Nino--has come up with a brilliant idea: postcards of Tacoma, showing us as a place where art, beauty and humor meet, along with a good dose of sarcastic self-deprecation.
Picture Tacoma is a series of artist-designed postcards about our fair city. They've been on sale for a couple of months now at museums, galleries and bookstores around town, and they range from the simply appreciative (Peter Serko's twilight meditation on the Bridge of Glass) to subversively suggestive (Di Morgan Graves' "Tacoma-we've got balls") to conceptual (Rick Semple's collage of local staircases epitomizing the "City of Destiny.") Newest on the block, and not yet on the website, is Beautiful Angle's noir take on Death in Tacoma.
According to Di Nino, the postcards fill a big vacuum. "I was in the Hotel Murano gift shop and realized that all the postcards were of Seattle," she explains. "It was really insulting. So I looked around town and only found a couple of Tacoma, and those were out-of-date."
So Di Nino invited the art community to step up to the plate. So far there are 21 individual cards, which sell for $1 each in stores. The artists get back 50c of this, although some are donating their profits to the Emergency Food Network. Kristie Worthey at the Tacoma Art Museum gift shop says the cards are selling extremely well: Number One on the list is Morgan Graves' effort, which has been reordered several times.
"The cards carry the unique Tacoma spirit," says Di Nino. Which is? "A cross between artist and blue collar."
You can celebrate the Picture Tacoma artists' postcard project at a launch party this Sunday from 4-8 p.m. at the Grand Impromptu Gallery, 608 S. Fawcett St., Tacoma, where the artists will be on hand to sign cards.
If you're in downtown Seattle this week, drop by Vetri International (the up-and-coming-artist wing of Traver Gallery) to see the work of Tacoma jewelry artist Lisa Kinoshita.
Kinoshita operates very modestly out of a tiny storefront studio on Puyallup Ave called Mineral, but her work makes appearances on local catwalks and national fashion magazines. Working with fascinatingly gorgeous natural objects like horn, bone, insect carapace and the like, Kinoshita creates intricate settings with silver and leather to create jewelry that's both chunky and elegant.
Showing at Vetri is long overdue but a great step for the Tacoma artist. A lot of it is newer work, and, as the title "Non-Precious" says, focuses on non-traditional materials. A spiral-shelled ammonite fossil from the Moroccan desert, rough-cut stones, big wooden or glass beads polished to a sheen take on the worth of gemstones. As the press release puts it, "The work moves from purely functional, elegant body adornment to reverent contemplation of the natural source of the materials, and the importance of these resources in this world of diminishing reserves."
The show closes Sunday, so don't wait. But if you miss it, you can still see Kinoshita's work at Mineral, where she'll also be creating a chastity belt for the Mineral MetalUrge show in late July.
Vetri: 1404 First Ave., Seattle. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 206-667-9608, www.vetriglass.com
Mineral: 301 Puyallup Ave. Suite A, Tacoma. noon-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. 253-250-7745, www.lisakinoshita.com</div>
The 100th Monkey art community party is on again, and this month it's at Old City Hall next Wednesday night. For those who haven't managed to go yet, here's the deal: Turn up with some food or drink to share, some art (if you're an artist) and prepare to meet some new folks. Result? You'll have a great time. You can also buy artist-made tiles and enjoy free music and performance art. And if you buy the 100th tile, you get to host the party next time! (Hence the name.)
So what's special about this 100th Monkey?
Well, the venue. Until now, these parties have been at bookstores, warehouses, theaters, churches or other large spaces. This time, the space has practical possibilities for artists. Faced with a recession, The Stratford Co., who bought Old City Hall, have stopped their whole expensive condo idea and realized that, actually, some regular tenants would be nice. But they kicked out the old tenants. You can read all about it here , thanks to former TNT reporter Dan Voelpel. So now, in an attempt to revitalize the gorgeous red-brick Italianate building, they're hoping artists will see it as a perfect location for a studio. Rents are apparently running between $14-$18 per square foot.
And what better way to advertise to the art community than holding a party there? Thanks to artist collective guru Linda Danforth, who suggested the whole idea to The Stratford's consultant David Morton, Tacoma artists can get a good look at the place while partying away. The party will be held on the main floor, where the apartments/offices have been refurbished, but the upper floors (including that drop-dead-view penthouse suite under the clock) will be on tour.
"The feel of the place is absolutely awesome," says Monkey coordinator Sue Pivetta.
Other good things about this Monkey include Celtic rock band Jug of Punch , and tile artists Dawn Palmer, Judy Gilbert and Di Morgan. And it's all thanks to host Jeannine Sigafoos, of Tacoma Glassblowing Studio.
The 100th Monkey will be from 7:30-9:30 p.m. June 24 at Old City Hall, 625 Commerce St, Tacoma. Info: www.100thmonkeytacoma.com
For the fourth year, The Grand Cinema is holding its Tacoma Film Festival: one week of arthouse, indie, foreign and (especially) Northwest-made film. And once again, local artists get the chance to design the poster, which will be displayed all over the city. Last year's entries ranged from an Earth goddess with a camera to a black-and-white of the SR509 bridge to a Terry Gilliam-esque Tacoma in the sky.
You can see the full list at www.thenewstribune.com/944/story/442829.html
So here's the deal for this year's competition. Deadline is July 20. All entries will be displayed at The Grand, and will receive four movie passes. The winner will receive $350, two festival passes, a joint member to The Grand, and a lot of fame and glory.
The design needs to include this information:
2009 Tacoma Film Festival
October 1-8, 2009
www.TacomaFilmFestival.com
Plus space at the bottom for at least 10 sponsor logos
Please send entries via an electronic format (pdf, jpeg, etc.) to rachel@grandcinema.com that can be reproduced into 11x17 posters. Or you can mail a finished 11x17 printed poster via mail (or drop it off) at 606 S. Fawcett St., Tacoma.
For more information contact Rachel Marecle, Community Development Director at 253-572-6062.
PLUS: There's still time to get in an actual film entry. Deadline is June 30. See www.grandcinema.com/page.php?id=43 for details.
The makers of this UFO I found crashed next to the runway at the Vashon Island airport over the weekend were obviously smart enough to make it to Earth.
Unfortunately, no one told them about rust.
You just never know where you'll find public art.
In the world of mixed media, this is something new to me. UP for Art (a University Place public art advocate group) and the Chambers Bay Golf Course are sponsoring the contest Up "Fore!" Art. They're asking for two- or three-dimensional art submissions comprised at least 25 per cent of golf accoutrements. Think Duchamp with golf clubs. Or a Damien Hirst skull with golf balls in all orifices. A pointilist tee collage. Lots of possibilities.
The prize is , the deadline June 17 for applications and July 31 for artwork. Entry is $10 for 17 and under, $15 for adults, and $20 for groups. Prizes are $100, $50 and $25 in each category, plus gift certificates to the golf course. There will also be a People's Choice prize. The contest will be held in conjunction with the UP festival on July 31 and August 1-2. See www.upforart.org for details and application form.
Dancing on the Plaza: SiteWorks
The second SiteWorks dance festival brings 14 contemporary dance groups to the plazas outside the Museum of Glass. 4 p.m. today, 2 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday. Free. 1801 Dock St., Tacoma. 253-627-2273, www.barefootcollective.org
Heavy metal at Traver
Traver Gallery joins the city-wide celebration of metal-made art, a.k.a. MetalUrge, in its eponymous show featuring four metal artists. Includes upcoming Tacoma Art Museum-featured jewelry artist Nancy Worden. Opens 5-8 p.m. tomorrow through Sept. 6. Free. 1821 Dock St., Tacoma. 253-383-3685, www.travergallery.com
Float your boat at ArtWalk
Next Thursday’s ArtWalk takes on a summer twist as Tacoma Art Museum holds float races down the water feature at Tollefson Plaza to celebrate the reinstallation of Chihuly’s glass floats in their courtyard. Make your own floating sculpture or just watch, then cruise the galleries. ArtWalk 5-8 p.m. June 18 at various galleries, float races 6 p.m. at Tollefson Plaza, South 17th Street and Pacific Ave, Tacoma. Free. www.artwalktacoma.com
Second City plays Debussy in the garden
Second City Chamber Series’ annual concerts in the Lakewold Gardens start next week with a string quartet playing Impressionist works. Gardens open 6:30 p.m., concert begins 7:30 p.m. June 18. $35/$30$15. 12317 Gravelly Lake Dr. SW, Lakewood. 253-572-TUNE, www.scchamberseries.org
Congratulations to Fife painter Jeremy Mangan, the 2009 winner of the Fife artist Jeremy Mangan is the winner of the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation's second annual "Foundation of
Art Award." The award, now in its second year, was announced this week, and rewards a Pierce County artist with $7,500 and a commissioned piece, to be unveiled in fall.
Mangan is a painter, professional ice sculptor and art handler at the Tacoma Art Museum. He received his Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from Hunter College, City University of New York, and was recently selected as the featured artist at The Congressional Club's First Lady's Luncheon, for which he was invited to create a painting to represent Washington.
The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation awards over $3 million annually to students and non-profit organizations in Pierce County supporting philanthropic efforts. The Foundation of Art Award was inaugurated last year, and the winner is selected by a committee of local art professionals. Other nominees for this year were Sean Alexander, Marc Dombrosky, Spencer Ebbinga, Jeremy
Gregory, Ellen Ito, Janet Marcavage, Joe Miller, Yuki Nakamura, Chandler
O'Leary, James Porter, and Holly Senn. Last year's award was won by painter Chris Sharp.
"Thriving arts and culture are one of the key elements we have identified as necessary for our vision of a Vibrant Community," said Rose Lincoln Hamilton, President & CEO of the GTCF.
You can find out more about Mangan at www.jeremymangan.com. A gallery of the nominees for the award is at www.gtcf.org/artgallery
"Freeing Silvia Baraldini," a documentary about an 1980s political activist showing at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival Friday and in Olympia June 18, was made by former Gig Harbor and Olympia resident Lisa Thomas.
Thomas grew up in Gig Harbor (1990 graduate of Gig Harbor High School) and attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia where she was a member of the Olympia Film Society.
So who is Silvia Baraldini? According to Thomas and co-filmmaker Margo Pelletier:
Silvia Baraldini, anti-war, anti-racist activist was sentenced to 43 years in prison in 1982 in part for her participation in freeing Black Panther, Assata Shakur from prison. “Freeing Silvia Baraldini” revisits the decisive events, political and personal that forged the young Italian immigrant into an American radical. In the 1980’s when hundreds of politically minded people folded back into the comforts of American society, Silvia deepened her commitment to revolutionary struggle. She became the National leader of the May 19th Communist Organization.
The filmmakers, both based in New York state, spent eight years making the movie. Pelletier, director of the movie, said she came to New York in 1979 to be an artist. But, exposed to the social conditions and radical elements of New York City, she also became an activist.
A turning point came during a demonstration in 1981 against apartheid at a New York City airport. "It went kind of badly. Several of us went to prison," Pelletier said. She was convicted of criminal trespassing and resisting arrest. She served six months on Rikers Island.
Pelletier says she chose Baraldini as the subject for her first film because the Italian activist "could not tolerate injustice." Baraldini was eventually released from prison and now lives in Italy.
For Thomas, the motivation was to preserve history. She wanted to document the politics before they were lost.
"The more I started to look into it the more I thought, 'This story has to get out'," Thomas said.
The documentary will show Friday in Seattle at 7:20 p.m. at the Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave. and at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 18 at the Olympia Film Society, 206 5th Ave. SE in Olympia.
It may be tiny, but there's a lot of art going on at the Telephone Room over the next week.
The one-room gallery inside the North-end house of artist Heide Fernandez-Llamazares is having two open houses: one today, to close the current show, and one next Wednesday, to open the next. The gallery, which Fernandez-Llamazares and co-organizers Ellen Ito and Marty Gengenbach call the world's second-smallest gallery (what's the smallest? The Tollbooth, of course), measures just 12 1/2 square feet. It's an original room in the Dutch Colonial house, built with curvy shelves to accomodate those wishing to have a private conversation on the black rotary dial phone (which still works, by the way.)
Since the room is pretty unusable for anything else, the artists decided to convert it into a gallery. It can fit about three medium-size flat works, lots of small ones, or maybe one medium installation (can't wait to see that, maybe the tiny room crammed with giant balloons a la Western Bridge?!) And since it's in Heide's house, you have to email to set up an appointment - unless there's an open house.
Which there is, tonight. The current show "Home Sweet Home," featuring Laura and Paul Komada of Seattle and Noal Nyland of Lakewood, is almost over - last chance to see it is from 5-8 p.m. Paul Komada's hand-knit Mondriaan-ish geometry mixes cozy texture and strict form in a pleasing way. Nyland (brother of Nicholas) creates a mapped landscape of greens and gray-blues with quilted fabric, the pieces chopped out like deer-bites in a rose bush, calm but disconnected. Laura Komada's watercolors are simple but strong: My favorite is the untitled Big Foot next to a fir tree, their shadows looming far beyond the reality.
Next open house is for Jeremy Mangan, who just won the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation Arts Award, and who'll be creating a life-size 3D painting of a shot-dead old-west gunfighter in a pine box. (That'll make it extremely crowded in the Telephone Room, which fits about two viewers at a time.) Rumor has it that he'll also be leading a beer mug ice-carving session in the backyard, complete with local microbrews. That's 5-9 p.m. June 17. I'll be there.
So where is the Telephone Room? Email thetelephoneroom@gmail.com to RSVP and find out the address. You can also visit www.thetelephoneroom.blogspot.com for info.
Yard sales are on every block this time of year - some good, some dire. But when artists have sales, you wanna be there. Two very different sales are on this weekend.
This Saturday is the annual Spring Glass Sale for the Hilltop Artist in Residence program at Jason Lee Middle School. HART trains teenagers to blow, fuse and bead glass, keeping them in school and giving them a valuable career skill at the same time. The stuff they make isn't professional, but it looks great--and at half the price of most glass art. But everyone else is gonna want some, so you've got to be organized. The sale officially begins at 10 a.m. in the school auditorium (near the back, off the parking lot) but numbered tickets go on sale at 8 a.m. So get there way early, line up, get your ticket, and go off for breakfast at Shakabrah Java or somewhere. Then saunter back with your ticket, which will get you in the first go-through at 10 a.m.
All sale proceeds go directly to fund program costs including student scholarships and supplies and materials. Sale goes from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday June 13 at Jason Lee, 602 N Sprague St, Tacoma. Info:253-571-7670, info@hilltopartists.org, www.hilltopartists.org
On Friday and Saturday, a group of artist friends are cleaning out their basements for a yard sale near PLU. Here's what you'll find: furniture, books, yarn, antiques, crafts, supplies, jewelry, vintage kimonos, glassware, clothing, fabric and antique windows from the old courthouse in Tacoma and the old Dupont school...and more.
The sale is from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. June 12 and 13 at 12802 Park Ave S., Tacoma.
Happy shopping!
This year's Neddys (a.k.a. the Neddy Artist Fellowship finalists) are up at Tacoma Art Museum, and I went along to the official opening party on Saturday night. Plenty of people, and just a bit more than the usual excitement that attends these things. Why? Because this year, for the first time, the Neddy awards honor artists in one of the Northwest's most idiosyncratic media: glass.
Established in 1996 by the Behnke Family and Foundation as a memorial to Seattle painter Robert E. (Ned) Behnke, the fellowships are given each year in two categories: paint, and one other medium. They've included ceramics, photography, printmaking and sculpture, all twice. So why has it taken the awards 13 years to come around to the idea of glass as an awardable art form?
"It's a question of priorities," says TAM curator for the show, Rock Hushka, who says the non-paint category is chosen by the Behnke family. "Glass was an obvious medium that they hadn't gotten around to yet."
On display now at TAM (the museum has hosted the awards since 2005) are the three nominees and one fellowship-winner in both painting and glass. These include painters Eric Elliott (winner), Timothy Cross, Gary Faigin and Lynda Lowe; and glass artists April Surgent (winner), Benjamin Moore, Joey Kirkpatrick/Flora Mace, and Jenny Pohlman/Sabrina Knowles. It's a really nice show, and the glass is particularly stunning (and welcome - TAM doesn't usually do much glass.)
Highlights are Elliott's dense, 3D-daubed canvases, which cloud an empty room with opaque greens and blues like an almost-lost memory; and Cross' draftsman-like landscapes, painted like a sumi-e artist in love with duct tape. Surgent's glass cameos, with black-and-white photographs engraved on layered fused glass, also obscure - her window-shopper is beautifully submerged in the glitter of the pastries in the window.
Pohlman and Knowles show a stunning eye for balance and form as they combine beads, metal and delicately female glass forms in altar-like sculptures, while Mace and Kirkpatrick play easily with technique and humor in their huge glass fruit, polished like plastic or candy-striped with zanfirico filigree.
The Neddy Fellowship is on view through October 4 at Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. third Thursdays, 12-5 p.m. Sundays. $7.50/$6.50/five-and-under free, third Thursdays free. 253-272-4258, www.tacomaartmuseum.org</div>
The children's book-room at the Wheelock branch of the Tacoma Library is becoming fairy-tale land. Well - the walls are, at least. Muralist Heather Schlegel is the fairy godmother, who's donating her time to paint the wide expanse of wall in the newly-renovated room. The mural is nearly complete, with vivid pictures of castles, dragons, the dish and the spoon, Puss in Boots and other childhood favorites.
Schlegel offered the mural as a donation earlier this year as a way of thanking the library for inspiring her to read and create. A patron there since childhood, Schlegel was captivated by picture books: her first exposure to art, which encouraged her to read more and begin painting. She now brings her own children there, and hopes her art will inspire other youngsters.
"As an artist, I wanted to create a magical atmosphere, where children feel special and celebrated," says Schlegel, who has been painting professionally since 1991 and whose other murals can be seen across the road in the Washington-Hoyt school library, the N.I.C.U. at St. Joseph's Medical Center and the pediatric dentist offices of Dr. Jeffrey Camm, among others. "The library gave me the gift of reading, this mural is my way of saying thank you."
Schlegel's mural covers all four walls. The rather dizzying height of 30 feet on the east wall was, thankfully, accessible via hydraulic lift; the 20-foot height of the west wall had to be done on an extension ladder. Working til midnight every night after the library closed for seven weeks, Schlegel is excited about the project but glad she's nearly finished.
"It'll be good to have my life back!" she says.
A dedication next Saturday, June 13, at 2 p.m. will celebrate the finished mural; guests will include costumed fairy-tale characters, and children are also encouraged to dress up. Puppet shows by Alleyoop will bookend the party at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. The Wheelock library is located at 3722 N. 26th St., Tacoma. 253-591-5666, www.tpl.lib.wa.us
The PLU music trip to China continues (see below), despite governmental worries about Americans spreading either swine flu or political discontent on the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen massacre.
Here's the latest from music professor Greg Youtz:
"Our concert at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music was cancelled by the
Provincial authorities due primarily to the concern that an army of 71
travelers from the United States might be bringing swine flu to Chengdu!
This, despite the fact that we have been in China for a week, show no
symptoms, and have successfully perfromed at two other venues! But, the
local authorities are taking no chances and have the stain on their
reputation of having had the first case of H1N1 flu in China here in
Sichuan. Apparently a strong suggestion also went out nationally from the
Central Government in Beijing that large-scale meetings with foreigners
were to be avoided during the three days surrounding the sensitive 20th
anniversary of the events of 1989...
However we were allowed to perform as scheduled at a temporaty village
erected for 10,000 victims of last year's earthquake in the small town of
Dujiangyan. We were welcomed there very warmly, performed on an open-air
concrete stage under a warm sun, and were a huge hit with lots of small
kids who all wanted to touch the tuba.
Our students played basketball and football with them to the immense
amusement of the parents. Back on the bus, our students decided to take up
a collection and purchased about US$200 worth of sports equipment in a
local store and returned to the village and delivered it to the community
center. We were very proud of them!
On now to Shanghai, in the hope that we will indeed perform there our
final concert at China's oldest music conservatory..."
-Greg Y
Long Le of Tacoma gives a thumbs up after learning a break dance move in a L.I.F.E. class run by Fab-5. (Photo by Lui Kit Wong)
Last April TNT arts reporter Rosemary Ponnekanti profiled the L.I.F.E. classes, run by local hip-hop organization Fab- 5.
With the L.I.F.E. classes, “we realized we could create a movement. Hip-hop has the power to move people into one positive direction,” said co-founder Jason Hulen. Along with some friends from Pacific Lutheran University, Hulen started Fab- 5 back in 2000 as an organization committed to holding positive drug- and alcohol-free hip-hop events for Tacoma youth.
The L.I.F.E. classes are aimed at helping youth achieve skills and self-expression through all hip-hop art forms: breakdancing, legal graffiti, DJing and music recording, with lunch provided. Beginning in 2005, the program has expanded with funding from major local foundations to its present 10-week format running April through June.
Now you can see what these youth have been up to at “Everyday L.I.F.E. – Fab-5’s Latest Vibes” 2 p.m.-7 p.m., Sunday, The program includes a free BBQ, live mural painting, student lead artist workshops (2 p.m. - 4 p.m.), breakdancing, graffiti, DJing, music production and performances and an art show.
The event is free but students will be accepting donations of food, clothing and money to benefit various organizations doing direct service in Pierce County.
It all takes place at The Brick City Project, 754 Pacific Ave., Tacoma.
It took almost seven years and $174,000 to repair and now “Water Forest” has risen again on the plaza outside Tacoma’s Museum of Glass.
The sculpture-fountain made of 20 vertical water-filled tubes began operating around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Amy McBride, the city of Tacoma’s arts administrator, said the structure appears to be working but further testing and “tweaking” will be ongoing.
“It looks really promising. We’re really excited about it,” McBride said Wednesday. The piece has been completely reengineered, she said. “We just want this to run right.”
The original work, made by acclaimed Rhode Island artist Howard Ben Tre, cost the city $208,000. It was damaged by a boy who bumped into it soon after its 2002 installation and subsequently removed for repairs.
"Water Forest" made a return to the plaza outside the Museum of Glass Wednesday. (Craig Sailor/The News Tribune)
Peter Chang, Bracelet, 1992. Acrylic, PVC, and found objects. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Helen Williams Drutt Collection, gift of the Morgan Foundation. © Peter Chang.
Iron Man would feel right at home in Tacoma this summer.
Metal-Urge, a celebration of metal arts, is being forged all summer long with 100 metal artists at 24 downtown venues. It begins Saturday and runs through September 20.
The marquee events are two major metal art-oriented exhibits at the Tacoma Art Museum. The first (Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt English Collection) opens Saturday.
“We want Metal-Urge to attract people to the South Sound’s downtown like magnets to metal,” said Amy McBride City of Tacoma Arts Administrator.
Jewelry and metal/mixed media artists are showing their work at local galleries and other venues around town. For more information visit www.tacomaculture.org.
As posted below, the PLU music department is in China again, on their annual study trip and musical exchange between performers and composers from both countries. (BTW, we were wrong: dancer Robin Jaecklein is not, in fact, on this trip, but will leave on a second PLU trip in a couple of weeks.)
PLU professor and composer Greg Youtz is a veteran of these trips, and he's emailing updates for the GOArts blog. Here's the latest from Greg:
"Well, we knocked some serious socks off last night in Xian! The hall was nearly full- mostly conservatory students and faculty, but also 50 members of a band from a coal mine in the north of the province who had driven down by bus to hear us! The Wind Ensemble under Ed Powell began the
concert with a low-key Copland piece, and then got hotter and hotter. The audience seemed intrigued with John Adams' "Lallapalooza"- a giant whirling machine of intricate minimalist bits- they roared with approval my "Monkey King" with its Beijing Opera tunes and Chinese theme- and they were whooping at the end of David Joyner's "From Blueness to Brightness" in which they got their first taste of jazz...
After intermission the Jazz Ensemble took them on a ride from ballad to funk that ended in two encores and calls of "bu gou!" (not enough!). Afterwards both conductors and I and the drummer (!) Luke Peterson signed a lot of autographs...
Everyone taking care of us, from the Conservatory liaison person to our own tour guides, seemed a bit astonished at our success! So- we are feeling good, and heading off today to see the famous "Terracotta
Warriors" before flying to Chengdu this evening. The weather is sensational, the swine flu is absent, and we are stoked!"
-Greg Y
Deborah Page
Ladyfest, the not-for-profit celebration and showcase of female artists and performers, comes to Sanford and Son Saturday.
Though the event started in 2000 in Olympia (featuring Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power and Neko Case) it's been celebrated all over the world since then. And now it's made the 30 miles up I-5 to Tacoma.
The all-volunteer, community-produced day features performers Deborah Page, Voxxy Vallejo, Starstruck, Tammy Robacker, Brit Baab, Civita, the Barefoot Collective and more. Visual artists include Ann Koi, Jada Moon and Jayme Ferrari.
Admission for the all ages event (1 p.m. - 10 p.m.) is $10 and proceeds benefit Domestic Abuse Women's Network. Visit www.ladyfesttacoma.com/ for more info.
Sandford and Son is at 744 Commerce in Tacoma.
Art by Mindy Barker
Pink Martini is kicking off the 09-10 season for the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts. The wildly eclectic Portland band performs an October 8 show at the Pantages Theater.
Fans know the band ranges from Spanish to Japanese and from songs about tomatoes to skinheads.
It's a fitting kickoff for BCPA -- the entire season, announced this week, is just as varied as Pink Martini's repertoire.
Performing during the 26th season are: Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt, Gaelic Storm, Seattle Men’s and Women’s Chorus and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Other appearances include Public Radio International's Ira Glass, the Smothers Brothers, Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble and Soul Street Dance Co.
Theater includes "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "The Salvation of Iggy Scrooge"- both in partnership with Theatre Northwest - and the return of "Defending the Caveman."
The company that produced "Altar Boys" is bringing "Cabaret" to BCPA April 16, 2010. The cool thing about this performance is that BCPA is transforming their newest rehearsal hall into the Kitkat Club for a post-peformance reception.
For fans of classic movies BCPA is partnering with The Grand Cinema for The Cary Grant Screwball Comedy Film Festival. Films include "Arsenic and Old Lace," (Oct. 30), "Philadelphia Story" (Feb. 14) and "His Girl Friday" (April 2).
Read here for ticket purchasing information:
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