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.

Okay, here's a confession: I've never, ever danced around a Maypole. I've sung plenty of May songs, yes--several years in a madrigal group will do that for you--and even made daisy chains. But the ribbon-pole-dance thing, no. And it's my outside guess that most of you haven't either.

So here comes a golden opportunity: the Puget Sound Revels May Day celebration this Friday (of course) in Tollefson Plaza downtown. Apart from shouting a hurrah whenever that desolate piece of urban paving is given a good use, you've got to hand it to the Revels folks for reviving traditions that, while admittedly a bit embarrassing, are good plain fun. And dancing around a Maypole is one of them.

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Summertime...and the festivals are comin'...

Arts festivals, that is. There's Siteworks, Art on the Ave, Urban Art Festival, Showcase Tacoma--and the Glassroots Festival. Low-down and funky, Glassroots has been running every August for three years in the narrow streets near Embellish Salon for three years now. It's featured everything from glassblowing to graffiti. But now it needs help.

A week or so ago, co-organizer Angela Jossy put out this plea on the Tacoma arts listserv:

"As some of you may know...Tacoma Arts Community is no more. The officers of that group were tired and felt that the outpouring of support that they initially had had waned and many of the goals it set out to achieve had been done. But the festival they started called Glassroots may live on. Its kind of up to you."

Why should Glassroots survive? Well, says Jossy, it's the only festival she knows of that doesn't charge artists for vendor space. It also doesn't jury items (apart from making sure they're locally made). It's intended to be inclusive and supportive of artists.

It's hard work putting on something like this. Jossy and crew need more bodies to volunteer, organize and generally cheer the festival on. If you're interested, come along to the planning meeting on Wednesday, April 29th at 6:30 pm at the Tempest Lounge, 913 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Tacoma. The agenda will include picking a non-profit umbrella, setting a date, assigning responsibilities and setting more meeting dates.

Jossy puts it plainly: "If enough of you show up there will be a festival. If not, then we bid you adieu until next year."

Ruins of Inch Abbey in the countryside near Downpatrick, Northern Ireland (AP Photo/Audrey Woods)

"Step we gaily, on we go, heel for heel and toe for toe; Arm in arm and roll and roll..."

Er--sorry, got a bit carried away there. Okay, folks, who's for the Ceili this Sunday? Come on: if you love Celtic music, or Irish dance, or even just linking arms with total strangers, this one's for you. The Second Annual Tacoma Ceili (say it, kay-lee) will be on from 2-5 p.m. this Sunday, March 15, at Commencement Bay Coffee. What's a Ceili? A kind of Irish barn dance, if you like, where anyone at all can join in with stripping the willow, climbing the walls of Limerick and so on, following the instructions of a caller while a live band plays jigs and reels.

This year, stellar Celtic band Mooncoyne is back, and Melissa Curtis is leading the Ceili. Her students from Evolution Dance Troupe will kick things off with a performance, and then it's a free-for-all.

Do you have to know the dances? Absolutely not, says Curtis: "A ceili is a traditional Irish gathering for fun, fellowship, and laughs where basic irish dances are accompanied by live irish music. Traditional ceili dances were enjoyed at house parties and corner road gatherings in the rural countrysides. The Bonfire Dance, Haymakers Jig, Siege of Ennis, Waves of Tory, etc are very easy to learn and the most difficult part is knowing your right from your left. Many of these traditional country folk dances have a follow-the-leader pattern that new dancers can pick up on the first attempt."

I'll vouch for that--I went last year, and apart from a wedding in Scotland, I'd never been to a Ceili before. I had a blast. If you can follow instructions, you can do these dances, and it's heaps of fun (and great exercise.) Bring your kids or your parents, and chill out with a latte when the reels get too hot.

2-5 p.m. March 15. $5, free for four-and-under. Commencement Bay Coffee, 2354 S. Jefferson Ave., Tacoma. Information: 253-495-4423
www.evolutiondance.com

Remember Monkeyshines? That crazy, community-sparking treasure hunt back on January 26, when as a Chinese New Year celebration, a bunch of local glass artists hid hundreds of ox-inscribed glass floats around Tacoma's neighborhoods?
Well, I had a lot of fun helping to hide them, then watching as day by day people gradually discovered the ones I'd hid. And I asked for YOUR Monkeyshines stories.
And here is a simply wonderful one, handwritten and snail-mailed recently by a reader who couldn't post online. It's such a great story that I wanted to post it myself, as it completely sums up the whole point of Monkeyshines--to cheer someone's day with a beautiful, unexpected, unlooked-for object of art.

"We live on Vashon Island. It was Sunday January 25th. We had a family emergency, which meant an airlift to Tacoma General. When I made it to the hospital, I was told he may not make it through the night. So i stayed at the hospital. He made it, so I left the hospital to catch the ferry back to Vashon.
I got in line for the 9:25am ferry. I was the second car in line, and was looking out at the water when I caught sight of a blue ball. At first I thought it was a balloon. But the seagull sitting next to it told me otherwise. I got out of my car to investigate. Lo and behold, it was a beautiful blue glass ball with an Ox stamped on it.
I knew it was Fate. After all, how often would I be on a morning ferry to Vashon--I live and work there! Happy Chinese New Years', indeed!
- Nancy Weed"

So, all you folk out there who were looking and didn't find, and maybe even whined about it: I'm glad for Nancy, because this is what Monkeyshines is all about.

Ox ball for 2009 Monkeyshines. Photo courtesy Ms. Monkey.

On January 26 there's a lot to celebrate: Australia Day, India Day (the national equivalents there of Fourth of July) and, this year, Chinese New Year. And for those in the know here in Tacoma, that means Monkeyshines.

Monkeyshines, for the uninitiated, is an annual event spreading joy and unexpected happiness every Chinese New Year. For a week or so beforehand, the Monkey crew of local glassblowers spend hours creating hundreds of glass ball floats, stamped on the seal with a hand-sculpted design of whatever animal is gracing this year's calendar (2009-Year of the Ox, as shown above.) The Monkey crew then creep around downtown Tacoma in the wee hours, braving dark and cold to hide the floats, which are then serendipitously and delightfully discovered by Tacomans as they go about their day. What could be more fun - a free glass float which you yourself stumble across? (But hopefully not onto.)

But this year, folks, it's gonna be different.

From the beginning in 2004 (Year of the Monkey, hence the name) the intent of Monkeyshines was always to be a fun, slightly haphazard treasure hunt. Last year, though, the Monkey crew were stalked by hordes of greedy Tacoma citizens who, hip to the secret, hunted them down to claim floats almost before they had left the trucks.

"It was like we had become the prey," lamented Ms. Monkey, originator of the event and local glass artist in her own right.

So this year, the Monkey crew are picking a different distribution time. And they're not going to tell what it is.

I'll be going along with them and reporting next week, so I'm guarding the secret too. But here's one clue: The floats will definitely be in their hiding places by dawn of January 26. And where, exactly, do you look?
"We generally hide them in public spaces: parks, phone booths, the waterfront, industrial areas, planters...All of our favorite places," says Ms. Monkey.

You can also look around town this weekend for the annual New Year Beautiful Angle posters, wheat-pasted up as per tradition by letterpress artists Tom Llewellyn and Lance Kagey. Ripping one off as a souvenir is all part of the art.

And the other nice difference about this year's Monkeyshines is that the whole enterprise is being assisted by a City of Tacoma Arts Commission grant, which reimburses Ms. Monkey and her primate team of glass blowers, not to mention hot shops Tacoma Glassblowing studio and M-Space, for their dedication to our city's general artistic fun. Thank you, City of Tacoma.

L to R: Art doors painted by Maureen McHugh, Bonnie Chance, Alysia Jines, Linda Lapping-DeSantis, Dawn Fortner. Image: Paul Uhl.

It's not often you get a chance to acquire an art-door, support a local festival and have a rockin' time to boot, but Thursday evening you'll get all that. The committee for the Glassroots downtown art festival, is holding a fundraiser with a difference: local artists have painted doors (yes, old house and shed doors, unattached) which will be auctioned off live at Sanford and Sons. A quarter of each sale goes back to the door artist, the rest of the proceeds go to fund the August 24 festival, which not only celebrates local art but supports it by not charging artists to erect booths.

Says co-organizer Angela Jossy:

Most festivals are funded by vendor booth fees. We are doing this fundraiser so that our vendors don't
have to bear the brunt of the festival costs. We made the booths free this year so that any artist, no matter what their financial status is, can come out, meet fellow artists and show their work for free.

If you were at Art on the Ave you may have seen some of the locally-painted doors. Artists include Matt and Laura Eklund, Houston Wimberly III, Linda Lapping DeSantis, Jeremy Silas, Voxxy Vallejo, James Stowe, Bonnie Chance, Charlene LaMountain, Maureen McHugh, Crystal Braley-Cole, Dawn Fortner and others. The auction runs from 7-10 p.m. this Thursday July 24 at 743 Broadway, Tacoma. Cover entry is by donation, and includes DJ music (think of every hit you know that includes the word "door": "My love open the door," "Back Door Man," "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," "Ooh,ooh, ooh, lookin out my back door," etc etc,) pizza by the slice, karaoke and drinks bar. Apart from the bar, the event is all-ages.

Are you wondering whose doors we posted here?

Left to right: The white door with crows on it is by Maureen McHugh, owner of Mad Hat Tea company, featuring a poem by fashionisto Daniel Blue. The blue door with gazebo was done by Bonnie Chance, the "Smack" door was created by Alysia Jines. The red and orange crow door with the mirror on it is by Linda Lapping-DeSantis, and the butterfly door was done by Dawn Fortner.

Just think of the possibilities for an art door: a room screen, a mural, a faux-door to confuse your neighbors. Dare I say it?--they're adoorable.