The Barefoot Collective Defies Gravity

Stephanie Pederson in flight. Photo: Michael Hoover

For anyone who doubts the existence of extraterrestrials in our midst, this writer would point to the phenomenon of modern dancers – those gravity-defying beings who skim the earth’s surface with pantherine grace, precision and athleticism. This idea took hold a few days ago, after I had a spectacular bike crash in which, after braking for a red light on a steep downhill, my road bike stopped and I flew over the handlebars with feet still clipped to the pedals. While mid-air, I considered that the situation might look a lot worse than it felt. Fortunately, this turned out to be true, as I reassured the driver who jumped out of his car to offer help. Later, a friend kindly suggested that my aerial feat was worthy of the Cirque du Soleil…sure, except that I didn’t land on my feet (and I would have paid to ditch the audience at the traffic stop).

tBFC dancers Kristie Hoke, Tracey Lewis and Jamie Pederson. Photo: Carlos Sanchez

One can hardly imagine such faux pas from the talented members of the Barefoot Collective (tBFC), a local dance company who, since 2008, have earned plaudits for original, contemporary works of power and passion. tBFC is the recipient of a three-month Spaceworks Tacoma creative residency that will support the completion of a major piece, The Ides of May, to be performed the weekend of May 14-15. The studio will also hold community auditions and offer dance instruction to students of all levels at the 915 Pacific Avenue rehearsal space.

Performance at the Museum of Glass. Photo: Michael Hoover

The Ides of May is built on a series of individual vignettes “organized like a concert,” according to tBFC co-director Katie Stricker. Conceived last fall, the project includes an educational component to take place at Gig Harbor High School, where tBFC is facilitating a dance-and-composition workshop. Students will eventually create their own dance piece for inclusion in The Ides of May. The spring showcase will also feature performances by MGMHArts, BQ Danza and other artists to be announced.

Stricker says the large Spaceworks studio will accommodate installation of the company’s marley floor, which allows dancers to rehearse in the exact space/conditions in which they will be performing. “Consistent, quality rehearsal space is invaluable for the creation of dance works,” she says. Stricker, along with co-directors  Michael Hoover, Stephanie Pederson, Carrie Goodnight and Amanda Herman begin work in the new performance space on March 1. I’ll look forward to viewing their fantastic physical feats, from the mere mortals section, with feet planted on the ground. The Barefoot Collective, 915 Pacific Avenue, March 1 – May 31, 2011. Performances May 14 (3pm and 7:30pm) and May 15 (3pm). http://www.barefootcollective.org.

Art World Oscar Buzz

Pre-Oscar graffiti in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Banksy (the artist allows free, non-commercial use of the images on his website).

One of this year’s surprise Oscar nominees – the graffiti artist, Banksy, for his sly and brilliantly entertaining documentary,  Exit Through the Gift Shop – has arrived in Hollywood for Sunday’s event. The world’s most famous street artist, who zealously conceals his identity behind a monkey mask, has made his presence known through a series of new tags around Los Angeles (including a urinating bulldog sprayed on a wall in Beverly Hills) that might be construed as anti-hype for his Best Documentary-nominated film. A similar media un-blitz preceded the movie’s 2010 world premiere, at Sundance.

Photo courtesy of Banksy

Academy executives have been shifting gears over how to accommodate Banksy – should he decide to show up on award night. His appearance would mark the first and last time a monkey-masked star walks the red carpet. The artist’s anonymity is closely guarded, not only to protect his mysterious persona, but ostensibly the value of his paintings (one of the new L.A. graffiti works, sprayed on a Vegas showgirl billboard, has been valued at more than $500,000 with the paint barely dry). Initially, Academy executives said a disguised Banksy would be barred from the Kodak stage, but later changed their decision.

Exit Through the Gift Shop is a rousing parable about art, authenticity and a viral breed of hype, in which an L.A.-based French filmmaker, Thierry Guetta, is given rare access to Banksy’s world in order to document him; but under his tutelage, becomes a painter himself, and eventually, the subject of the film. There are cameos by other graffiti luminaries, including Shepard Fairey, creator of the iconic Barak Obama “Hope” poster. No matter what you think of the market for sprayed and stenciled art, Banksy brings to graffiti a level of sophistication, humor and searing intelligence well worth the price of admission.

James Sinding’s Instant Messaging

Sculptural wooden chair, by James Grayson Sinding

Curmudgeons predict that the 21st century will be the time in which the printed word is finally tossed into the dustbin of history – with a tech-savvy Everyman on hand to Kindle the fire. Shades of Fahrenheit 451! The Internet is the fluid visual tablet upon which the text of daily life is writ, so the argument goes; don’t be surprised if, before long, the human attention span contracts to the length of a Twitter.

Enter artist James Grayson Sinding, whose word-based installations jubilantly proclaim the durability (at least in physical terms) of the written word. Last year, he dumped thousands of alphabet letters in Tollefson Plaza for his Spaceworks Tacoma installation, Letters. The opening ignited a mob scene, with attendees burrowing through the heap of oversized wooden characters in search of the right vowels and consonants to form phrases, messages and even graphic designs along the plaza steps. The brevity of the messages, assembled by authors cradling capital letters like a unisex legion of Vanna Whites, underlined their playful urgency.

James Grayson Sinding

In 2011, Sinding is following up Letters with a new project, this time involving whole words instead of individual characters. He is the recipient of a Spaceworks Tacoma residency at 1114 Pacific Avenue, where he plans on making and storing “thousands of words like the ones people place on their refrigerator….The space will [allow] me to keep my couch in the living room instead of moving it to the dining room to make room for letters.

“Dada very much inspired me,” he says of the work underway, “the way of thinking is admirable…In our modern society, someone has designed everything that we interact with on a daily basis. I like interactive art because it allows others to feel a part of something, a feeling of community, perhaps.” Why the emphasis on written as opposed to spoken language? “I do think that there is a trend being set – people like to talk less, and print more. We text, instead of calling. We blog instead of talking to people over dinner about the day. It seems like the more modern technology gets, the less we need to interact with actual human beings. Instead, we just type it into our smart phones.”

Creative work: James Sinding's wooden briefcase

During his residency, Sinding’s plans include a collaboration with artist Karl Kormann to build sculptural furniture and objects such as a chair, a briefcase, eyeglasses and a living room set: “Simple, minimalist design that serves a purpose in everyday lives.

“I plan on doing more wooden sculptures, and trying to move into different media like lighting, and other things. I like working with wood, but I know there is so much more to explore,” he says. You can view Sinding at work through the windows of his downtown studio. Watch for gallery openings, and his “words” project, come spring. James Grayson Sinding, 1114 Pacific Avenue. http://www.jamesgraysonsinding.blogspot.com

Creative Hive

Self-portrait, by Sara Montour

Congratulations to three artists selected for 2011 Spaceworks Tacoma creative residencies: photographer Sara Montour, and graphic designers Jacqui and Scott Scoggin of Slide Sideways. By chance, all three artists moved to the Tacoma area in late 2009 – Montour from Minneapolis, the Scoggins by way of Seattle – hit it off at a dinner party, and quickly established themselves on the local scene. They will share a collaborative space at 913 Pacific Avenue from May through November.

Montour's non-traditional maternity photography

Sara Montour is a portrait photographer who brings a laser-like focus to her craft, couched in a laid-back attitude. “I’m a sucker for a great moment,” the University of Minnesota grad writes on her website. “Those split seconds that make you smile from the inside out.” Her wedding albums and individual portraits capture such quicksilver, behind-the-scenes moments, creating naturalistic images that endure.

Pop poster, by Slide Sideways.

Slide Sideways is the brainchild of husband-and-wife duo, Scott & Jacqui Scoggin. The design studio’s beautifully rendered, original screen prints were a standout at the (recently closed) indie boutique, fly, and can be found with a full line of artist products at their Etsy store.

“We founded Slide Sideways in 2009 with the desire to produce compelling visuals and connect with good people & organizations,” the duo explains on their website. “Our process is rooted in the age-old principles of design and craftsmanship, which usually involves us putting pencil to paper before even touching the computer. We’re inspired by everyday life and our surroundings and find great value in putting time and thought into each project.” Organic cotton tea towels artfully printed by hand, minimalist graphic tees and silk-screened sketchbooks are a few of the offerings on their Etsy site.

A graphic shout out by Slide Sideways.

The downtown residency of Slide Sideways and Sara Montour will mark an exciting addition to the Tacoma art map. “The goal for us [is] to have a communal workspace that allows the three of us to not only collaborate together in our different mediums” but have a professional space in which to take meetings, says Montour. A “visually awesome window display” is planned, as well as Third Thursday art walk openings and other events. Slide Sideways and Sara Montour Photography, 913 Pacific Avenue, May through November 2011 (exact dates TBA).

Signs of the Times

Signs with a sense of direction.

From cell phone ads to billboards, in-your-face messaging is an ubiquitous fact of life. We can’t easily escape the daily barrage telling us what to buy, where to go, how to get there and in what kind of footwear. But we can be selective about which messages we heed.

The PPC headquarters on Pacific Avenue.

 

Artist and Personal Power Company member Dan Martin is creating shout outs of a different kind – with street signs. Call it anti-advertising. His neatly printed calls to action (say, “Hope” or “Collaborate”) are designed to stop traffic and make one reassess, if but for a moment, one’s interior trajectory. The gist of the project might be summed up in two pop slogans of the kind being produced and distributed locally: “Lighten Up” and “Do Something.”

Photo courtesy of the Personal Power Co.

Look for the clever directional signs around town, tucked in unexpected places like behind the topiary garden at Frost Park, 9th and Pacific Ave., and in the Power Company’s window at 913 Pacific Ave.

It’s refreshing to see that at the intersection of art and life, there is “Compassion.”

Patrick Blanc’s Living Fresco

Fresh-smelling art: a visitor takes in a lush, botanical mosaic by Patrick Blanc.

With spring right around the corner, we decided to check in on Tacoma’s most intriguing green spot, the ever astonishing vertical garden by Paris-born artist Patrick Blanc. Installed in 2009 to great fanfare, the 800-sq. ft. plantscape on the eastern wall of Tacoma Goodwill headquarters is a living, breathing curiosity – a figment of the feverish imagination of the French artist/botanist who introduced the soil-less art form 30 years ago. The 20′ x 40′ canvas represents an ongoing drama with nearly 100 species of hearty native and non-native plants that grow, flourish and die off in dynamic waves of color. Hummingbirds are attracted; so are birds, bees and people. The standing garden has more than a dash of the surreal about it – after rugged winter weather killed off portions of foliage exposing the algae-covered vertical surface underneath, the verdant wall now resembles nothing so much as a perfect rectangle cut from the wild ocean floor and turned on its side.

Blanc is a world-renowned artist whose large-scale botanical murals can be seen in Madrid, London, Sydney, Paris, New York City and Istanbul. The green installation in Tacoma is his first exterior environmental project on US soil. In coming months, the wall will bloom with vibrant pink sedum, creeping juniper, andromeda, hellebores, warty barberry and various ferns and shrubs. We’ll be back.

Patrick Blanc’s vertical garden is at 714 South 27th Street in Tacoma.

Painting Outside the Box

Production is up: art by Chris Sharp.

What happens inside an artist’s studio? Red-eyed bacchanals followed by noon-time wake-up calls? Marathon work sessions fueled by crusty takeout and flushed with week-old coffee? Canvases stacked to attract a dealer’s eye, or the subversive marketing genius of a Banksy? Inquiring minds want to know.

A certain picture emerges at the downtown studio of Chris Sharp and Jeremy Gregory, recipients of a six-month Spaceworks Tacoma artists’ residency. The two painters (who work independently) occupy 904 Broadway, a large space that gives pedestrians a fishbowl glimpse into their workaday world: an alternate universe of non-scheduled labor and chaotic creativity. Oh, and fun.

Artist Jeremy Gregory.

Just as we suspected, there’s a ton of great art to be seen. Sharp is a fine artist whose gallery paintings cross time barriers and explore the semiotics of language through ghostly layers of brushwork. Gregory is a figurative painter whose current work suggests that the rapture isn’t coming, it’s here. Both claim that the rent-free studio has had a positive effect on their work.

Gregory's visions for a dark future.

“I can do whatever I want, and just make stuff,” smiles Sharp, standing beside an altar-like arrangement of studies, and painterly landscapes thick with oil pigment.
“This location is ridiculous,” says Gregory, who moved his easels out of a home studio to this prime spot across from the Pantages Theater. “I’m here all the time working. I never would’ve done these paintings [from the old space],” he says, waving at a group of canvases. He adds that it’s a boon to see Sharp as well as other Spaceworks resident artists working in the neighborhood, instead of laboring in isolation. “We spend all our money down here. We’re working here and making art for the city. This is the best thing ever. I say it three times a day.”

Sharp takes a break on the quarter-pipe.

Both of these artists stay busy with art gigs that extend beyond the edges of the traditional canvas. In addition to painting Cormac McCarthy-esque canvases, Gregory is an illustrator, and the editorial cartoonist for City Arts Magazine. Recently the magazine sent him to Manhattan to cover the New York City debut of Tacoma/Seattle band, Motopony.

Sharp is a branding specialist and professional signage painter whose freehand, often vintage-inspired logos dot the local landscape at destinations including Satellite Coffee, Smooth ‘n’ Juicey and the Rosewood Café. He is currently creating the branding for Prana Wellness Center. He was the first recipient of the $7,500 Foundation of Art Award from the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, in 2008.

Both artists have created outdoor murals for the city; Sharp at 38th and Portland Avenue; Gregory at 2143 Martin Luther King Way. You can take a peek at what they’re doing in-house through June 2011, at 904 Broadway (don’t let the bikes, skateboards and quarter-pipe fool you; these are working artists).