Light Therapy

The saturated rays of "Light Escape" seep into the Tacoma night. Photo courtesy of RSVR.

Do you suffer from a touch of SAD-ness (Seasonal Affective Disorder)? Then take a trip downtown and bask in the unearthly glow of Light Escape-Tacoma Array, an installation by the Portland-based design team of RSVR (Ian Campbell and Benjamin Gray) in the Woolworth Building. RSVR’s mission is “to provide the City of  Tacoma with an extended summer” via a dynamic installation of streaming filaments of green-and-violet light. The effect is ghostly, sci-fi – and best viewed at night.

Campbell founded RSVR (“shorthand for reservoir”) in 2008 as a platform for creative cross-disciplinary collaborations. He describes himself and Gray first “as architects producing art, and not [as] artists. I feel this is an important distinction to make as our training as architectural designers often informs our approach, and on a whole, I would describe our collaborations as an attempt to explore the intersection of art, architecture, and industrial design.“

Photo courtesy of RSVR

In the Woolworth installation, the duo creates an elegant, room-size spatial arrangement “that appear(s) to be made of almost no material while maintaining an intense visual presence.” In Light Escape, RSVR sculpts with light, stretching thin rubber membranes over a suspended wooden frame to create an undulating, translucent surface that reacts over time to ultraviolet light emitted from UV dispensers (“light escapes”). As the UV rays gradually break down the rubber membrane, its translucency is altered in a controlled manner.

“As the light of summer begins to fade (every day after June 22 – December 22), the lighting elements will slowly remove entire sections of rubber allowing completely unfiltered light to spill onto the sidewalk, providing any passerby an extended summer,” RSVR explains. “Essentially, we are using light to organically ‘cut’ our way out from behind the stretched rubber membranes.”

Ethereal Tacoma

"Reclamation" by Janette Ryan

Janette Ryan‘s photographs of Puget Sound capture an ethereal side hidden behind the hustle of everyday life. Through her lens, the horizon line dividing sky and sea dissolves into nothingness. Docks and pilings become graphic strokes so pure as to resemble a mysterious language of dots and dashes left behind by humans from an indeterminate age. These visual impressions could have emerged from anywhere, or nowhere. Their origins could be post-apocalyptic – or preceding Tacoma’s emergence as a city, when there were no cars, rails or airplanes. Even her images of iconic structures such as the Narrows Bridge refuse to be pinned down – they brim with a dynamism that seems to call back from the future.

"Narrows II" by Janette Ryan

Ryan’s photographs are on exhibit at the Woolworth Building, 11th & Broadway, through Feb. 2012. Her spare, modernist images in black and white attempt to strip away the non-essential to reveal the “beauty and harmony” of nature, she explains. At the same time, they reflect upon “the changing face of Tacoma and the surrounding environment.”

She cites British photographer, Michael Kenna, as an influence. “I love minimalist art and architecture for its clean and simple lines. I was hoping to use those same concepts to photograph our busy urban landscape, with an emphasis on Puget Sound.” Her effects are even more striking when one realizes that the otherworldly landscapes she shoots are mostly popular, well-trafficked sites around Tacoma, such as the Ruston Way waterfront.

An Artist’s Bounding Forest

"Infringing Forest" by Kelly June Mitchell

“Our streets are straight and systematic, our buildings sturdy and strong, but even while we walk down those streets and work and live in those strong buildings, a wilderness surrounds us, and waits for us,” says artist Kelly June Mitchell.

Mitchell describes the world that hums just outside our blinkered existence in a mixed-media installation, Infringing Forest, at 908 Broadway. A triptych of trees printed on sheer fabric looms over the small figures of a human, a bear, a wolf, a crow and a vole. These beings inhabiting the tranquil center of the work form a sun circle, and seem to draw in the wilderness around them. If the air around the figures is disturbed, the whole “forest” appears to move. The totemic animals, painted a ghostly white, are of near-equal size, implying “equal importance in the environment.”

Diane Hansen’s Epic Jewels

Loaded symbol: an Ethiopian amulet necklace fills the window at Woolworth's.

A recent journey to the Horn of Africa provided Tacoma artist Diane Hansen the inspiration “to create a monumental sampling of Ethiopian artifacts” that would stimulate viewers “on a primal level.” The result is Ethiopia Revisited, a new Spaceworks installation at the Woolworth Building featuring Hansen’s epic interpretation of the traditional African jewels she encountered in her travels. Hansen, a noted glass artist, integrated a variety of different techniques to create two window-size necklaces that suggest both feminine power and a spiritual centering.

Hansen says that the trip upturned her preconceptions of Ethiopia as an arid, desert-like land; instead she discovered a dramatic landscape of volcanoes, canyons, lushly vegetated rivers and waterfalls, populated by herds of African wildlife including elephants, warthogs and hyenas. It was also “filled with medieval castles, paintings and silver, along with intense agriculture.” Hansen was enthralled by the country’s history and culture, including its ancient tradition of Christianity.

The Coptic cross is worn about the necks of Ethiopian men and women.

Such revelations provide rich fodder for an artist. “Sheba was an area in Ethiopia from which the Queen of Sheba traveled north to meet King Solomon” as told in the biblical story, she says. “The ark of the covenant (think Raiders of the Lost Ark here) is said to be housed in Axum, Ethiopia….Basically, Ethiopia is a country where Muslims and Christians coexist peacefully.”

The specific inspiration for her sculptural pieces is drawn from relics of everyday life: “All of the Ethiopian Orthodox people wore silver Coptic crosses around their necks, and always on black cords.” A 15-year-old Ethiopian student showed Hansen her cross, and explained that the black cord was essential. The other necklace, she explains, is based on an amulet-style neckpiece worn for protection and good luck: “A prayer scroll is inserted inside the center tube, and then sealed shut for protection. You never open the necklace.” The amulet piece in silver is worn by women; the Coptic cross is worn by both sexes.

This Weekend – the BareFoot Collective Presents FootFalls!

This weekend only! Don’t miss an incredible site-specific offering by the BareFoot Collective.

The performance, FootFalls, will be presented only four times, November 19th and 20th at 3:00pm and 7:30pm each day, in Spaceworks’ newest space, 311 s. 7th Street.

All works presented in FootFalls have been choreographed and rehearsed in tBFC’s unique performance space, a studio with huge windows, a sliding garage door and raw wood beams.  The features of this unique space have influenced each dance, inextricably weaving the two together.

Six new pieces debut in FootFalls, all featuring high-quality contemporary dance with a dynamic range of emotion.  The BareFoot Collective’s artists serve up humor, lyricism and personal truths through trios, quartets, and even a living landscape.  Come early for live pre-show music by Gary Lappier of Terrapin Productions and explore the window sculptures by Hoover and Nyquist.

Choreography by tBFC Co-Directors Katie Stricker, Michael D. Hoover, April Nyquist, and Stephanie Kriege Pederson.

Tickets: $12.00-$15.00 available in advance through Brown Paper Tickets or at the door (cash or check only).

Performances: November 19^th & 20^th at 3pm and 7:30pm

Business Skills for Artists, This Weekend

WHAT: Tacoma Art Symposium, informational and educational sessions for artists and arts organizations
WHERE: University of Puget Sound campus
WHEN: November 19 & 20
REGISTRATION: Pre-registration is required as space is limited. Sign up for all general sessions online http:www.artssymposium.eventbrite.com. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis.
SYMPOSIUM COST: $20 for unlimited sessions both days, $12 for unlimited sessions on either Saturday or Sunday, or $7 for one individual session. Financial assistance is available; please call Naomi at 253.591.5191.
INDIVIDUAL BUSINESS CLINICS: We are running two low-cost, one-on-one, confidential consultation clinics this year. Clinics are $20 for a 30-minute session.
- Shunpike is offering an Arts Business Clinic on Saturday, November 19. To register, please call Naomi at 253.591.5191.
- Washington Lawyers for the Arts is offering an Arts Legal Clinic on Sunday, November 20. To register, please call Washington Lawyers for the Arts at 206.328.7053.

You’ve created the paintings, written the novel, choreographed the dance, photographed the portfolio…Now what? Join us for the sixth annual Tacoma Arts Symposium, an event dedicated to providing local artists and arts organizations with nuts-and-bolts information in order to become and remain successful in the arts. This is a very low-cost way to get valuable business-related information from professionals. The symposium is open to those in the visual, literary and performing arts.

Need funding? Looking to use Facebook and social media as a marketing tool? This event includes exciting conversations, workshops and panels designed to get your creativity flowing and take your arts career to the next level. Saturday features a keynote address by Gigi Rosenberg, author of The Artist’s Guide to Grant Writing. Sessions include:

· Keynote Address: From the Elevator to the Auditorium: How to Present Your Art to the Public

· Marketing with Social Media

· The Art of Marketing: Tips and Tools for Getting the Word Out

· Fund Your Projects: Grant Writing for the Visual, Literary and Performing Artist

· Behind Closed Doors: the Funding Panel

· Beyond the Elevator Speech: Writing and Talking About Your Work

· Impact & Intent: Presenting and Perceiving Meaning in Works of Art

· Engaging with Youth in the Arts

· Non-Traditional Publishing: Experience from Writers Who’ve Done It

· Beyond the Line: Poetry in Response to Visual Art

· Starting a New Arts Group

· Public Art Perspectives

For a complete listing of sessions, dates and times, check out the Arts Symposium page at http://www.artatworktacoma.com.

INDIVIDUAL BUSINESS CLINICS: We are running two low-cost, one-on-one, confidential consultation clinics this year. Clinics are $20 for a 30-minute session.
- Shunpike is offering an Arts Business Clinic on Saturday, November 19. To register, please call Naomi at 253.591.5191.
- Washington Lawyers for the Arts is offering an Arts Legal Clinic on Sunday, November 20. To register, please call Washington Lawyers for the Arts at 206.328.7053.

“Ghost Prairie” is Taking Root at UW-T

Laser-cut components for "Ghost Prairie." Photo courtesy of Thoughtbarn

The design team of Lucy Begg and Robert Gay (Thoughtbarn) flew in from Austin yesterday to begin assembly of their public art installation, Ghost Prairie, on the Prairie Line Trail. Begg and Gay, with Philadelphia-based urban planner, Todd Bressi, have been charged with creating a public art plan for the highly anticipated walkway/bikeway project now underway. But this week, the artist/architects will be switching laptops for work gloves as they install a light-emitting, 25′ x 4′ sculpture at a site on the University of Washington-Tacoma (UW-T) campus.

A preliminary sketch for "Ghost Prairie." Photo courtesy of Thoughtbarn

Ghost Prairie is one of eight temporary public art projects that will be unveiled on Saturday, Nov. 12, along the half-mile landmark trail, which marks the terminus of the 19th-century Transcontinenal Railroad. The other seven projects are by Tacoma artists and participants in PA:ID (Public Art In Depth), an intensive program created by the City of Tacoma to provide selected professional artists free training and mentorship in how to apply for and advance through the process of creating public art works. Saturday’s demonstration project is “the pilot for a public art program that will enliven the new civic artery,” says Begg. “We’ve been working in tandem with urban planner Todd Bressi, who is devising the public art masterplan for the trail.” The public-art strategy is being developed with support from a planning grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

An abstract interpretation of the prairie. Photo courtesy of Thoughtbarn

Guidelines for the eight commissioned works indicate that recycled, reused or reclaimable materials be used in construction. Thoughtbarn’s installation is made from laser-cut, industrial-weight cardboard with long, feathery zip ties, and will be illuminated at night. The enigmatic design, suggesting an insect or a chiton, was inspired by a visit to the Mima Mounds Natural Preserve in Thurston County. The startling natural landscape of undulating, uniform mounds is best described as resembling an upside-down egg carton, multiplied outward, and blanketed in prairie grass.

“Several theories compete for how the mounds came to be,” says Begg. “Earthquakes, erosion, giant gophers…” She and Gay chose the title, Ghost Prairie, in “playful reference to the once-vast prairies in southern Washington that the rail-line crossed to reach Tacoma.” Of 160,000 acres originally managed by Native Americans, she says, only 3% remain today. “We were inspired by both the plight and the poetry of the prairie. Our 25′-long undulating structure will be covered with a field of zip ties, simulating a grass-like effect. The goal of it is to be a tactile, intriguing object. We want it to invite people in to touch it, but also catch eyes from afar.”

Toy Boat Theatre Rolls Out Dada for Nada, and the Blues to Boot

Enjoy a bit of unhinged thea-tuh in FREE performances of *WaT is DaDa?: an original Dada Theatre Cabaret, conceived by Neo-Dadaist Marilyn Bennett and University of Puget Sound theatre arts students. The troupe calls this a series of command performances (“We command you to attend!”): Nov. 17-18, 8pm, at Norton Clapp Theatre, Jones Hall, UPS campus; and Nov. 19, 8pm and 10pm, at Toy Boat Theatre, 1314 Martin Luther King Way, in the Hilltop neighborhood. Price per ticket: FREE! It’s nada for Dada (but donations gladly accepted).

“Prepare to be unhinged, overwhelmed, lambasted, just basted, and caramel,” warns the press release. “Dada is a spook, a tomato, a rocking horse, the wet nurse. Nothing is dada, everything is dada.” Presented by the UPS Department of Theatre Arts in conjunction with Spaceworks Tacoma.

On Nov. 7, at 7pm, Toy Boat is presenting a free reading of Stones in my Passway, Tacoma playwright C. Rosalind Bell‘s screenplay about blues guitar legend Robert Johnson. This is a rare opportunity to hear a diverse company of 12 professional and community actors read this rich, textured and cinematic treatment about the too short life of Robert Johnson. In the American South, in the 1930s, this African-American blues artist developed a sound and approach that was to influence the entire genre of rock-and-roll music, before his untimely death at age 27. Johnson lived and played with passion and abandon; Ms. Bell’s screenplay captures his spirit.

For more information on these shows and the UPS students rockin’ the Hilltop, please click www.toyboattheatre.com .

Push Your Art Career to the Next Level: Tacoma Arts Symposium, Nov. 19-20

TACOMA ARTS SYMPOSIUM

WHAT: Informational and educational sessions for artists and arts organizations
WHERE: University of Puget Sound campus
WHEN: November 19 & 20
REGISTRATION: Pre-registration is required as space is limited. Sign up for all general sessions online at http://11artssymposium.eventbrite.com. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis.
COST: $20 for unlimited sessions both days, $12 for unlimited sessions on either Saturday or Sunday, or $7 for one individual session. Financial assistance is available; please call Naomi at 253.591.5191.

Join us for the sixth annual Tacoma Arts Symposium, an event dedicated to providing local artists and arts organizations with nuts-and-bolts information in order to become and remain successful in the arts. This event includes exciting conversations, workshops and panels designed to get your creativity flowing and push your arts career to the next level. Saturday features a keynote address by Gigi Rosenberg, author of The Artist’s Guide to Grant Writing. Sessions include:

·        Keynote Address: From the Elevator to the Auditorium: How to Present Your Art to the Public

·        Marketing with Social Media

·        The Art of Marketing: Tips and Tools for Getting the Word Out

·        Fund Your Projects: Grant Writing for the Visual, Literary and Performing Artist

·        Behind Closed Doors: the Funding Panel

·        Beyond the Elevator Speech: Writing and Talking About Your Work

·        Impact & Intent: Presenting and Perceiving Meaning in Works of Art

·        Engaging with Youth in the Arts

·        Non-Traditional Publishing: Experience from Writers Who’ve Done It

·        Beyond the Line: Poetry in Response to Visual Art

·        Starting a New Arts Group

·        Public Art Perspectives

For a complete listing of sessions, dates and times, check out the Arts Symposium page at www.artatworktacoma.com.

Low-cost, confidential, legal and business consultation clinics
We are running two low-cost, one-on-one, confidential consultation clinics this year:
- Shunpike is offering an Arts Business Clinic on Saturday, November 19
- Washington Lawyers for the Arts is offering an Arts Legal Clinic on Sunday, November 20. Clinics are $20 for a 30-minute session. To register for the Arts Business Clinic, please call Naomi at 253.591.5191. To register for the Arts Legal Clinic, please call Washington Lawyers for the Arts at 206.328.7053.

Art at Work Studio Tour, November 5-6, 10am-4pm

Curious about the creative process and the secret lives of artists? 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of Tacoma’s Art at Work Studio Tour, featuring 57 artists and collaborative studios. This event allows the general public the opportunity to see the spaces in and tools with which local artists create their work. You can ask questions, and purchase one-of-a-kind creations! All studios will feature demonstrations of the artistic process or will have hands-on activities for visitors. Studios will also have a limited number of free takeaways by graphics genius Art Chantry: 2011 float pens, key chains and tattoos– you know you want one! This is a free, self-guided tour.

Check out the StudioTour website for all the details including an interactive Google map so you can plot your own course.

Or, ride the ART BUS for the Studio Tour! Make it easy on yourself – let the ART BUS do the driving while you enjoy a guided tour of some of the artists’ studios. There are two tours:
Tour A – Nov. 5, 11 am –1 pm – includes the studios of Jennevieve Schlemmer, Juan La Torre, Manitou Arts Center, Juliette Ricci, and Liz Cotton
Tour B – Nov. 5, 2 – 4:20 pm -includes the studios of Two Ravens, Throwing Mud Gallery, Hilltop Artists, Lori Paine, and Jet Artist Cooperative

Bus leaves from TacomaArt Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave
Cost: $10 for one tour, $18 for both tours
Tickets: purchase in advance at www.tacomaartbus.com or on Nov. 5 a half-hour before departure time on the curb outside Tacoma Art Museum

The 2011 tours include: