Join Spaceworks Tacoma, the City of Tacoma and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber to kick off the latest Spaceworks Projects during the 3rd Thursday Artwalk/Mingle, May 16th from 5-8pm. Come see what our creative entrepreneurs are up to, check out the new installations at the Woolworth Windows and and visit 1312 MLK Way for a performance by N. Dybevik and special guests from 6-6:30pm.
There will be lots to see with a bit of ground to cover! Walking maps will be available that day at the Farmer’s Market and the Woolworth Windows, as well as online.
Another piece for the Cakewalk - Floating Estate Island by Gabriel Brown, self-described ‘garbologist’ and a previous Spaceworks artist. This sculpture, valued at $100, could be yours in just a few short weeks!
What: Cakewalk When: September 15, 6pm-9pm Where: 311 S. 7th Street, Tacoma, WA 98402 Admission: free, all ages, refreshments provided, drinks for sale (21+) Live DJs: Mr. Melanin and DJ Broam, performance by the BareFoot Collective. For more info, click here.
Support Spaceworks upcoming fundraiser celebration, Cakewalk. You’ll have the opportunity to buy a ticket to participate in either an ‘artwalk’ or a ‘cakewalk’ ($20 for artwork, $5 for cake), and take home something fabulous for dirt cheap – all while supporting a good cause. Help us celebrate the first two years of Spaceworks and keep it going in 2013!
“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.” Continue reading →
"Detroit Storefront Competition: Local Detroit Grocer." Project manager and participating artist: Jeannine Shinoda
I (heart) interactive art. The kind of art that can sense your proximity and shifts or shivers in response to it. Art that reveals itself at times and in ways you least expect. Art that beckons from a street corner. Art that makes you step back and check out its bad self, mmhmm. Portland, OR-based artists Ariel Brice and Jeannine Shinoda create art that demands a double take, and they are heading up I-5 North to prove it. Their mission: “We believe that the opportunity provided by Artscapes and Spaceworks Tacoma will enable us to create a contextual installation on a site rich with potential….Using Tacoma and the Northwest as inspiration for our urban intervention will engage us as artists and the Tacoma public as viewers to our artistic visions.”
"Detroit Storefront Competition: Local Detroit Grocer."
When we recently checked in, Shinoda would elaborate on their upcoming installation at 950 Pacific Avenue – but not too much. The artists are considering an interactive work that employs either, 1) peepholes – window portals at multiple heights that toy with people’s perceptions, and expectations of, what they will see inside, or 2) motion sensors – motion-activated lighting that creates “an interactive dialogue with the motion of the street.”
Ari Brice received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art; he is a curator, and an artist “whose sculptural installations [deal] with perceptions and controlled viewing.” Shinoda is a visual artist with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Together, they have collaborated in two artist residencies over the past year in the Netherlands and in China. You can engage with their work from July 15 to October 31 in the big windows at 950 Pacific Avenue: “For Artscapes, we visualize a kinetic and interactive experience to enliven the Tacoma streetscape.” For more information: www.aribrice.com.
Art party: Spaceworks opening hosted by Chris Sharp and Jeremy Gregory
The skateboard – painted, decal-ed, scarred and battle-worn – emerged as T-town’s ranking object of functional art at the Spaceworks launch party Thursday night. As a suggested mode of transportation (no carbon emissions, free parking), it was in evidence everywhere along the art walk route, starting with the studio of Jeremy Gregory and Chris Sharp. (The evening’s hosts practice aerial twists and turns on their indoor quarter-pipe when the place isn’t crammed with visitors.) Partygoers got fortified on raw munchies and refreshments then flowed out into the streets, on foot or on wheels, to view the ongoing 3-D dialogue between artists and the city.
A crowd gathers round the "Pacific Park" installation.
This was truly an all-ages event, with scads of even pre-SOTA grade schoolers in attendance. Many converged at 950 Pacific Avenue to see artists and green gurus Nichole Vandever and Cheryl Rux, who led the recycling charge amongst area schoolkids that resulted in their monumental Pacific Park window installation. The work’s centerpiece is a long-legged fawn made of cardboard toilet paper tubes standing in a meadow of styrofoam peanuts – it creates a tender yet unsettling mood, like Bambi retold by George Orwell.
A rabid assemblage of guests at Cat Grey's tea party.
We’ll take any chance we can get for a peek at Tea for Short Expectations, Acataphasia Grey‘s ironic, Tim Burton-esque peephole installation in Opera Alley (like a London backstreet at night). Obviously, we weren’t the only ones for whom out-of-sight doesn’t mean out-of-mind – check out this Shakespearean madhouse tea party fantasy and you’ll see why.
Members of the Barefoot Collective warm up.
At 915 Pacific Avenue, Michael Hoover and Katie Stricker of the BareFoot Collective held court on the marley floor with bare feet and high spirits, talking about their upcoming Ides of May performance featuring students from Gig Harbor High School (check their Facebook page for dates and times).
Rick Lawson and Valery Tolle rock the WEP.
The War Experience Project, a harrowing exhibition of uniforms painted by military veterans whose impact we can only compare to that of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, ended on a grace note Thursday. Program originator Rick Lawson was nominated for the prestigious Foundation of Art Award from the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation (the philanthropic organization that is bringing Desmond Tutu to Tacoma next month). Congratulations to Rick and his wife, Valery Tolle, for their inspired work on behalf of veterans.
Sam Olsen on the move.
Garage-band wunderkind Sam Olsen (one half of The Coma Collective, with Shayne Weeks) takes the evening’s prize for “Best Musical Performance on a Skateboard”…Olsen sweetly strummed Smokey Robinson’s You Really Got A Hold on Me on the guitar, while tracing lazy serpentines on his ‘board. It reminded us of surfing legend Duke Kahanomoku picking his ukelele while cresting an ocean wave. The painter Saul Becker and conceptual artist James Sinding share the residency space at 1114 Pacific Avenue with The Coma Collective. Becker, newly transplanted from New York, is in the process of moving in; Sinding’s wonderful wooden furniture and airplane taking a nosedive were on display.
A word from James Sinding.
After making the rounds of Pacific Avenue we headed back up to Broadway for a last look at installations dealing with time, history, the cosmos, philosophy, and the imperiled ecological state the world finds itself in. The Woolworth Building features works by Amy Oates, Jessica Spring, Holly Senn, Gabriel Brown and Julie Jansen. At 908-912 Broadway, installations by Rachel Hibbard, Nicole Linde and Celeste Cooning emit an unnatural light of their own, asking viewers to take pause and consider, before skating by.
Definition of Abscission: 1. the natural process by which leaves or other parts are shed from a plant 2. the act of suddenly cutting something off
"Abscission" features objects so common as to be invisible. Photo: Dane Gregory Meyer
Artist Julie M. Jansen says that all the objects in her new installation, Abscission, have two things in common: Each item was hand-collected by herself, and each is deemed unnecessary or unwanted by most people. The inventory includes torn up cardboard, blue masking tape, remnant paint and, somewhat creepily, invasive plant species (collected from nurseries in her hometown of Portland). The latter – homicidal members of the vegetable world – when introduced to alien turf go on to strangle, starve or otherwise corrupt vulnerable native species. But in Jansen’s hands, this lineup of undesirables assembles itself along with inanimate objects into a larger-than-life collage; one that speaks to the idea of a life cycle for every item we mindlessly insert into the consumer chain. Unfortunately, we lose control over such objects once they leave our hands, with untold consequences.
"Debris" by Julie Jansen
Other elements that make up Abscission, such as remnant paint given to the artist by friends, “are ordinary [items], quickly discarded, and so ingrained in everyday life that we no longer see them.” Cardboard flats are cut into shapes resembling land forms, or the layers on a topographical map. “By gathering unwanted items and using them in my work I am engaging in a process encompassing concepts of displacement, temporality, and place,” she says.
Jansen has nurtured invasive species for previous projects, and she’s interested in how once an aggressive species takes hold in an environment, “an entire industry of weed-killing chemicals” must follow to exterminate it. “Humans are poisoning water sources along with desirable plants and crops,” she says. “One reason I am focusing on invasive plants in this installation is because I question the methods used to destroy them.
“Another intention of this work is to cause individuals to rethink their relationships to these plants and hopefully find beauty in something that is usually undesired. Within this concept I see a metaphor for many aspects of human life; in our society we quickly deem objects and even individuals unnecessary and discard them accordingly.” Abscission, the Woolworth Building, 11th & Broadway, March 22 – July 1.
Every garden is a collaboration, a creative conversation between human being and plants in which the gardener has the louder voice, but the vegetation has the final say.
Unless the gardener is Holly Senn. For a number of years, the Tacoma-based artist has been crafting botanical sculptures that “explore the life cycle of ideas – the organic, non-linear process in which thoughts have a genesis and then are disseminated, adopted or refuted, forgotten or referenced.” In her world, old books provide the rich mulch from which art arises. She takes discarded library volumes, plucks their yellowed leaves then reanimates them in the form of three-dimensional buds, seeds and fruit.
Senn’s new installation at the Woolworth Building, Composites, is a colorful hybrid of an exhibit combining her word-based sculptures and photography. Six flower sculptures are paired with six photographs of flowers, each duo creating, in effect, a self-contained diorama.
“I’m a sculptor – I think and work in three-dimensional forms. Instead of sketching I take photographs of plants and use those photos as inspiration and models for my sculptures,” she explains. “In combining the two processes I wanted to invite viewers to look closer….The integration of the sculptures with the canvases allows viewers to reflect on the level of similarity and integration.”
A diorama by Holly Senn.
Senn’s Spaceworks-supported installation is located at 11th and Broadway in windows that face out at the weekly Tacoma farmers’ market. The siting adds vibrancy and site responsiveness to the work. The open marketplace “brings a composite of plants, people and ideas to Broadway….Ideas are the most invisible part of the market composition, but are an important part of the communication and transactions that take place across cultures, genders and ages of the participants.”
The works in Composites were originally exhibited at the Brooklyn Public Library in 2009. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden provided Senn with source material – photographs of plants from the garden which she transformed digitally, enlarged and printed on canvas for the dioramas’ backgrounds. She then created, leaf by leaf, her vivid and painstakingly detailed individual responses to the images of wisteria, holly, red bud, tulip, rhododendron and cherry.You can see the artist’s personal journal of photographs and observations about plants on her website. Composites, 11th and Broadway, March 14 through July 1.
If Nature is the reigning goddess-muse for a legion of contemporary artists, Iceland must be her sexiest manifestation. The singer Bjork, the post-rock band Sigur Rós, and Nobel Prize-winning author, Halldór Laxness, all hail from this island south of the Arctic Circle, where myths of trolls and pixies hold a special place in the minds of some, and the geography of spewing volcanoes, gushing geysers, steaming hot springs and growling blue ice floes is something magical.
And then there’s winter – the endless winter.
“When I first went to Iceland, I arrived in early January and stayed until late July,” says Portland-based artist, Nicole Linde, of her artist’s residency in the northern town of Akureyri. “There were only two hours of daylight in January and about the same amount of darkness in July.” One thing the elongated Icelandic winter offers artists is the time and motivation to stay inside and create. For Linde, that meant embarking on a series of crystal-themed pieces inspired by the ice-encrusted landscape, one of which is coming to Tacoma.
"The Council" by Nicole Linde
For Spaceworks Tacoma, Linde is creating The Crystalline Garden, an installation opening March 18 at 906 Broadway. Universal forces converge in this “cosmic piece” inspired by the artist’s interest in natural crystals, Nordic mythology, science fiction and fantasy. Images of “the volcanic, hot landscape of obsidian” are one catalyst behind her work. But The Crystalline Garden extends beyond the seen realm.
“I like the idea that we are all stardust. I don’t know much about the scientific facts behind this, but poetically it is a nice visual connection,” she says. “In my art, I am constantly exploring new ideas, and new ways to express my finite self to the infinite. Perhaps this cosmic sea of chemicals, gases, and minerals is the glue that binds us all together within a dimensional giant web.”
"An Offering," by Nicole Linde
Linde says that while developing her “fantastical world” on the theme of crystals, she became interested in the relationship between natural vs. artificial objects. She then made resin casts “to try and imitate crystals and gems. The meeting of these two worlds is where I feel the magic of Crystalline Garden starts to happen.” The Crystalline Garden, 906 Broadway, March 18 through July 1. http://www.nicolelinde.com
Online applications are now being accepted for Round 3 of Spaceworks Tacoma, opening March 15, 2011. There are currently three opportunities available to artists:
Video installation by Alexandra Opie
1) Artscapes temporarily places visual art installations in interior window storefronts.
2) The Artist Residency program offers dedicated practicing artists the chance to pursue projects in any discipline for three months, with the opportunity to extend to six months.
3) Creative enterprise provides designers, crafters, consultants and other fledgling entrepreneurs the chance to test new products and services in a physical space for three or six months.
Please download the application which best describes your interest:
Spaceworks Tacoma is a joint initiative of the City of Tacoma, Shunpike and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce. For more information, please contact Rebecca Solverson at rsolverson@ci.tacoma.wa.us or (253) 591-5560.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea,” wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. For Tacoma-born artist, Craig Snyder, Puget Sound was the mysterious, tide-driven entity that drew his father, a tugboat captain, away for long periods of time during his childhood. For wait, where am i?, a Spaceworks collaborative installation with Ruth Tomlinson, Tania Kupczak and Jessica Bender, Snyder is making one drawing each day based on the path of a Foss tug as it travels through Puget Sound. The abstract drawings are made of flowing forms based on daily satellite data as well as personal observation. Displayed one on top of the other, like the pages of a daily calendar, the line drawings have a meditative effect, drawing one into the progress of a journey without words. Snyder’s use of translucent vellum as a medium makes this an odyssey of luminous contours; ghostly tracings of movement can be seen through the layers. “Because his absence was often more noticeable than his presence, knowing which boat he was on provided a certain level of understanding and comfort,” he says of his dad. The documentation “serves to re-inform my understanding of my father’s life, and perhaps more importantly, to locate myself within it.”
Spaceworks Tacoma is a joint initiative of the City of Tacoma and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce designed to activate empty storefronts and vacant space. The initiative makes no- and low-cost temporary space, training, and technical assistance available to artists, creative entrepreneurs, organizations, and community groups in order to nurture successful projects that transform Tacoma into a stronger, more active city.
