Daniella Pavlić / Wet Lives
Tollbooth Gallery, 11th & Broadway
April 20, 2017 – July 20, 2017
This new body of work is invested in perspectives of labor through various lenses. My work often speaks to indigenous bodies through metaphors found in nature and semiotics.
Two years ago, I moved from Champaign, Illinois to Tacoma, Washington. The landscapes and weather in these two locations are so drastically different, that I couldn’t help but implement a rainy day into this art installation. People of the corn have built networks across the Americas, and this is installation is just one small glimpse into their lives.
Kari Boeskov / Between
Woolworth Windows 4 & 5, 11th & Broadway
April 20, 2017 – July 20, 2017
Between
shadow and reflection
ground and sky
now and again
object and drawing
here and gone
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Gillian Nordlund / Banners on Parade
Court House Square (Main Hall), 1102 A Street
April 20, 2017 – July 20, 2017
Gillian presents a series of hand-sewn cloth works inspired by flag design, classic coat of arms styles, and embroidery techniques
- GLADITUDE: When you can see what’s going right in your life; you have the power to change what you don’t like; you are at peace with yourself and humanity; you appreciate what you have. It gives you power to battle the “NEGATUDES.” This is the ultimate “TUDE”
- SADITUDE: When everything makes you sad and you can’t do anything about it. Except wake up tomorrow.
- RADITUDE: No one is raining on your parade. If they tried you have the power to prevent them. You have unequivocal confidence in yourself and humanity; for good reason.
- BADITUDE: When you’re mad at yourself and the universe for no good reason. You don’t even want to try to fix it.
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Gabe Babcock / We Are One
Woolworth Window #1, 11th & Commerce
April 20, 2017 – July 20, 2017
www.gabebabcock.com
Long ago a family of Native Americans from a Northwest tribe took their children to collect Salmon they had caught in traps. The children, however, were disrespectful to their family and the Salmon. The parents threw the children out of their canoes to teach them a lesson. Seeing the children drowning the Salmon carried them to the surface, and Salmon promised that as long as the people were respectful of Nature, the Salmon would return every year to provide an endless supply of nutritious Salmon for the health and survival of the people. For generations thereafter, alongside the Salmon traps the people placed this image of the Salmon holding a child, giving thanks for the return of the Salmon.
Salmon Banners, Gabe Babcock’s Prints Help Improve Water
-Spaceworks blog by Walker Hewitt
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Gathering: Six Northwest Basketry Artists
Woolworth Window 2, 11th & Broadway
April 20, 2017 – July 20, 2017
www.nationalbasketry.org
This exhibit, titled “Gathering: Six Northwest Basketry Artists” includes six basketry artists who are members of the National Basketry Organization and they represent the diversity of traditional and non-traditional approaches to the making of Pacific Northwest basketry. The works are created out of a diverse range of materials using a variety of basketry techniques. The featured basketry artists include: Dona Anderson, Katherine Lewis, Peeta Tinay, Jill Nordfors Clark, Danielle Bodine, and Lanny Bergner.
In summer 2017, the National Basketry Organization Conference will take place in Tacoma, Washington. Tradition and Innovation in Basketry IX is hosted at the University of Puget Sound, July 18 – 23, 2017. For more information and to sign up for workshops visit www.nationalbasketry.org: :: :: ::
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Galen Turner | NEON
Woolworth Window 3, 11th & Broadway
May 18, 2017 – July 20, 2017
In preparation for Spaceworks’ 2nd annual fundraiser NEON, artist Galen Turner installed a flashy, tongue-in-cheek Artscape in one of the Woolworth Windows. He used traditional, mechanical relays to make antique signs light up in various patterns. You can observe the relay gears animating the signs by opening and closing electrical circuits creating a dazzling, flickering artwork.
Read more about the artist and the Artscape in this Tacoma Weekly article
Blake Carter / 38,971 Pedestrians
Woolworth Window 3, 11th & Broadway
December 31, 2016 – March 16, 2017
www.blakecarter.net
Blake states “We don’t often interact with strangers while walking in public, so it’s hard for anyone to tell what anyone else is going through. Still, I’d bet that most people have been cheered up by a smile or a nod from someone we don’t know. I have. Even a friendly glance can make you feel like you’re part of a community. All of the foreground pieces in this installation are hand-drawn in ink and a little paint on wood and paper, part of what I call my Pedestrian Series. They’re a tribute to all of us, just doing whatever we’re doing when we’re out in public, and acknowledging that we’re all in this together. Whether you’re feeling “on top of the world” or “down and out,” this one’s for you.”
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Allison Hyde / Traces and Transformations
Woolworth Window 2, 11th & Broadway
December 31, 2016 – March 16, 2017
www.allisonhyde.com
Allison Hyde is an artist living and working in the Pacific Northwest. She is originally from Tacoma, Washington and graduated from the University of Oregon with a Masters in Fine Arts in 2011. Whether using found objects, photographs, printmaking, or installation spaces, her work seeks to evoke ideas of loss, memory, identity and desire. She believes that architecture and objects embody a beauty in the marks of time passing, speak quietly about human experience, and intimately personify our identities in an unparalleled way. “Traces and Transformations” investigates the interconnectivity of human experience in the domestic environment and the malleability of memory. By physically cutting, joining, and transforming the graphite rubbings of an old wood floor, the artist allows these silvery grey traces and scratches to undergo a metamorphosis – a visual transformation that is meant to spark familiar recollection as well as a sense of profound loss knowing that our memories of the past are incomplete, fragmented, and often reconfigured over time.:: ::
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Amanda Triplett / Fibrous Body
Woolworth Windows 4&5, 11th & Broadway
December 31, 2016 – March 16, 2017
www.amandatriplett.com
Fibrous Body is an imagined landscape of the emotional body. Thread and fiber connects the complex emotional space of humans to the inner workings of their biology. Individual sculptures within the installation represent different emotional states and as a collective they resonate, collaborate, and collide. Just as the space is layered with different fibers, human biology is layered with latent emotional states.
Making art in the space where fine art and craftwork intersect, Amanda creates sculptural fiber works that play with ideas around body, identity and emotion. She takes discarded fiber and transform it into biologically-inspired, organic sculptures. Playing with the organic quality of fabric, she manipulates, layers and embroiders the materials into new formations, revealing the feeling stories formerly locked within the discarded materials.
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Eric Olson / Automatic Messaging Medium
Tollbooth Gallery, 11th & Broadway
December 31, 2016 – March 16, 2017
www.ericdidit.com
The Automatic Messaging Medium is an answering service that acts as a psychic medium to relay messages to people or things that participants miss due to their absence. As part of the installation, collected symbols of apparitions and cultural hauntings loop as a video hologram. The public is invited to participate by calling the number listed on the installation and leaving a message to be relayed by the answering service.
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Matthew Dockrey / Time Machines
Woolworth Window #1, 11th & Commerce
December 31, 2016 – March 16, 2017
www.twitter.com/attoparsec
Industrial artist Matthew Dockrey is often most inspired by mechanical or mathematical processes. He wants to show the beauty behind the technology and algorithms which define almost every waking moment of ours lives. For this he draws on his sci/tech background to create pieces both artistic and engineered. Regardless of the medium, he wants the technology that went into the making of a project to be fundamentally legible in the final result.
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Erika Norris / Architect of a Life
Courthouse Square, 1102 ‘A’ St.
Open M-F 7am-7pm, Saturday 7am-3pm
December 31, 2016 – March 16, 2017
www.erikanorris.com
Erika states “Partly autobiographical, my artwork is motivated by a lifelong interest in the ambiguous nature of identity; navigating the tenuous place between internal and external expectations and the struggle for self-definition. In essence, my work is about the pursuit to understand, define, and convey one’s own self and existence. I purposefully choose not to represent the human form in my artwork. Rather than drawing the figure directly, my exploration into the self looks at identity through environment and embodiment. I build obscurity in my works by intentionally distorting, omitting, manipulating, chewing, or displacing my subjects. Recently, I have been interested in reflections, in both the metaphorical and literal sense. These warped cranes investigate the impact of reflections on the sense of self, whether through the eyes of another or upon inner contemplation.”
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Mural by Game Not Fame
953 Market St.(Market Street side)
June 2016 – May 2017
www.gamenotfame.com
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Diana Leigh Surma / Valhalla Hall Mural
1216 MLK Jr Way
Oct 2015 – completion of building renovation
Diana states “In art and life, I am colorful. My paintings, like my personality are bold and direct. I create structured yet playful geometric compositions in a palette of saturated, vibrant hues. Scanners, digital projection and vector graphics play a significant role in the production of my imagery. Though I consider digital products complete in their own right, my challenge is to transform them into tactile, hand-hewn objects with a finite scale. Much like an architect or quilter the act of piecing together lines, patterns and planes is central to my process. The forms and content in my work represent an ongoing fascination with the fickleness of color and its chameleon-like ability to create illusions of transparency, opacity and three-dimensional space. I aspire to share my passion for pigment and public art as a leader, artist and art educator in the Pacific Northwest.” www.dianaleighsurma.com
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Year Round Co. / Happenings Kiosk Mural
S 13th & Market
June 2015 – May 2016
A new Artscape has been added to Spaceworks’ list of temporary art installations, and Year Round Co. is glad to be the first to liven up the space—a concrete kiosk on Market St just south of S 13th in downtown Tacoma. www.yearroundco.com
New Happening at Happenings Kiosk -Spaceworks blog
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Seeds Break Through Concrete
David Long in collaboration with NWDC Resistance
953 Market St.(11th Street side)
Nov 2015 – May 2016
David Long is a mural artist and printmaker working primarily in public application. He sees art as fun and exciting, but more critically as a platform to bolster social change towards equity. Seeds Break Through Concrete is his first collaboration with NWDC Resistance. Inspired by the leadership and actions of this group, the mural calls attention to the Northwest Detention Center operations, recognizes the organized efforts of detainees and begs the question to viewers of how they, existing outside of detainment, can engage in this issue. www.cargocollective.com/davidlong
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Astrid Anderson
953 Market St.(corner of 11th Street and Court C Alley)
June 2015 – May 2016
Astrid Anderson says her mural “was inspired by the encouragement my teacher and family have given me throughout my life. Looking back I have really changed a lot since I started middle school, this is thanks to the support given to me by others. One of my teachers helped me gain confidence in myself so I am able to be more confident in my decisions and when speaking with others. This mural shows that change is a wonderful thing you just have to embrace it and nurture it with the right environment, gain new experiences and share your knowledge with others.” The mural is Anderson’s graduating project at Seabury Middle School. www.seabury.org
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Vikram Madan / Celebration
953 Market St.(Court C Alley side)
June 2015 – May 2016
A mural celebrating three things that make us quintessentially human: 1. Our universal love for music and dance; 2. Our insatiable thirst to learn, discover, create—which leads us to build things like robots (and paint things like ‘dancing robots’!); and 3. Our ability to smile at wacky images like this!
Through his whimsical works, Vikram Madan probes the mysteries of the human spirit, tries to rekindle a lost sense of innocence, and aspires to make the world a better place one shared-moment of levity at a time. When he is not painting, Vikram writes and illustrates humorous poetry, including the hilarious award-winning book The Bubble Collector. www.vikrammadan.com
RYAN! Feddersen / WHAT WILL HAPPEN? (WHAT HAPPENED?)
Happenings Kiosk, S 13th & Market
January 2017 – September 2017
ryanfeddersen.com
Passersby and viewers were invited to participate in the creation of RYAN! Feddersen’s mural on the HAPPENINGS kiosk at the corner of 13th and Market in downtown Tacoma. The work invited viewers to interact by using QR Code Reader or mobile browser to visiting the artist’s website www.ryanfeddersen.com/what-will-happen where the answered this prompt:
“Please share a hope, aspiration, prediction or other words (500 character limit) that you would like to contribute as inspiration for a public artwork that will be installed on this kiosk. It can be based on something real, or something fictitious. To submit an image (3MB limit), please use the file upload…”
Feddersen incorporated elements of viewer submissions into the final artwork within the theme of a fictional bulletin board. Mural was updated April 1st, 2017 as a public artwork generated through fusion of technology and imagination.
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Nola Avienne / Ashflow
Woolworth Window 1, 11th & Broadway
August 18 – November 17, 2016
Nola states “Ashflow portrays the unreal stillness just before disaster hits, the moment of heightened senses when minute details are perceived. This volcano portrait includes impact craters, the slow advance of Pahoehoe lava, vertical thrust of volcanic strata, and the rain of ash holding its breath for a brief second… In an installation made of disparate materials – from construction spray foam to merino wool, packing tape to panty hose – this ‘still life with volcano’ encompasses the experience of danger at a distance becoming beautiful.” www.nolaavienne.com
Waiting for the Big One -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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Lauren Boilini / One Love Stand
Woolworth Window 2, 11th & Broadway
August 18 – November 17, 2016
Lauren states “In my current body of work I look at the idea of excess, when images of excess become meaningless and fall into the realm of pattern. This idea of gluttony is reflected in our current culture. We are a hedonistic society, always looking for more until the more we are looking for loses its meaning. This installation was created as a backdrop for an artist book I am currently working on. I received a GAP grant from Artist Trust to publish a small book of drawings that provide context to a large body of work. The book tells the back-story behind a series of paintings I have created over the past 6 years. This installation follows a similar commission through the Shunpike Storefronts Project in Seattle, continuing to develop a landscape in which the book of drawings can find context.” www.laurenboilini.net
Lauren Boilini’s Season of Excess -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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2016 Tacoma Wayzgoose Steamroller Prints
Woolworth Window 3, 11th & Broadway
August 18 – November 17, 2016
This exhibit consists of bold linocut prints from various artists created during the
2016 Tacoma Wayzgoose Festival. “The Tacoma Wayzgoose (an archaic term describing the celebratory feast held by a master printer) is an annual spring letterpress and book arts festival held at King’s Books founded by Jessica Spring (Springtide Press), and bookstore owner Sweetpea Flaherty. A highlight of the weekend is steamroller printing, where artists carve 3 x 3 foot linoleum and print on huge sheets of paper using a steamroller as a printing press.” www.kingsbookstore.com
Wayzgoose Steamrolls Into the Woolworth Windows -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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Eva Funderburgh / Looking forward, Looking backward
Woolworth Windows 4&5, 11th & Broadway
August 18 – November 17, 2016
Eva states “My work deals with the overlap of humanity and the natural world. I use my simple, emotive animal forms to examine human motives and emotions. Humans are animals, and as animals they are part of nature. Guided by this idea, I seek insight into the human condition from sources as diverse as animal fables and biology textbooks.” www.evafunderburgh.com
Artscapes Span Delicate Deer to Monotonous Mechanics -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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Nichole Rathburn / Catacomb
Woolworth Windows 4&5, 11th & Broadway
May 21 – July 21, 2016
“Eventually the pain of losing you
you that died
you that drifted away
you that fell in love with someone else
you that I never met
freezes into a soft wave that travels before me.”
www.nicholerathburn.com
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Gustavo Martinez / Balance Interference
Woolworth Window 1, 11th & Broadway
April 21 – July 21, 2016
Gustavo states “There is balance in our world- humans are part of it. Our choices and advances carry both positive and negative impacts. This exhibition explores indicators of harmony in our environment. Inspired by Mesoamerican imagery, I retell the stories of our cultural heritage to ensure they live on.” www.gustavoarte.com
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Joel Ong / Search Function: Tacoma
Tollbooth Gallery, 11th & Broadway
April 21 – July 21, 2016
In Search Function: Tacoma, Joel Ong explores the way impressions of a city can be created from online searches on publicly available websites that include both professional and user-generated content. The project collects a database of images filtered through the online search function {search?=tacoma+washington}, continually updating this to create an ever changing, evolving installation. Search Function: Tacoma is strategically located at the Tollbooth gallery, an unconventionally liminal and transitional gallery space, supporting the unfolding of informative, transactional relationships with its many nomadic visitors. www.arkfrequencies.com
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Lisa Nappa / Waterscapes and Sand Tracks
Woolworth Window 3, 11th & Broadway
April 21 – July 21, 2016
Lisa states “The beauty of water was the initial inspiration for these pieces, yet as I began to explore the formal possibilities, the politics of water came to the surface. Water can be controlled, contained and directed; yet the unpredictability of nature continues to challenge us. I try to convey the beauty of water, transforming it into careful constructions through form and surface. It is often the things that we cannot hold on to that intrigue me, shadows on a wall, slight movement within leaves on a tree, reflecting light on a body of water. These moments of fleeting beauty hold a magic that is unattainable and bring forth the ultimate emotion of ephemerality. There is sadness or just the practical sense of knowing that this perfect moment cannot last, cannot be contained or kept and yet, this is exactly what I try to do.” www.lisanappa.com
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Roger Ralston / Sweeping Outlier: Remote Edition
Woolworth Window 2, 11th & Broadway
April 21 – July 21, 2016
Paper, Stone, Bamboo, Wood, Copper, Thread
Roger states “This piece and many of my pieces work with balance, movement and color. These pieces started as a method of entertaining my daughter and myself as we lay in bed trying to take naps. But, the initial steps of making have lead to adding objects as volumes. From that point, it has become easy and a downhill slope to adding my geometric investigations, and formal constructs as elements to the designs. These follow easily from the other work I have done, wind vanes, kinetics, and color covered forma constructions.” www.rogerralston.net
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Angela Larsen / We all have our things
953 Market St.(Market Street side)
June 2015 – May 2016
Angela Larsen describes this mural as her “sketchbook coming to life.” Larsen says she is obsessed with line drawing, graphic images and all-over repeating patterns, adding that “As a person as well as an artist, I am incredibly interested in social justice and the human experience and how the individual exists in a community. This work seeks to perhaps expose humanness and draws directly from people in my life. The faceless figure has been something I have been working with for a few years and it lends itself to connecting with people because as a passerby stated, ‘it could be anyone.’” www.angelalarsen.net
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Jeffrey Curtis / Sidewalk Dance Films
Tollbooth Gallery, 11th & Broadway
Dec 31, 2015 – Mar 17, 2016
Jeffrey Curtis states “Sidewalk Dance Films takes dance films and videos out of the cinema and puts dance amid the movement of the city.” “Sidewalk Dance Films is an exhibition of selected dance works created by international choreographers and film-makers. Every two weeks, Sidewalk Dance Films will showcase around 45 minutes of short dance films that will replay 24/7.” “The videos constitute a range of choreography and visual design from samplings of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire to contemporary dance forms, from quirky animated montages and unknown dream worlds to unique perspectives of familiar places and everyday relationships.” www.jeffreycurtis.org
Sidewalk Dance Films at the Tollbooth -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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Alexander Keyes / to: europa
Woolworth Window 1, 11th & Broadway
Dec 31, 2015 – Mar 17, 2016
“always be doodling.
always be speculating.
always be lusting.“
Alexander Keyes states “If I follow these rules, I will make more art. I will make more work about the escapist desires of the amateur and the fantastic narratives of the day dreamer. If I follow these rules, I will not be worried about making beautiful art. Rather I will make more work of unfettered creation embracing the scars of my labor and the mistakes of my hand. If I follow these rules, I am given permission to play in the studio, crafting narratives about making rocket ships and going to the moon. The reward for good work is more work. And I want to keep working.” www.alexanderkeyes.com
Alexander Keyes: “Doodling, Speculating, Lusting” -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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Brad Dinsmore / Doves & Ravens
Woolworth Window 2, 11th & Broadway
Dec 31, 2015 – Mar 17, 2016
“Dozing off in grey
Laodicean birds wake
To a brighter day”
This haiku, written by Brad Dinsmore, accompanies his window installation and provides a tone for the work. The installation includes Dinsmore’s canvas paintings with layered imagery of doves and ravens, which progress into a large painting directly on the wall, wrapping around corners, and reaching from floor to ceiling. www.brad-dinsmore.com
Haiku Installation Ties Together Poetry and Image -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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‘Neon‘ Dion Thomas / Sides of the Town
Woolworth Window 3, 11th & Broadway
Dec 31, 2015 – Mar 17, 2016
About Sides of the Town Dion states “This installation was inspired by a shirt I created to unite Tacoma. The concept is for everyone in the city so whether you were born, raised, or just moved here it is important to claim the Tacoma as your own. Some people feel like their area is better, tougher, nicer, cleaner etc, etc but no matter what side, its all the same TOWN. With the campaign and spirit of “unity in the community”, I collaborated with local artists from each distinct destination in Tacoma to give the public a superbly insightful view into what life is like on each side of the Town.” www.galleryofambition.com
Tacoma is a Rubik’s Cube -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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Elizabeth R Gahan / Cohesive Fragments
Woolworth Windows 4 & 5, 11th & Broadway
Dec 31, 2015 – Mar 17, 2016
On Cohesive Fragments Elizabeth Gahan states “Within each piece, ads are fractured or replaced entirely with colored vinyl, paper and spray paint, obscuring the commercial content and allowing the beauty of color and graphic design to blossom in a seemingly organic way. In addition, the repetition or shear abundance of synthetic forms implies the potential for these shapes to grow and multiply of their own accord blurring the line between what is “natural” and “unnatural.” My work strives to balance beauty and inspiration with a critical consideration of our growing urban environments.” www.elizabethgahan.com
Transforming Advertising Pulp Into Public Art -article by Lisa Kinoshita
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Tim + April
Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Awards
October 1, 2015, Tacoma Armory
A temporary installation, sponsored by Spaceworks, during the 2015 Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Awards. www.timplusapril.com
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Terese Cuff / Pistachios
Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Awards
October 1, 2015, Tacoma Armory
A temporary multi-media exhibit, sponsored by Spaceworks, during the 2015 Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Awards. Cuff states that this project “began with conversations with my siblings about their memories of eating pistachios. A family portrait and a somewhat dysfunctional family dynamic is revealed as different memories of shared experiences are discussed. The paintings used to create the animation and video footage are woven together digitally to support the narrative and create a cycle of image generation.” www.bluemelonproductions.net
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Elizabeth Gahan
Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Awards
October 1, 2015, Tacoma Armory
A temporary installation, sponsored by Spaceworks, during the 2015 Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Awards. www.elizabethgahan.com
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Diana Leigh Surma & Judd Cohen / Color Box
Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Awards
October 1, 2015, Tacoma Armory
A temporary installation, sponsored by Spaceworks, during the 2015 Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Awards. www.dianaleighsurma.com
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Terra Holcomb / Organic Materials
Woolworth Window #2, 11th & Broadway
Sep 17 – Dec 3, 2015
Holcomb states “I am the designer, photographer and subject of my dresses. My photographs capture a temporary, private performance between me and my surroundings. By fitting the flowers or moss to my skin, I become camouflaged in the wilderness. It is within these fleeting moments when I feel most connected to nature. Because I travel alone and leave the dresses to the wilderness, many times the only witness has been my camera and I.” www.terraholcomb.com
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Organic Inclusivity
By Megan Bent in partnership with L’Arche Tahoma Hope Community
Woolworth Window #3, 11th & Broadway
Sep 17 – Dec 3, 2015
Megan Bent states “Organic Inclusivity is comprised of images created by members of the L’Arche Tahoma Hope Community, where people with and without developmental disabilities share life based on mutual relationships. The photographic processes for this installation (cyanotype, solargraphy, chlorophyll prints, and lomography) were chosen to symbolize the values of the life we live in community. In our lives at L’Arche, beauty is found in the everyday occurrences: sharing meals, singing songs, and working alongside one another. Day-to-day, what one person might consider mundane might be a major victory for another. The photographic processes are pared down and inclusive; they are also processes that require time and patience. It can takes 2-3 days for one image to be created. In a world where the pace of life and activity is ever increasing we aim to shine a light on the importance of slowing down and appreciating the journey as much as the destination.” www.larchetahomahope.org
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Shawn Foote / Super Apocentri
Woolworth Windows #4 & #5, 11th & Broadway
Sep 17 – Dec 3, 2015
“The large figure is grounded, connected to the earth while contemplating the stars.
From the wreckage of a hefty windstorm, fence boards gain new life and purpose.
The smaller figure, drawing on myth and legend, conjures his present.
He too is grounded and connects to the larger rhythms that perpetuate the cosmos.”
-Shawn Foote
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China Faith Star / Tarotpia
Tollbooth Gallery, 11th & Broadway
Sep 17 – Dec 3, 2015
For this body of work, China Faith Star explores the fool’s journey through the Major Arcana of the Tarot and the experience of living in a multifaceted dimensional reality while accessing histories based in a dualistic model. In addition to her intricate hand illustrated and collaged works on paper, this current project also includes an 8min. animation innovation created in tandem with Internetbabes’s Andrew Ebright with soundtrack by China’s side musical project Liquid Letters in collaboration with The Various Moods of Nathan Gibson. In varying manifests, Tarotpia, can be viewed at these locations: Last Projects (Hollywood, CA Oct-Nov 2015), Lei Min Space (Chinatown Los Angeles, CA Oct 2015), Obsidian Café (Olympia, WA Sept. 2015), Nano Gallery at SPSCC (Olympia, WA Sept-Oct 2015), The Tarot Society (Brooklyn, NY 2016), Tollbooth Gallery (Tacoma, WA Sept-Dec 2015).”
www.chinafaithstar.com
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Marisa Vitiello & Beate Liepert / Say My Name
Woolworth Window #1, 11th & Commerce
May 21, 2015 – August 20, 2015
“Say My Name” is an installation based on the true story of a woman named Margaret who, in the 1960’s, lived and worked in a flooded apartment with a dolphin named Peter and tried to teach him to say her name. The story, featured on an episode of Radiolab, provokes a multitude of questions: Must ego always be a part of everything we do? What happens when we try to cross boundaries between animals and humans? And what exists in the place at the border between what is real and what is fantasy?
Collaborators Marisa Vitiello and Beate Liepert bring to their process a combination of art and science. Vitiello, an artist and educator, and Liepert, and artist and climate researcher, engage in their work through a combination of intentionality and spontaneity, where images are “discovered” as often as they are planned. The two believe strongly in the value of experimentation, messiness, and letting go of the things they are most attached to, in order to find what lies beneath them. www.marisa-vitiello.com
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Nathan Orosco / Take it to the Bridge
Blackfish Gallery
Woolworth Window #2, 11th & Broadway
May 21, 2015 – August 20, 2015
May they Collide
To the kindred spirits of the realms
Wandering through lands, seas and shadows
May they collide
With fierce precision ignite the core
And kindle the sensations, desires and
Consciousness
That dwell in minds so comatose
May they collide
Ignite
Burn the fog
Plow the fields of perception
Till the sod of the futile past
Plant seeds of projection and transcendence
That will illuminate the forward vision
And awaken within
All that is human
–Nathan Orosco
www.nathanorosco.net
www.blackfish.com
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Gender Alliance of the South Sound / T-Town Transgender Neighbors
Woolworth Window #3, 11th & Broadway
May 21, 2015 – August 20, 2015
A portrait exhibit of your T-Town Transgender Neighbors presented by the Gender Alliance of the South Sound (GASS). As, GASS shares on their Facebook page: “We are your co-workers, friends, and family members. Read our touching personal stories, see some great photography, and get to know us.” www.southsoundgender.com
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Sarah Casto / We Part to Meet Again
Woolworth Windows #4 & 5, 11th & Broadway
May 21, 2015 – August 20, 2015
Sarah Casto is a self-taught mixed media artist who creates primarily in shadow boxes and collage. A self-described “hunter and gatherer of found objects and natural elements” who uses these items to create, Castro is “inspired by organic shapes and interesting objects” and always uses “fragments of the human form and nature” in her creations.
“We Part to Meet Again” is her first installation piece, and she having spent nearly 20 years working in a retail environment, she says she was “drawn to this space—formally used as a window display—because of its original purpose as well as its accessibility to the public.”
Castro says the installation is “simply stated […] about love. It is about heartache, loss and letting go, as well as the reconnection that can be associated with love. It’s about love that evolves and revolves. Love that is complicated. Love that comes from the deepest, darkest parts of our hearts and the longing, attachment and grasping that love can evoke from within us.” www.sarahcastoart.com
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Chad Gunderson / all NATURAL
Tacoma Post Office Building (Main Hall), 1102 A Street
May 21, 2015 – August 20, 2015
Of the rocks used in this installation, Chad Gunderson says they were “carved, distorted, and used as tools for the imagination,” but that the work also “merges elements from contemporary culture by using plastic veneers and saturated colors.” Gunderson says ultimately his creations “become part of a collection of fabricated and fetishized objects which represent how the human imagination can mutate geologic and fossilized specimens into engineered designer relics.” www.chadgundersonart.com
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The Personal Power Company
Tollbooth Gallery, 11th & Broadway
July – September, 2015
The Personal Power Company Presents videos by Kris Crews, mMusic by Humble Cub and Off Model, with guest appearances from Allen Boothe, Jeremy Gregory, Geoff Weeg, and Patrick Doherty. The Personal Power Company
Lights on at Personal Power Company – Spaceworks blog
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Erika Rier / Mythic Ephemera
1120 Creative House, 1120 Pacific Ave.
March 19 – April 16, 2015
Activating 50ft of window space overlooking Commerce Street, Mythic Ephemera consists of seven large, exquisitely detailed paper dolls, numerous floating illustrations, and hand painted designs directly on the glass. www.erikarier.com
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Barbara De Pirro / Metamorphosis
Woolworth Windows #3, 11th & Broadway
December 31, 2014 – April 16, 2015
An evolving installation comprised of a series of sculptural forms, each representing a metamorphosis, a transformation from the humble into the exceptional. As nature creates life cell by cell, so De Pirro creates these sculptures. Reclaiming hundreds of plastic bottles, she begins by hand cutting each into individual shapes; stitching, threading and weaving them together until a multifaceted, organic structure takes shape. www.depirro.com
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Anastasia Zielinski / Bright Light Heavy
Woolworth Windows #2, 11th & Broadway
December 31, 2014 – April 16, 2015
Since relocating to the Pacific Northwest, Anastasia has been focused on creating worlds through texture and color, transforming spaces with paper, fabric, and found objects. “I am more interested in producing an experience than a product. I understand the world through light, color, texture and surface and explore these elements equally in my work. I aspire to make work that instigates a moment of pause from the everyday, and creates a sense of joy.” www.anastasiazielinski.com –
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Elise Koncsek / Sneak Peek
Woolworth Windows #4 & 5, 11th & Broadway
December 31, 2014 – April 16, 2015
“Come take a sneak peek into my imagined worlds of surreality. Who lives here? Which way is up?” This interactive installation invites viewers to peek inside a series of glowing peep holes to see the secret worlds inside. www.spaceworkstacoma.com www.koncsek.com
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Jennifer Chin / My Dreams Are Blue & Micro Zoo
Tacoma Post Office Building (Main Hall), 1102 A Street
December 31, 2014 – April 16, 2015
A statement by Jennifer Chin for My Dreams Are Blue: “Dreams are ethereal; the harder I try to remember them the quicker they slip from my grasp. In the end I may remember vague shapes or perhaps a theme, but in the end it is like reaching through water into a field of distortion for small bits of meaning and folly…and yet I always try…”
A statement for Micro Zoo: “The zoo is a place we go to see the unusual. Elephants, tigers, and bears surprise us with their exotic presence. Micro Zoo turns scale on its head, magnifying these terrestrial alien beasts for your viewing pleasure. www.moxiecolor.com
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GENERIS 01T: / ZIP CODE
Woolworth Windows #1, 11th & Commerce
December 31, 2014 – April 16, 2015
A group exhibition including text by Hozoji Matheson-Margullis and photography by Evan Soto and Michael Vahrenwald. This exhibition is curated by Susan Surface, who recently organized a group show (Oct 2014) in Brooklyn titled “GENERIS 01b: COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION” that included artists from Brooklyn and Tacoma. www.generis.co
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Travis Selin / Sail Fast
Court C alley side of 953 Market St. Building
November, 2014 – May, 2015
This mural is a tribute to the nautical heritage of the northwest and our desire to persevere til the end. Travis is also a current participant of the Spaceworks Creative Enterprise program with his company Crimson Wraps & Graphics. www.crimson-graphics.com
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Diana Leigh Surma / Show Your Stripes
Market Street side of 953 Market St. Building
April 2014 – April 2015
Diana Leigh Surma has been inviting volunteers and students to join in on the creation of her mural titled “Show Your Stripes.” In describing this intricately laid out design of geometric shapes Diana comments that this project “celebrates the revitalization of Tacoma’s bustling downtown corridor and encourages youth participation in the arts. The design incorporates bold colors and overlapping planes that stretch across the mural’s surface to create a unified composition. Like the networks of shapes that shift before the viewer’s eyes Tacoma is a city constantly transforming and reinventing itself. However, the roots of its history and traditions, its stripes, stand to remind us of what came before.” www.dianaleighsurma.com –
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Chelsea O’Sullivan / Turn on Spring
11th Street side of 953 Market St. Building
April 2014 – April 2015
Chelsea O’ Sullivan has worked on numerous murals across Tacoma, and last summer completed a beautiful mural on the Tacoma Buddhist Temple as part of the Tacoma Murals Project. For Spaceworks she is taking on a series of 10 large panels running down South 11th Street. Her piece is titled “Turn on Spring” to which she states “Early spring in Tacoma can be a little gray. It rains, a lot. It is chilly. Driving into town is always beautiful but where the city skyline meets with the clouds, they share the same hue and fade into one another. My goal is to capture the beauty that lives in this gray world and explode some color into it.” www.facebook.com/chelseaosullivanart –
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Sarah Beth Smith – Dreams / Ghosts
Woolworth Windows #4 & 5, 11th & Broadway
September 18, 2014 – December 10, 2014
Sarah’s work depicts subjects she feels connected to personally, set in the often stark and oppressive landscape of her imagination. Deeply inspired by cinema, folklore, fairy tales and fantasy, she creates dream-like images that reflect the shadowy corners of her psyche. www.sarahbsmith.500px.com
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Metal-Urge featuring Carla Grahn / Athena’s Bling
Woolworth Window #3, 11th & Broadway
September 18, 2014 – December 10, 2014
About her work Carla states “using elements in ways other than their intended function reflects seeing without restriction, which to me is both liberating and hopeful. This show is ultimately about perception and perspective, finding a balance between the masculine and feminine, and simply trying to make the world a bit prettier place.” “I enjoy the very different parameters and challenges of site specific work, as well as furniture design, so in addition to my sculpture have pursued these throughout my career. I am committed to sharing my skills and have been teaching Creative Metal Working and Welding at Pratt Fine Arts for 16 years, as well as private teaching and consultation.” www.carlagrahn.com
This exhibit was part of Metal-Urge, Tacoma’s metal arts festival which ran from October 1st, through November 30th.
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Tory Franklin / Six Swans
Woolworth Window #2, 11th & Broadway
September 18, 2014 – December 10, 2014
Tory states “Grimm’s Six Swans has always been a tale that has resonated with me. As a child the magical transformation from human to swan sucked me in, but revisiting it as an adult the careful patience that the sister must go through in order to save her swan brothers is the alluring part. She cannot speak for six years and must painstakingly weave tunics out of star flowers. When she is accused of witchcraft she remains silent in fear of loosing the chance to change her brothers back to human, yet she continues to obsessively weave the cloth even as she is about to be burnt at the stake.”
“As an artist I can keenly relate to the drive to constantly make in the lonely world of the studio – often wondering why I am pushing myself to exhaustion and unable to articulate why I am chasing an idea in the midst of the process, yet getting up the next day and starting the cycle over again.” www.toryfranklin.com
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Deanna Pindell / Hostage 61
Woolworth Window #1, 11th & Commerce
September 18, 2014 – December 10, 2014
The Woolworth window facing Commerce Street features a complex installation by the talented eco-artist Deanna Pindell. Snapped steel rope, stripped bark, sliced tree trunks, ceramic birds, and numerous other carefully collected objects fill the space entirely from floor to ceiling, creating a visceral and poetic artwork that contemplates deforestation and the manipulation of nature. www.deannapindell.net –
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Part of the collection on display, matchstick boxes! Mesmerizing, dumbfounding, hilarious… take a close look!
Jessica Spring / Recollection, An Ephemeral Exhibition of Exquisite & Eclectic Ephemera
Tacoma Post Office Building (Main Hall), 1102 A Street
September 18, 2014 – December 10, 2014
When used by collectors, the term ephemera describes materials, often paper, that have little value beyond their intended use. These objects serve to light a cigarette, send a message, or protect a bottle of milk, but they also provide a glimpse of another place and time. The objects displayed in “reCollection” are a small sampling of ephemera collected over many decades. I am particularly drawn to ephemera that showcases print production, from gorgeous chromolithography to poorly registered letterpress printing. Equally enchanting are matchbooks, stamps, and milk bottle caps collected by my father from the 1940s to 60s. These offer a retreat to a time of hand lettering, bombastic copywriting and a palette—probably faded—that still resonates. spaceworkstacoma.com
Jessica has been honored with the 2014 AMOCAT Award for best “Community Outreach by an Individual.” And things have lined up wonderfully… the AMOCAT Award ceremony and Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party are also happening in the Post Office Building! www.springtidepress.com
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Write@253 – Samantha Loete & Mary Fox / Poetry in the Alley
www.write253.wordpress.com
Court C alley side of 953 Market St. Building
September 2013 – August 2014
“We love the possibilities that poetry offers to celebrate our multiculturalism – and to remind us of our oneness. We see this Artscapes project as, possibly, a first step in a broader public art project that would fill the blank, often gray spaces on Tacoma’s buildings, buses and billboards with poems. Our hope is that the poems would offer passers-by a reason to slow down, to read, and to celebrate life, creativity and our great city.” spaceworkstacoma.com
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Ellen Hochberg / “Educating Girls” & “Boxes”
Woolworth Windows #4 & 5, 11th & Broadway
May 15 2014 – August 21 2014
Ellen Hochberg’s installation of photo frames, videos, and mannequin asks bold questions about the countless “invisible girls” around our globe that are undervalued by society. www.ellenhochberg.com
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Christian French / Atlantis, Full of Cheer
Woolworth Window #1, 11th & Commerce St.
May 15 2014 – August 21 2014
“My recent work has involved using found and altered objects to evoke a sense of performance, or implied theatrical narrative. By staging scenes from imagined productions, my attempt is to point to consciousness as the venue for all experience. Still life, experimental animation, rock opera and a healthy dose of childhood play all come to bear in these installations.”
Atlantis, Full of Cheer is a multi-phase installation with scenes from the psychedelic Rock Opera about a fisherman who, saved from drowning by a sympathetic fish, falls in love with the Princess of Atlantis. spaceworkstacoma.com www.christianfrench.com
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Erin Dengerink / The Hole in Your Heart is a Portal to Another Dimension
Tacoma Post Office Building (Main Hall), 1102 A Street
May 15 2014 – August 21 2014
Erin Dengerink’s exhibit, titled “The Hole in Your Heart is a Portal to Another Dimension” includes small whimsical arrangements of human figurines interacting with objects all covered in white paint set against a black velvet backdrop. spaceworkstacoma.com
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Kristin Giordano / Radiance
Woolworth Window #3, 11th & Broadway
May 15 2014 – August 21 2014
Spurred by the housing crisis, Kristin Giordano presents us with a series of suburban photographs, all taken on a toy camera adding the effect of nostalgia plus a dreamlike quality reinforcing the ideals of the suburban landscape and the American Dream. spaceworkstacoma.com www.kristingiordano.com
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Jennifer Chushcoff / Invoke the Muse
Tacoma Post Office Building (Main Hall), 1102 A Street
May 15 2014 – August 21 2014
Jennifer Chushcoff has photographed the 9 muses of her life in an endearing, and interactive exhibit titled “Invoke the Muse” which fits wonderfully in the display cases of downtown’s Old Post Office. spaceowrkstacoma.comspaceworkstacoma.com byjenn.com
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Wayzgoose 2014 / Curated by Jessica Spring
Woolworth Window #2, 11th & Broadway
May 15 2014 – August 21 2014
For the past several years Spaceworks has offered a Woolworth window to display the large steamroller prints created at the annual Wayzgoose Printmaking Festival. This year, as curator, Jessica Spring organized the exhibit of these 10 large, bold, and spirited prints along with a large accordion book illustrated by Jeremy Gregory. spaceworkstacoma.com
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Acataphasia Grey / Own the Nightmare
www.morbidtendencies.com
Woolworth Window #1, 11th & Commerce
December 31 – April 17, 2014
Acataphasia Grey, creator of phantasmagoria, was featured earlier this year on the AMC reality show “Immortalized” about the art of taxidermy. For this exhibition she brings us an installation titled “Own the Nightmare” in which she states “Nightmares are bad, everyone knows that… but what if that was never the truth? On the other side of a belief thinner than a sheet of paper is an entirely different perspective.” Click here to read more –
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RAGS Guild / 20 Year Retrospective of RAGS
www.ywcapiercecounty.org/rags
Woolworth Windows #2 & 3, 11th & Broadway
December 31 – April 17, 2014
Taking over two of the largest windows will be the “20 Year Retrospective of RAGS” including a gallery of work from 30 artists. RAGS is an annual wearable art sale & show where all proceeds go to benefit domestic violence programs at the YWCA-Pierce County. Spaceworks is proud to help promote the RAGS Guild, the artists, and their important mission as they approach the 20th Annual RAGS show coming up this March 2014! Click here to read more
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Becky Frehse / Music Box
www.beckyfrehse.com
Woolworth Windows #4 & 5, 11th & Broadway
December 31 – April 17, 2014
Becky Frehse presents the very colorful “Music Box,” composed of mixed media paintings and constructions using repurposed musical instruments including a piano, guitar, several violins and a Chinese yue qin. Forrest Rumbaugh from Northwest Staging and Sound is collaborating with Becky to provide theatrical spot lighting with timers to animate the installation. Click here to read more
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Curated by Ashly McBride & Brandon Hendricks / SOTA Student Work
Tacoma Post Office Building (Lobby Display Cases), 1102 A Street
Jan 16 -April 17, 2014
An exhibition featuring the work of students from Tacoma’s illustrious School of the Arts (SOTA) throughout the main hallway display cases of the historic Post Office. Fellow students Ashly McBride and Brandon Hendricks are curating this exhibition which includes elaborate mandalas, plus featured work from select individual artists. Click here to read more
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Kristin Giordano & Mindy Barker / Humans, Join Us!
www.kristingiordano.com
www.mindybarker.com
Market Street side of 953 Market St. Building
September 2, 2013 – February 1, 2014
Kristin Giordano and Mindy Barker have created a mural so ridiculously adorable, and irresistible that it is sure to cause an accident. In large, bold letters “Humans, Join Us! TM” is declared by a giant mob of cuddly animals on roller skates, bicycles and skateboards. What more needs to be said? Click here to read more
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Jeremy Gregory / A to B
www.flickr.com/photos/jeremygregory/albums
11th Street side of 953 Market St. Building
September 2, 2013 – February 1, 2014
Jeremy says, “The shapes loosely represent different modes of transportation and commuters. Imagine, organic shapes connecting with each other at points that spider web into other connections. This network of connections star-bursts continuously, creating a mapping of transportation. This mural provides the opportunity to incorporate a growing story; a story that only you, the viewer can create.” Click here to read more
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Woolworth Windows #4 & 5, 11th & Broadway
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Brett Carlson / Meta-tinations
1102 A Street – Tacoma Post Office Building Lobby Display Cases
Sept. 2 – Dec. 20, 2013
“This project “Meta-tinations 2013″ draws a parallel to Spaceworks. Recycling the retail space in downtown Tacoma adds a vibrancy to the urban area as does Meta-tinations 2013. By using recycled decorative tins, brads, and wood, this represents a rebirth of iconic images into new reborn concepts and visuals.”
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Installation view of “Culture Looming”
Priscilla Dobler / Culture Looming
Woolworth Window #1, 11th & Commerce
September 2 – December 20, 2013
A simple and stark white installation will be transformed with color by Priscilla Dobler during a five-day performance in the window October 14 -18, all day and night, with her floor loom and colorful cotton threads. The woven pieces she creates during this performance will be given away to the homeless, available for sale to passersby, or left in the window for the remainder of the exhibition.
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Night installation view of “Color Wave”
Elizabeth Gahan / Color Wave
11th & Broadway – Woolworth Window #2
Sept. 2 – Dec. 20, 2013
“Common corrugated plastic yard signs are transformed into structures inspired by nature and patterns. The advertising and political content is fractured and disrupted giving these materials a new life and meaning. The repetition of forms, the vibrant colors and the prolific amount of reused materials in this work also suggests the potential for these forms to multiply and expand out of control.” – from Elizabeth Gahan‘s artist statement.
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Detail of “Memento Mori”
Kelly June Mitchell / Memento Mori
11th & Broadway – Woolworth Window #3
Sept. 2 – Dec. 20, 2013
Kelly June Mitchell states, “This installation consists of an overwhelming amount of sickly-sweet pink flowers… At first glance the wall seems like a celebration of life with bright flowers everywhere. But then you notice the pallid white hands reaching out from the flowers… Strung together, the hands spell ‘Memento Mori,’ reminding you that even amongst life, death can’t be ignored.”
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Scott installing his prints at the Old Post Office
Scott Scoggin / whew!
1102 A Street – Old Post Office Lobby Display Cases
Sept. 2 – Dec. 20, 2013
“Over the past year or so I have been creating one color, silkscreened posters of phrases and illustrations and placing them around the city. These posters were printed on craft or newsprint paper, printed with gray ink and stapled to various walls and bulletin boards; making prints of my illustrations easily take-able for anyone interested.” – from Scott Scoggin‘s artist statement. This exhibition is the culmination of the poster project, featuring the posters in large, color, silkscreened prints.
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Bed Dress
Women’s size 3/4 functional bed dress on wheels for ease of movement
Twin mattress / box spring, fabric, casters
39″ x 75″ x 63″
Jennifer Zwick / Bed Dress
11th & Commerce – Woolworth Window #1
May 16 – August 15, 2013
“As though life weren’t anxious enough, we’re expected to get out of bed every single morning. But it’s so safe here! No one judging us, a place of comfort; the morning, when our day is unmarred, uniquely filled with the potential of all we might accomplish. Wouldn’t it be easier to avoid the transition from bed to daily life? To simply stand up, already elegantly clothed, and roll away on casters, safe in the knowledge that when our shortcomings grow too tall and our expectations fall, we can just lie back down again, wherever we are. You can’t judge me – I’m still in bed.” – Jennifer Zwick‘s artist statement
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Artist’s sketch for Window #2
Rachael Dotson / Untitled
11th & Broadway – Woolworth Window #2
May 16 – August 15, 2013
“I found myself wanting to create a response to the ever-increasing, self-imposed requirement that we use each spare second to be checking our phones, or busying ourselves with information that may, or may not, even have value to us personally. As a person who grew up in a rural environment without much TV or gadgets, I spent a lot of time just looking at the things which were around me; the light, the ground, the plants, and I remember being amazed how the environment I inhabited seemed to be different every day; becoming now, what I reflect on its own source of “quick-cycle news” about what was going on with the planet in my particular corner.
“As a city-dwelling adult I find even more excitement in seeing how precious bits of nature and air interact with our architecture and urban planning. We can’t forget to look around us, to see how each day is different, how our environment and the places we have set aside for nature can become markers of quiet and reflection in our short lives. A common cliché’ but so very true; don’t forget to stop and the smell the roses, as those can be the moments to hold on to in our fast-paced lives. Moments to stop time, clear the internal noise, and see the color of the light.” – Rachael Dotson‘s artist statement
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Amy McBride drove the steamroller to create this print by Charles Wright Academy Printmaking.
Tacoma Wayzgoose 2013 / Curated by Jessica Spring
11th & Broadway – Woolworth Window #3
May 16 – August 15, 2013
Wayzgoose is one of Tacoma’s most popular art festivals, a printmaking and book arts showcase named after a medieval guild celebration – but with plenty of fun for moderns. This installation showcases giant linoleum prints produced by steamroller during the ninth annual Wayzgoose. Featured prints by: Stadium High School Printmaking, Maggie Roberts, Audra Laymon, Beautiful Angle, Chris Sharp, CLAW, Ric Matthies, Chandler O’Leary & Jessica Spring, Charles Wright Academy Printmaking, Pacific Lutheran University Printmaking.
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One of Beth Johnson’s paper Mache dragons.
Beth Johnson / Dragons
11th & Broadway – Woolworth Window 4&5
May 16 – August 15, 2013
Beth Johnson’s piece Red Dragon won “Best of Show” in the 2011 National Arts Program* (NAP) exhibit. She has worked for the City of Tacoma Public Works Department for 36 years. Beth’s only formal art training was in public school, from elementary through high school. She considers herself a closet artist, only sharing her work with family and friends. Her downstairs closet is full of years of acrylic and watercolor paintings and pen and ink drawings. Her other artistic endeavors include: floral design, having done over 30 weddings through the years; acting in the Performing Arts department of the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire; and creating cloth mache pieces for various productions in the area. After winning the NAP Best of Show Award, Beth said, “Winning that award really knocked my socks off and made me think for the first time in my life that I might just be a real artist after all!”
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Jennifer Robbins/Untitled
11th & Commerce – Woolworth Window 1
December 31, 2012 – April 18, 2013
“It’s a work in progress,” says Jennifer Robbins of her new installation, in the Woolworth Windows on the corner of 11th and Commerce. Robbins a florist here in Tacoma, works with plants everyday. Her botanical scene is naturalistic, it gives a sense of straight forwardness and realism. When her exhibit is finished she says, “details will be revealed and implied, fostering a sense of mystery; the familiar and unknown existing simultaneously.”
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Adele Eustis / The Need To Reinvent
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
December 31, 2012 – April 18, 2013
The overlaying theme of this alluring installation in the Woolworth windows on 11th and Brodway seems to be exactly what the artist Adele Eustis intends it to be, “The Need to Reinvent.” What look like some form of Japanese lanterns are what Eustis is calling scrolls or ‘glo-nests’. The scroll’s large wax paper like exterior is actually made of sheets from a 1930’s Webster dictionary that have been painted over with wax and sumi-ink until the words are blurred, then fused with rice paper. Eustis’ piece is a prime example of the fact that “things aren’t always what they seem”.
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RSVR / The Light Rack
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
December 31, 2012 – April 18, 2013
Inspired by a study on Native American fish drying structures, RSVR set out to recreate the fish racks into something completely new. “By using monochromatic light and the louver structure “Light Rack” is an attempt at reorganizing the fabric of the everyday into the unusual to produce a heightened sense of the present,” says Ian Campbell of RSVR. The structure really interacts with the play of outside lighting. When asked about how the outside light affects the piece Campbell stated, “some of the moments I find most interesting about the project are the transition times during the evening or early morning. In the evening when day lighting diminishes the project starts to offer the area more light and then in the morning the warm yellow glow is easily washed out by the morning sunrise. All this transfer of light is happening through the plaster louvers which serve as both a filter and recording surface light and shadow.”
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Adam & Rosalynn Rothenstein / Untitled Project
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
December 31, 2012 – April 15, 2013
Untitled Project is a series of tasks: step one- create an object, step two- use the object, step three- store the object. These tasks are showcased in the installation, each task owning a separate section in the space provided. “We want to focus on these tasks in order to learn what it is to do a task ‘without thinking about it.’ ” says Rosalynn Rothenstein. The installation invites the public to walk through the tasks and imagine performing the tasks as well. www.5ooo.org
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Randy Cezan / Large Interacting…
950 Pacific Avenue
Through February 2013
“Images of colliding galaxies were the direct forms that I have attempted to represent with these sculptural forms,” says Randy Cezan of his new installation, Large Interacting…on exhibit in the windows at 950 Pacific Avenue in Tacoma. Cezan’s artwork captures the elegant clockwork and dynamism of the universe – but conjures up a myriad of forms found in nature as well. His sculptures are informed by investigations of the environment in which he discovered “micro and/or macro examples of repeating patterns in nature.”
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Laura Foster / strawcloud/parlour
11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
July 8 – December 16, 2012
Laura Foster‘s work explores the juxtaposition and convergence of the interior and the exterior. “I am interested in the murky areas of domesticity, when the dust forever creeps in under the front door, and the moss grows, insistent and patient, up the sides of the house.” This particular installation probes the intersection of the feral and the domestic through the use of hay to create a suspended sculpture (impressive, both in size and scope) and 1950’s wallpaper.
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Fabrication, Janet Marcavage’s Spaceworks installation, currently on view in the Woolworth Windows
Janet Marcavage / Fabrication
11th & Broadway
(Woolworth Windows)
July 14 – December 16, 2012
Textiles aren’t used just for tablecloths, towels, or button down shirts. Janet Marcavage proves how these everyday items can create a complex art display that celebrates the topography of textile patterns. Lines make all the difference: “I enjoy the way that lines can render fabric’s mutable form, shifting at the folds of everyday life. This installation also stems from my long-term investigation of printmaking’s visual language, particularly the use of line hatching in prints dating back several hundred years.”
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Kenji Stoll / Untitled
11th & Broadway
(Woolworth Windows)
July – December 16,2012
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Jennifer Renee Adams / Equus Cirrus
11th & Broadway
(Woolworth Windows)
July – December 16, 2012
With clouds as a backdrop, and placing horses in the foreground, artist Jennifer Adams has created a quiet meditation on the loss of a canine companion in her installation, Equus Cirrus, on view at the Woolworth Building through December 15, 2012. “My installation consists of horses and cloud photos. [But] what had started as a suggestion of lazy, sunshiney afternoons, had a transformation,” she says, when her beloved 13 year-old dog passed away. A beautiful, meditative artwork is the result.
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Lance Kagey / Untitled
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
March 30 – June 31, 2012
Lance Kagey is one-half of the design team (with Tom Llewellyn) of Beautiful Angle, and a letterpress genius. For the Woolworth windows he has designed “a faithful recreation of the aesthetic of my studio space. My kids say I’m one tragedy away from being featured on the Hoarders show. My space is very full of visual stimulus. It’s organized chaos. It inspires me as I create.” You’ll be inspired, too, by Kagey’s art, found objects and vintage printing equipment. beautifulangle.homestead.com
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Kyle Dillehay / Sacred Balance
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
March 30 – June 31, 2012
Kyle Dillehay’s work explores the issues around genetically modified food. In his new installation, suspended, cast-iron web-pods are planted with genetically-modified grass seed that has been engineered to germinate and grow with limited sunlight. The pods at first appear lifeless, then release an explosion of vibrant green to dominate the space. This work reflects on the genetic alterations “performed on even the most basic of plants for human convenience,” says Dillehay. kyledillehay.com
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It can’t sleep: a Phoebe Moore video installation.
Phoebe Moore / Argus Panoptes
950 Pacific Ave.
Through June 31, 2012
Big Sister is watching you – at the corner of 950 Pacific Ave. where artist Phoebe Moore has installed two video monitors with huge roving eyes, “to create the illusion that the building [has] a face. I practiced this project on my own home last year and the effect is striking. It looks a bit like a giant is trapped inside the building.” Especially at night. In addition to the staring, blinking video peepers (which are her own), Moore has made and installed crude papier-mâché eyeballs – too many to count – to observe passersby.
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Chandler O’Leary / Hillside Sketchbook
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
March 30 – June 31, 2012
Hillside Sketchbook is Chandler O’Leary’s “time-based” installation in which the artist will create a sweeping panorama of Tacoma made up of dozens of smaller sketches of the hillside view. This work will develop gradually over the three-month period it is on exhibition in the Woolworth Building, as O’Leary continually adds ink drawings and watercolors to fill in the vista. drawntheroadagain.com
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Elise Richman / Spring Mascot
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
March 30 – June 31, 2012
Spring Mascot explores perpetual states of becoming. The birds express yearning for a sense of innocence and a state of wonder that is often lost and sometimes regained. In a culture that champions industry, ambition, professionalism, and efficiency, these birds are mascots for countercultural values such as vulnerability, openness, and authenticity. Their awkward amiability expresses complex emotions through an approachable playfulness. The mascots act as emotional personifications that simultaneously expose and protect. Their very postures, round forms, and extended wings convey a striving for receptivity and goodwill. The flowers, yarn, and ribbon provide celebratory decorations, conjuring forms of embellishment that are meant to make rites, rituals, and events special. www.eliserichman.com
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Diane Hansen / Ethiopia Revisited
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
Nov. 15, 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
Following travels to Ethiopia in September, Tacoma artist Diane Hansen was inspired “to create a monumental sampling of Ethiopian artifacts” which would stimulate viewers “on a primal level.” She succeeds with a new installation at the Woolworth Building of stunning, window-size jewels. Hansen, a noted glass artist, integrates a variety of techniques to create two necklaces that suggest both feminine power and a spiritual focus. www.dianehansen.com
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RSVR / Light Escape
11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
Nov. 15, 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
Do you have a touch of SAD-ness (Seasonal Affective Disorder)? With their intriguing new work at the Woolworth Building, Light Escape, the design team of RSVR (Ian Campbell and Benjamin Gray) vows “to provide the City of Tacoma with an extended summer” via a luminous installation of streaming filaments of lime and violet light. The amount of light emitted by the art work will gradually increase as winter’s nights lengthen. The effect is space age, safer than a tanning bed – and best viewed after dark!
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Janette Ryan / Photographs
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
Nov. 15, 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
Janette Ryan‘s photographs of Puget Sound capture an ethereal side not often seen in photos of our seaside environment. Her spare, modernist images in black and white strip away the non-essential to reveal the “beauty and harmony” of nature, while reflecting upon “the changing face of Tacoma and the surrounding environment.” www.printroom.com
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Maria Olga Meneses / Disconnected Fragments
Tollbooth Gallery, 11th & Broadway
Early Dec., 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
Urged by the need to understand the mind of a person suffering from the effects of dementia, Maria Olga Meneses shot the black-and-white photographs in this exhibition. It is “how I envision the brain being atrophied through the process of dementia,” filtered through the metaphor of nature, she says. “The images depict my interpretation of confusion, loss of language [and] personal withdrawal from social contact” experienced by a woman with this devastating condition.
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Mary Rothlisberger and Lauren McCleary / Atlas of Here & There: Making This Day Out of Many
910 Broadway
Nov. 15, 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
According to artists Lauren McCleary and Mary Rothlisberger, “The world we walk through mirrors the world we build within ourselves.” For Spaceworks Tacoma, the two have built “a window into the internal human landscape,” a playful, contemporary diorama of the things that make their world tick. Packed with visual information, this site-specific installation invites viewers to create their own stories about the fantasy world embedded within layers and layers of unlikely, yet subtly connected, objects that animate the work. Click here for information on Mary Rothlisberger and Lauren McCleary.
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Brian Hutcheson / Mustache Gallery
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
Dec. 1, 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
Ready for a makeover? Then visit the Mustache Gallery, Brian Hutcheson‘s clever installation that allows Tacomans the whimsical activity “of test-driving their future facial hair” by trying on different mustaches through the device of strategically placed displays and mirrors. “There are few things in life that can cause admiration, envy, laughter and disgust as [readily] as facial hair can,” says Hutcheson. The fun isn’t limited to males, either: “The Mustache Gallery [will] empower the women of our city to break down gender barriers and assimilate a symbol of power that men have dominated for centuries.” bhutcheson.wordpress.com
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:: :: :: ::Tacoma Metro Parks Portland Ave. Community Center /
Chinese Dragon
912 Broadway
Nov. 15, 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
According to ancient Chinese tradition, the celestial dragon was symbolic of the emperor and his imperial power. Today, it is a symbol of good fortune for ringing in the New Year. A community effort involving creative kids across Tacoma has given birth to a 35′ Chinese Dragon to parade on First Night Tacoma! According to lead artist, Allison Morse, the cobalt blue and jade green serpent resembles the traditional mythological creature, but with a twist: It “incorporate[s] the train component, a reference to Tacoma railroads,” and has a boxy physique “to accomplish the ‘feel’ of a locomotive.” The dragon’s lair is at 912 Broadway until Dec. 31.
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Paper sculpture by Jessica Spring
Greater Tacoma Community Foundation / Foundation of Art Award Exhibit
11th St. & Pacific Ave.
Nov. 15, 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
This exhibition spotlights the work of 2011 Foundation of Art Award recipient, Jessica Spring, and that of each of this year’s nominees. Spring will unveil her new, commissioned art piece for the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation on Nov. 30. Also showcased are works by others of Tacoma’s finest: Jennifer Adams, Sean Alexander, Nick Butler, Lynn Di Nino, Oliver Doriss, Kristin Giordano, Ellen Ito, Matt Johnson, Rick Lawson, Nicholas Nyland, Elise Richman, and Peter Serko. Works by the three previous award winners, Chris Sharp, Jeremy Mangan and Lisa Kinoshita, will also be on display.
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Kelly June Mitchell / Infringing Forest
908 Broadway
Nov. 15, 2011 – Feb. 29, 2012
A triptych of trees printed on sheer fabric looms over the small figures of a woman, a bear, a wolf, a crow and a vole in this installation. If the air around the figures is disturbed, the whole “forest” appears to move. “Drawing nature into our lives is something people of the Pacific Northwest are especially adept at doing,” says artist Kelly June Mitchell. The figures inhabiting the sun circle at the center of the work seem to draw in the wilderness around them, and the animals are of near-equal size, symbolizing “equal importance in the environment.” kellyjunemitchell.carbonmade.com
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“Detroit Storefront Competition: Local Detroit Grocer.” Project manager and participating artist: Jeannine Shinoda
Ariel Brice & Jeannine Shinoda / Untitled
950 Pacific Avenue
July 15 – October 31, 2011
Portland, OR-based artists Ariel Brice and Jeannine Shinoda make art that demands a double take. Their mission is to create an “urban intervention” via an interactive art piece in downtown T-town, “a contextual installation on a site rich with potential.” www.aribrice.com
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“CODA” by Lisa Kinoshita
Lisa Kinoshita / CODA 11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
July 15 – October 31, 2011
In CODA, an installation by Lisa Kinoshita, a herd of animals crashes through the field of consciousness, juxtaposing the relentless vitality of nature with the poignant, individual fact of human mortality. Themes of memory, displacement and loss permeate this mysterious scene. www.lisakinoshita.com
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“Pointing” by Amy Bay. Molding clay applied to various walls in Lower Manhattan.
Amy Bay/ Untitled
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
July 15 – October 31, 2011
Artist Amy Bay pits the forces of capitalism (represented by an empty storefront) against insidious nature (embodied by encroaching blackberry bushes) in her installation at the Woolworth Building. Which force will prevail? www.amybay.com
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Tacoma Wayzgoose/ 2011 Prints
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
July 15 – October 31, 2011
Wayzgoose is one of Tacoma’s most popular art festivals, a printmaking and book arts showcase named after a medieval guild celebration – but with plenty of fun for moderns. This installation showcases some of the Best of Wayzgoose – giant prints produced by steamroller over seven years of celebrations. www.kingsbookstore.com/wayzgoose
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Jennifer Renee Adams/ Landscapes
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
July 15 – October 31, 2011
Artist and photographer Jennifer Renee Adams finds compelling subject matter in her hometown of Tacoma, a place with “analog” character and time-worn edges, and whose famous “grit” may mask unvarnished moments awaiting discovery. For her photo installation, Landscapes, Adams used a plastic toy camera called a Holga that she favors for its soft, dream-like effects.
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An image from Michiko Tanaka’s digital blog.
Michiko Tanaka / MODblog
The Tollbooth Gallery (11th & Broadway)
July 15 – October 31, 2011
Michiko Tanaka has studied art the world over, but currently the artist’s creative universe is contained within the walls of a computer. Her video installation, MODblog, offers a visual stream of pop culture iconography. www.yellowlaboratories.com
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In her new Spaceworks installation, Julia Barbee manipulates nature for art.
Julia Barbee / Untitled
912 Broadway
July 15 – October 31, 2011
For Artscapes, Julia Barbee creates an installation that is at once static and changing. Hanging sculptures made of silk create a site-specific network within the space. Throughout the course of the installation, salt crystals will grow up and around the sculptures, subtly changing the work and creating a piece that truly could not exist in another space or set of circumstances. www.juliabarbee.com
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An element from “Straw Sculpture” by Anette Lusher.
Anette Lusher / Form within Forms
910 Broadway
July 15 – October 31, 2011
Anette Lusher‘s latest sculptural explorations are an homage to the humble drinking straw, and to recycling as a tenet of modern life. Her playful and provocative free-hanging sculpture, Form within Forms, is hand constructed of more than 200,000 mesh-supported, multicolor straws. www.anettelusher.com
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Rebecca Maxim / Marriage of Inconvenience
908 Broadway
July 15 – October 31, 2011
The worlds of fashion, art and AIDS activism are intimately connected, and they collide in the ebullient couture art of Rebecca Maxim. Her Marriage of Inconvenience is a monumental gown that is the product of “the copious medications required to maintain relative health in [the] HIV/AIDS population.” The dress is made from medical paraphernalia and pill wrappers.
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Acataphasia Grey / Tea for Short Expectations
708 Opera Alley
March 15 – June 30, 2011
The surrealist artist Acataphasia Grey has an air of twisted opulence that tinges everything from her formal way of speaking, to her complicated name, from “a medical Latin term that basically means, ‘Being able to form complete sentences in your head but not say them out loud.’” See Cat’s unique brand of taxonomy in a new installation, Tea for Short Expectations.
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Holly Senn plants an idea in “Composites.”
Holly A. Senn / Composites
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
March 15 – June 30, 2011
Artist Holly Senn creates 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, pages from discarded library books provide the rich mulch (raw material) from which art arises. In Composites, she combines photography with her paper sculptures to create one-of-a-kind botanical dioramas. www.ryksenn.com
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Nicole Linde / The Crystalline Garden
908 Broadway
March 15 – June 30, 2011
When Portland-based artist Nicole Linde took an artist’s residency in northern Iceland, “There were only two hours of daylight in January and about the same amount of darkness in July.” The elongated Icelandic winter provided the time and motivation to stay inside and create. Linde embarked on a series of crystal-themed pieces inspired by the ice-encrusted landscape; a new work, The Crystalline Garden, is on view in Tacoma starting March 17. lindenicole.wix.com
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Julie M. Jansen / Abscission
11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
March 15 – June 30, 2011
Every object in Julie Jansen’s new installation, Abscission, has two things in common: Each item was hand-collected by herself, and each is deemed unnecessary or unwanted by most people. There’s torn up cardboard, blue masking tape, remnant paint and, somewhat creepily, invasive plant species (collected from nurseries in her hometown of Portland). In Jansen’s hands, this lineup of undesirables is assembled 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.
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Jessica Spring / Bit Map
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
March 15 – June 30, 2011
Jessica Spring creates exquisite letterpress art using vintage foundry type, mechanical presses and Old World printing techniques. But she brings a clean, modern sensibility to a body of work that on the surface appears nostalgic, thanks to the tactile richness of its imprinted images, and the use of luxurious papers that exalt the printed word. springtidepress.com
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Amy Oates
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
March 15 – June 30, 2011
A fragile crowd of paper silhouettes makes up the human drama in Amy Oates’ new work. “My current work has to do with everyday people moving, merging and fading into each other as individuality is lost and something completely other-than emerges,” she says. “The uncertainty of forms….raises the idea that what is seen, reasoned and sensed may not be the ultimate in reality.”
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Gabriel Brown / Great Tasting Goodness!
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
March 15 – June 30, 2011
Satirist Gabriel Brown has mounted an exuberant installation at the Woolworth Building fashioned from a massive accumulation of junk packaging. The art will have viewers (especially baby boomers) wracking their brains for the iconic ad slogans they grew up with: Trix are for kids! We try harder! A little dab’ll do ya! Finger lickin’ good! Once you start playing that game, it’s hard to stop. Visit his website at gabrielbrown.net
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Cheryl Rux and Nichole Vandever / Watch Tacoma Grow: Pacific Park
950 Pacific Avenue
March 15 – June 30, 2011
Nichole Vandever and Cheryl Rux put a spin on the adage, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” When life handed them more than 1,500 cardboard toilet paper rolls, they turned them into the basis for a fantasy “park” for Spaceworks Tacoma. Watch Tacoma Grow: Pacific Park is a mini-wonderland where wide-eyed woodland creatures, birds and bees, and flowering trees inhabit a contemporary landscape of I-wish: all made from reclaimed and recycled materials with the help of local schoolkids.
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“meyouus&them” draws on figures and events from Tacoma’s past.
Rachel Hibbard / meyouus&them
910 Broadway
March 15 – June 30, 2011
“My fascination with small environments grows out of childhood play,” says Rachel Hibbard, an artist who stages dramatic vignettes using 4″-high paper cutouts. “A miniature possesses the dual qualities of being both mysterious and controllable.” In her installation, meyouus&them, Hibbard juxtaposes people from Tacoma’s past, her own lineage – and world history – in unexpected arrangements that unfold with a strange, beautiful, almost operatic vibrancy. Visit her website at www.rachel-hibbard.net
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Celeste Cooning / The Golden Hour
912 Broadway
March 15 – June 30, 2011
Celeste Cooning creates magical, 3-D environments out of paper. For Spaceworks Tacoma she created The Golden Hour, an installation that evokes the overblown lushness of a Jurassic garden in luscious colors of pink and gold. Huge tree fronds, fluttery botanical forms and a honeycombed heart are incised with intricate patterns that allow the warm light to pass through. Using stencils, Cooning cuts all the patterns by hand from 4-5 ft. sections of paper or tear-resistant Tyvek. Visit her website at www.celestecooning.com
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Barbara DePirro / vortex plastica
912 Broadway
October 10, 2010 – February 28, 2011
One person’s castoffs are another person’s treasure in the world of artist Barbara De Pirro. In vortex plastica she takes recycled and re-imagined materials to create a multi-dimensional universe where a web-like form, a whirling tornado, a spun nest and a solar system fill the void. www.depirro.com
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Sisy Anderson & Scott Huette / Remembrances
910 Broadway
October 10, 2010 – February 28, 2011
Trees and slow-turning “leaf mobiles” become metaphorical containers for human memory in the site-specific work, Remembrances. This multi-layered piece suggests that by our ability to shade memories and to shed those that do not serve us (”as a leaf falls from a tree in autumn”), human beings create the psychological space needed to generate life anew.
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Holly A. Senn / Re-Present
908 Broadway
October 10, 2010 – February 28, 2011
In this work, Holly Senn draws inspiration from the exhibition space location, which mirrors the Pantages Theater across the street. Theaters present the ideas of playwrights, composers and choreographers – later generations recompose or reenact some of those performances. In this installation she reinterprets architectural details from the exterior of the theater in paper forms. This theme of re-presentation is related to her interest in the lifecycle of ideas and how knowledge is transformed over time. www.ryksenn.com
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Kyle Dillehay /Lines of the Earth
11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
October 10, 2010 – February 28, 2011
A sterile white cubicle is transformed into a mysteriously fecund earthwork in Lines of the Earth. Kyle Dillehay employs the root systems of heirloom plants to illuminate the way natural systems echo one another, and how similar designs support seemingly disparate systems – of the body (lymphatic, circulatory, reproductive) and Earth (plant vascular and root systems). www.sculpture.org/portfolio/sculptorPage.php?sculptor_id=1001643
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My America, an exhibition by Alice di Certo
Alice DiCerto / My America
11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
October 10, 2010 – February 28, 2011
In this collection of gelatin silver prints, My America, Italian-born photographer Alice Di Certo offers a visual exploration of her adopted country that will fascinate viewers who were born and raised here. Seen through Di Certo’s lens, familiar scenes of American life become open to new and sometimes amusing interpretation. adicerto@tacomacc.edu
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Jessica Bender, Tania Kupczak, Craig Snyder and Ruth Marie Tomlinson / wait, where am i?
11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
October 10, 2010 – February 28, 2011
Inheriting a collection of objects that is evidence of someone’s obsession can be a gift, a burden, a responsibility. Ultimately, one might ask if the obsession itself has become an inheritance. In this three-staged installation, four artists come together, each with an inherited collection and the desire to re-catalog. In the process they address questions about their own obsessions. www.ruthmarietomlinson.com
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Still Life in Motion: The Street, Alexandra Opie
Alexandra Opie /Still Life in Motion: The Street
11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
October 10, 2010 – February 28, 2011
Salem, OR-based, artist Alexandra Opie is intrigued by both the composed richness of still life imagery and the immediacy of live, interactive video. In this site-specific work she combines the two: Viewers will experience the aesthetic pleasure of contemplating still life coupled with the urgency of watching live video – meanwhile being monitored on a flatscreen t.v. www.alexandraopie.com, aopie@willamette.edu
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Untitled, Alyson Piskorowski
Alyson Piskorowski / Unititled
950 Pacific Avenue
October 9, 2010 – February 28, 2011
Alyson Piskorowski investigates our daily environments – the marks we leave, the history we unconsciously create – in an attempt to draw out the stories embedded within. The results of her inquiry appear in this installation, which evokes in symbolic language “the tension between the everyday and the ecstatic.” alyson.piskorowski@gmail.com
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Forest of Souls, by Monika Proffitt
Monika Proffitt / Forest of Souls
Tollefson Plaza (17th & Pacific)
December 21 – March 21
Especially mesmerizing at night, this installation’s soothing and serene “braids of light” illuminate the water feature in Tollefson Plaza . The luminous light sculpture is designed from fiber optic cable to create volumes of light that reflect and respond to the environment. www.monikaproffitt.com
ROUND 1 ARTSCAPES INSTALLATIONS
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Ben Hirschkoff /
Untitled
912 Broadway
June 30 – Oct. 1, 2010
For the last five years, Seattle-based artist Ben Hirschkoff has been working with the cloud motif, as seen in the installation here. Deconstructed into fragments and reconstructed with wire, pipe, or other familiar building materials, the archetypal cloud forms reflect the fragmented way in which we often see nature: as both resource and utility. www.benhirschkoff.com
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Michelle Acuff / Surrogate
910 Broadway
June 30 – October 1, 2010
In this work, Michelle Acuff explores our tenuous liaison to the natural world by juxtaposing objects of nature, such as forest animals, with materials that are grossly synthetic and manmade. A surreal restaging of our relationship to the planet and its habitants. www.michelleacuff.com
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Tory Franklin / The Firebird
908 Broadway
June 30 – October 1, 2010
Tory Franklin creates works of operatic intensity and this site-specific piece, based on a classic Russian fairytale, is no exception. The ornate, layered and colorful vignette illustrates a scene from The Firebird, the story of a royal prince’s epic quest to capture a magical bird. www.toryfranklin.com
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June Sekiguchi, Mary Coss & Pamela Hom / Bloodlines
950 Pacific Avenue
July 26 – October 1, 2010
Bloodlines addresses issues of cultural and creative inheritance and how they manifest in art work. Three sculptors worked independently to produce a cohesive installation based on intersecting themes: the hidden world of the unconscious, the grief following a parent’s death, and the oft times “fierce” maternal instinct. www.junesekiguchi.com; roadsidestudio@fidalgo.net; mary@witvisuals.com
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meadow starts with p / Ackawacko meeting
11th & Commerce
(Woolworth Windows)
June 15 – October 1, 2010
The group of artists known as “meadow starts with p” is composed of a dad and his two young kids. This unique collaborative makes a spirited inquiry into the relationship between play and art, establishing that the two are fundamentally linked. Ackawacko meeting sets the stage for an encounter with a mysterious, horned creature using Play-doh, finger puppets and riotous decoration. www.andrew-j-peterson.com
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Joseph Songco / Storefronts
11th & Broadway (Woolworth Windows)
June 15 – October 1, 2010
“Storefronts are in many ways a cultural commentary of a society’s dreams….a doorway to a society’s inner workings,” says Seattle-based photographer Joseph Songco. This series of photographs, shot in New York City, reveals the unexpected ways in which fashion advertising exposes the economic and cultural divergences between communities. www.josephsongco.com
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Gretchen Bennett / Window #4: Tacoma
11th & Broadway
(Woolworth Windows)
June 15 – October 1, 2010
Gretchen Bennett’s installation, Window #4: Tacoma, was inspired by “the overcast, dreamy light” and “the varied histories and architecture” of Tacoma. This enigmatic piece centers around a Hudson’s Bay blanket and an arrangement of strange relics, and unfolds in the moment when “the business day is done and the streets are empty or transforming as the nightlife begins.” www.gretchenbennett.com
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Lisa Kinoshita /
Jack’s Epitaph
11th & Broadway
(Woolworth Windows)
June 15 – October 1, 2010
Jack, “the Tacoma bear,” was a pet bruin owned by the Tacoma Hotel in the 1890s. Jack was known to roam untethered about the city’s streets and enjoyed favored status with the citizenry – until the day he was shot. Jack’s Epitaph is about loss and the shifting, provisional relationship of humans to nature. www.lisakinoshita.com
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Flightless, by Eric Holdener
Scott McGee, Bil Fleming, Eric Holdener / Zeit-Bike 2010: Kinetic Interventions
11th & Commerce (Woolworth Windows)
July 10 – October 1, 2010
Kinetic Interventions showcases the winners of the 4th Annual Zeit-Bike Competition, sponsored by the Tacoma Art Museum and the City of Tacoma. Functional art and eco-friendly transportation come together in these kinetic bike sculptures that are operated by human power. www.bilfleming.com; www.eric-holdener.com; scott.mcgee.art@gmail.com
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James Sinding’s larger-than-life message board
James Sinding / Letters
Tollefson Plaza, South 17th & Pacific Avenue
July 31 – August 31, 2010
Inspiration for this open-air installation at Tollefson Plaza comes from the “letter” magnets people place on their refrigerators – magnified to the 10th power. A pile of 5 sq. yards of 12-in. painted, wooden letters extends an open invitation for passersby to write a poem, to read the thoughts of others, or to add their own. www.jamesgraysonsinding.blogspot.com
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Wave, by Alexander Keyes
Alexander Keyes / Wave
Tollefson Plaza, South 17th & Pacific Avenue
July 15 – September 15, 2010
A giant blue erector set playfully energizes an urban gathering place in this outdoor work by Alexander Keyes. As if strewn by a behemoth child, the giant beams scattered across Tollefson Plaza create interesting nooks that invite passersby to look and explore. http://alexanderkeyes.com
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Poet Mimi Allin creates works laced with mystery and beauty
A K Mimi Allin / Seaside Opera
Tollefson Plaza, South 17th & Pacific Avenue
August 16 – 23, 2010
An aging wooden lifeguard chair stands sentinel as Tollefson Plaza turns into a beach for AK Mimi Allin’s Seaside Opera. The artist performs to a mesmerizing audio of ocean-inspired operas and carnival sounds. Viewers may be enticed to participate by the toy-strewn water pools. www.thepoetessatgreenlake.blogspot.com
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Carla Barragán / Thick
Tollefson Plaza, South 17th & Pacific Avenue
September 16, 2010
Thick is an original performance choreographed by Carla Barragán and Bqdanza members, with musical soundscapes by Nelson García. This site-specific work, a response to the oil spill on the Gulf Coast, mourns the environmental disaster while celebrating the grace and beauty of the region’s birds, sea creatures and other habitants. www.bqdance.com
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Janet Marcavage / Untitled
Tollefson Plaza, South 17th & Pacific Avenue
July 31 – September 15, 2010
An outdoor installation of big, bold Pop Art flowers activates an overlooked city space. The artist’s eye-popping, modernistic blossoms, meticulously cut out from Tyvek, make Tollefson Plaza come alive. A fresh draw for art lovers and the brown bag crowd.
www.janetmarcavage.com
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