Past Streetside Artscapes

“There is no limitation in ideas or possibilities when you think in neon.”

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“We’re moving towards something that progresses a surface expansive and new. The past and the present see the spirit of Hilltop. Sweeping views, traditional architecture, and a quaint neighborhood feel remind us of yesterday’s freedoms. Admiring each other’s untapped potential history peaks through cracks in the future with hindsight. We answer each other facing forward looking back.”

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“Pride and acknowledgement of where we come from and hopeful for the years and generations ahead continuing the next chapter of the travels you took.”

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“Tacoma Wayzgoose is an annual festival that celebrates Tacoma’s vibrant letterpress, printmaking, and book arts community.”

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Inspired by a herping backpacking trek in Brasso Seco with West Indian Herping and flowers growing in their quiet revolution at Wa Samaki Permaculture in Trinidad of the twin island Caribbean nation of Trinidad & Tobago.

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An acrylic art installation inspired by the influence of the planets on the psyche.

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Thinking about humanity and the atmosphere which has forever shaped our story and how we now shape its story.

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“Since 2009, Gabrielle’s murals have strengthened communities and provided soul to the concrete jungle.

Her fine art is rooted in devotion to the Divine Feminine and is designed to elevate your home with sacred imagery and earth-based pigments.”

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A Spanish greeting, “‘Quihúbole,’ (kee-oh-boh-leh) also spelled without the H and ton of other ways… translates to “What’s Up”….. so what’s up tacoma?”

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The Dead Feminists series is a collaboration between artists Chandler O’Leary and Jessica Spring.

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A mural which uses bold colors to pay tribute to a subject of local history.

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Part of a series of “water drawings” located on 11th and Broadway. (more…)

Since 2016 St Celfer has been working on the Space Between Points as a means to unlock ways of perceiving a world made narrow by the impositions of power.

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A mural, located on 11th and Broadway, encouraging  viewers to look past their expectations of others in order to gain a larger understanding of who they really are.

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The Spaceworks Tacoma Residency was given to Patsy Surh O’Connell who is a member of the Korean American Artists Association of Washington. She recruited KAAAW members Sun Watkins and Bella Kim for her installation work.

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Painted directly on the wall, this stream of consciousness artwork serves as a sanctuary filled with ever flowing memories and emotions.

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A visual and musical collaboration, best viewed after sundown.

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An installation that lights up at night, with a custom sound component. Broadway is burning with all the energy of a wildfire.

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A letterpress installation by Line Break Press, a Write253 program.

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“Illuminate” a Woolworth window exhibit (and also online at www.byjenn.com/illuminate), is curated by Jennifer Preston Chushcoff, and features large scale paper collages by Matthew Baird, along with figurative sculptures and poetry by Tina Lauzon.
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“In our culture, the everyday has become more and more apathetic and alien. This installation serves as a commentary on that notion. The space between disgust and curiosity, what is known and what is inferred, judgement and wonder, these are the paradoxes that inform my sculptures.”
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In participation of the Tacoma Light Trail, the Asia Pacific Cultural Center presents looping videos of steaming hot tea and Samoan fire dancing. These videos light up the foot of the Hillclimb stairs, just around the corner from the Mad Hat Tea Co. window. 
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“This collection of stringed instruments offers us a chance to imagine a harmonious ensemble of east and west that never could be — but should have been.”
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Natural Contradictions
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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.
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 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. 
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 “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.”
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“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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 “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.”  (more…)

 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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“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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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.
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“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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In beautiful wood relief, with mirrored lakes, Nathan Braunfeld’s sculpture depicts a cross section of the Sierra Nevada at a scale of 1600:1. A series of mechanized light bulbs travel above at a speed equally calculated to the rotation of the earth. Nathan states that “In this way, one is provided a rough model of the stellar mechanics that govern our world.”
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 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.
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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?
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 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. (more…)

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.
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Taking over two of the largest windows will be the “20 Year Retrospective of RAGS” including a gallery of work from 30 artists. 
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For this exhibition Acataphasia Grey 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.”
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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.
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“When your heart is broken it is the end of the world as you know it, but it is not the end of everything. The destruction of one thing is the origin of another. The hole in your heart is a portal to another dimension.” So begins Erin Dengerink’s wise and witty narrative for her art installation, “The Hole in Your Heart is a Portal to Another Dimension”.
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An Opera That Sails Upon a Sea of Broken Glass
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 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. 
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We love the possibilities that poetry offers to celebrate our multiculturalism
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When used by collectors, the term ephemera describes materials, often paper, that have little value beyond their intended use.
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The Woolworth window facing Commerce Street features a complex installation by the talented eco-artist Deanna Pindell.
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As an artist, Tory Franklin can keenly relate to the drive to constantly make in the lonely world of the studio.
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Using elements in ways other than their intended function reflects seeing without restriction
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Deeply inspired by cinema, folklore, fairy tales and fantasy, Sarah Beth Smith creates dream-like images that reflect the shadowy corners of her psyche
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Chelsea O’Sullivan’s goal is to capture the beauty that lives in this gray world and explode some color into it.
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Like the networks of shapes that shift before the viewer’s eyes, Tacoma is a city constantly transforming and reinventing itself.
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This mural is a tribute to the nautical heritage of the northwest.
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The Camouflage Net Project points to the practice of concentration camps in the U.S., prison labor and racial bias towards immigrants of color.

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A group exhibition including text by Hozoji Matheson-Margullis and photography by Evan Soto and Michael Vahrenwald.
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Dreams are ethereal; the harder I try to remember them the quicker they slip from my grasp.
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This interactive installation invites viewers to peek inside a series of glowing peep holes to see the secret worlds inside.
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Anastasia has been focused on creating worlds through texture and color, transforming spaces with paper, fabric, and found objects.
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An evolving installation comprised of a series of sculptural forms.
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Upcoming projects include a meditational music video featuring dance choreography by Joel Myers, and a children’s show scripted by Bridgett Nicol.
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Mythic Ephemera consists of seven large, exquisitely detailed paper dolls, numerous floating illustrations, and hand painted designs directly on the glass.
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Waste and art seem to share something in common. Whether they can become something of value may be the viewer’s call.

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Cyanotypes are created using a photographic process that results in the characteristic cyan blue prints.
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Things taken for granted are often seen inside of themselves reflecting in and out.
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 These works are an invitation to ask questions of the world around us, to ponder what lays hidden, and what is hoping to be revealed to humanity.
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Once, there was WILDERNESS here, uses the imagery of cartography to reveal a network of thoughts about the environment.
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Activating the Pantages Theater’s streetside display cases with a message for people to follow their dreams. 
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Lourdes Jackson created this mural as a birthday present for his six year old daughter.  (more…)

This installation by local artist Saiyare Refaei celebrates Tacoma-Pierce County Bike Month (May 2018).
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An installation telling the story of how textiles went from withstanding the test of time to impacting our planet.
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Two Woolworth windows taken over with colorful Furz. (more…)

A large window display of sculptures, and wall pieces by Rob McKirdie.
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Kate Cendejas creates a whimsical mural, encompassing an entire display window with creatures casually surfing on colorful waves.  
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An art installation where 4 female figures are being measured, judged, put on a saintly pedestal, sexually objectified, and burning a multitude of candles at both ends. The artist comments that “It is tiring. She has had enough. It is time for a change now.”
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A collection of the steamroller prints that were created during Tacoma’s 14th annual Wayzgoose letterpress and book arts celebration. 
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This mural is about uniting local environmental justice issues by coming together in healing. Specifically, it addresses the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) and the Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) issues by highlighting some figureheads in these local movements alongside images of migratory animals.
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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. (more…)

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.  (more…)

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.” (more…)

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 (more…)

“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. (more…)

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. (more…)

“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 (more…)

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. (more…)

Holcomb is the designer, photographer and subject of my dresses. Her photographs capture a temporary, private performance between me and my surroundings. (more…)

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. (more…)

This installation was inspired by a shirt Dion 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. (more…)

“Dozing off in grey
Laodicean birds wake
To a brighter day” (more…)

This video installation combines the singing and the sound waves of the 52hz whale with the videos of the vulcanos on the abyssal zone.
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Yesterday is gone; We seek to carry-on; In touch with thyself; As one we overcome; Fuel; Internal combustion; Sustainable vibrations; Frequencies of everlasting love.
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2139:47 — or the duration of Winter in hours:minutes — represents an embrace of the artificial, an anemic attempt to replace what is lost for a season, via a communion of the mundane: frames, fabric, industrial lighting.
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In this series, Qin Tan paints abstract structures and formations that channel energy from memories and environments.
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“Our neighborhoods are filled with secrets, and often strife, but in the end there is a beat of life, a rhythm of existence…”
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Artist Angela Larsen leads Seabury School students in a study on the modern city, and the construction of this installation.
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Generated through a fusion of technology and imagination, this fictional bulletin board was created based on public submissions.

A Kiosk That Puts Tacoma’s Idiosyncrasies on Display -blog by Lisa Kinoshita

This mural visualizes 5 Stages of grief, by incorporating writings by local poets writing around themes of Anger and Acceptance.

Two Young Artists Shoulder the Grief of the World -blog by Lisa Kinoshita

A combination of traditional Native imagery painted in a non-traditional form and in unusual sites makes Duenas’s artwork an especially noteworthy addition to Tacoma’s bursting murals scene.

Anthony Duenas Takes Native American Myth to the Street -blog by Lisa Kinoshita

“firmly rooted in pop-surrealist tradition, with plenty of influence from Dr. Seuss and independent comics.”

Pete Goldlust Under the Microscope -blog by Lisa Kinoshita

LiftPort Group has a dream to build a Lunar Space Elevator, the biggest thing ever constructed by humans.

LiftPort Space Elevator Lands in Tacoma -blog by Lisa Kinoshita

This playfully executed window engages passersby with awareness of how they can participate in solving the homelessness crisis.

Community Vision: Everyone Needs A Place to Call Home -blog by Lisa Kinoshita

A collection of the steamroller prints that were created during Tacoma’s 13th annual Wayzgoose letterpress and book arts celebration.

13th Wayzgoose Marks Good Luck & Bad in City’s Past -blog by Lisa Kinoshita

In preparation for Spaceworks’ 2nd annual fundraiser NEON, artist Galen Turner installed a flashy, tongue-in-cheek Artscape in one of the Woolworth Windows. (more…)

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. (more…)

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 (more…)

Gillian presents a series of hand-sewn cloth works inspired by flag design, classic coat of arms styles, and embroidery techniques (more…)

Long ago a family of Native Americans from a Northwest tribe took their children to collect Salmon they had caught in traps… (more…)

Between

shadow and reflection
ground and sky
now and again
object and drawing
here and gone (more…)

“Traces and Transformations” investigates the interconnectivity of human experience in the domestic environment and the malleability of memory.  (more…)

These warped cranes investigate the impact of reflections on the sense of self, whether through the eyes of another or upon inner contemplation. (more…)

Dockery wants to show the beauty behind the technology and algorithms which define almost every waking moment of our lives. (more…)

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 (more…)

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.” (more…)

Fibrous Body is an imagined landscape of the emotional body. Thread and fiber connect the complex emotional space of humans to the inner workings of their biology. (more…)

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.  (more…)

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. (more…)

This exhibit consists of bold linocut prints from various artists created during the
2016 Tacoma Wayzgoose Festival. (more…)

Nola states “Ashflow portrays the unreal stillness just before disaster hits, the moment of heightened senses when minute details are perceived.” (more…)

Eva states “My work deals with the overlap of humanity and the natural world… (more…)

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“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.” (more…)

Paper, Stone, Bamboo, Wood, Copper, Thread
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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. (more…)

Gustavo states “There is balance in our world- humans are part of it… (more…)

“always be doodling.
always be speculating.
always be lusting.”

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Jeffrey Curtis states “Sidewalk Dance Films takes dance films and videos out of the cinema and puts dance amid the movement of the city.” (more…)

Inspired by the leadership and actions of the NWDC Resistance, 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. (more…)

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.” (more…)

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! (more…)

The mural is Anderson’s graduating project at Seabury Middle School. (more…)

Angela Larsen describes this mural as her “sketchbook coming to life.”

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Estimated to have been installed around the 1950s, the kiosk is one of several around Tacoma that is inscribed with the word “Happenings”—but nothing much had been happening there lately. (more…)

Why do we live where we live? This question is posed by a herd of creative Tacoma printmakers.
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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.
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“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…”

Zwick’s Bed Dress -Spaceworks blog