10 in 10: 2004 Scattered Ephemera

(Our 10 in 10 series is celebrating a decade of Tacoma arts and culture, in honor of the 10th anniversary of Art at Work Month, this November.)

Delicious art work was up for grabs at "the Cakewalk," an event to publicize TaCo and "Scattered Ephemera." Photo: John Carlton

Scattered Ephemera was a seminal event in the Tacoma art scene organized by Tacoma Contemporary (TaCo) and the City of Tacoma, in 2004. Scattered Ephemera was a sprawling, six-week-long, conceptual artists’ tribute to one city block, on 11th St. from Commerce to Broadway, where the F.W. Woolworth Building stands. The project combined window installations, live performance, radio soundscapes, video, a youth workshop, and painting. A special commemorative edition of the arts newspaper, The Toby Room, heralded the event. TaCo described it as “a three-year, national artistic historic collaboration that culminates in Tacoma on July 22.”

A tasty interpretation of Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Photo: John Carlton

New Orleans-based poet and National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu headlined the national and regional artists who deconstructed Tacoma history for the event. The idea was the brainstorm of artist Kate Sidwell, a one-time Seattleite whose friend, Jan Gilbert, ran the VESTIGES Project investigating the life of cities through the “tangible traces of things past.” Scattered Ephemera was widely covered in the media and proved an important launchpad for the future of public art in Tacoma.

Walking the walk at the Cakewalk. Photo: John Carlton

The F.W. Woolworth Building provided a compelling capsule for the memories and essences of Tacoma being dredged for the event, being as it were a branch of the store chain whose lunch counters had been the stage (in the South) for conflict during the civil rights movement. Among the controversial art pieces presented was John Runnels’ installation in the Woolworth windows, Chinese Must Go, featuring racially charged comments in bright neon, and pressed shirts representing the city officials who drove Chinese railroad workers out of town in the 1880s by the so-called “Tacoma Method.” Codrescu did an interactive performance piece in the Farmers’ Market – and wrote an acerbic essay about Tacoma’s blue collar status and alleged inferiority complex to Seattle’s culturati. John Kessler compiled a daily “audio collage” of local sounds and voices for broadcast on KPLU. On the sidewalk running down from Broadway to Commerce, citizens assisted in writing “Side Walk Poetry.”

Today, local citizens continue to be engaged by the history, architecture and retro mystique of Woolworth’s, and bring their own scattered, ephemeral memories to the former five-and-dime. Its windows are occupied by installations in the Spaceworks Tacoma program (activating vacant retail space with art); inside is an AT&T switching station. The building is both a relic of the past and a platform for evanescent contemporary art.

Enjoy past stories in our 10-in-10 Series:

10 in 10: 2006 City Arts Magazine Hits Tacoma
10 in 10: 2001 Free Ya Mind
10 in 10: 2006 the Broadway Center Shines Anew
10 in 10: 2001 The Birth of Tacoma’s Very Own Volcano
10 in 10: 2005 The AMOCAT Awards
10 in 10: The F.W. Woolworth Building
10 in 10: 2001 Tacoma Gets Smart (UW-Tacoma and SOTA)

10 in 10: 2001 Free Ya Mind

(In celebration of 10 years of Art at Work Month, our 10 in 10 series spotlights the top 10 ideas, people and organizations to hit Tacoma in the past decade.)

Cool cat Stella Haioulanil at the AMOCAT Awards. Photo: Rodney Upchurch

One of the great moments in AMOCAT Awards history occurred in November when AMOCAT recipient and T-town creative force Stella Haioulanil recited her freshly minted (as in just that morning) poem, I Am A Cat, during the awards ceremony at the Museum of Glass. In a feline fedora, with soft, cat-like cadences, she began:

I Am a Cat
One day not long ago, the City called and told me I was a cat. I said, I’m a cat?

Yeah! That’s a fact!

Amongst other things I Am a Cat!

I’m a Catalyst in motion….

Move’n, strive’n, stroll’n, around the Tac!
Hilltopia to be exact!
And in the City of Destiny is where I’m at.

I Am a Cat!

I Am a Catalyst in motion….[click here to hear the complete poem]

Haioulanil is indeed a pivotal cat on the local art scene – one deserving of the Tacoma Arts Commission’s coveted accolade in the category of Community Outreach by an Artist. Equipped with a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the Evergreen State College-Tacoma, and two Associate degrees from Tacoma Community College, Haioulanil uses her communication skills to heighten awareness in the areas of community mobilization, conflict resolution and social justice through the medium of cultural enrichment events.

Haioulanil is CEO and founder of Free Ya Mind, Inc., working to promote public discussion between businesses, organizations and urban communities through the literary and visual arts. She has partnered with the Tacoma Art Museum and Washington State History Museum to provide educational outreach to underserved populations. Through partnerships in the Tacoma and Clover Park school districts, she has administered workshops that teach youth leadership, the gift of artistic expression, and the ability to think critically and develop effective communication skills. A filmmaker, writer and radio host/DJ, this powerhouse has also worked with some of the most celebrated spoken-word talent on the globe.

Art at Work Month Ends This Week!

It’s been a dazzling month for the visual, literary and performing arts in Tacoma – with 268 events presented by artists and art organizations, and thousands of Tacomans showing them the love! We’re coming down the homestretch this week, so it’s last call to get your fix of T-town’s best and brightest creatives, or to try your hand at self-expression.

From "Modblog" by Michiko Tanaka

Here are a few of this week’s highlights:

• Open Adult Ballet – Meet at the barre with the MLK Ballet. Wear what you want and stretch out with Tacoma’s ballet company. Nov. 28, 7:30-8:30pm, Urban Grace Church (3rd floor), 902 South Market St. Click here for info. Donations gladly accepted.

• Blast Off with Piano! – FREE group piano lesson for beginners at Chambers Music Studio. Nov. 28, 6-7pm. Manitou Community Center, 4806 S. 66th St., 253.566.8788.

• Baroque Christmas Concert Rehearsal – Experience the outstanding artistry of the Northwest Repertory Singers as they rehearse in preparation for their Baroque Christmas Concert including Bach’s Wachet Auf and selections from Handel’s Messiah! Nov. 28, 7-9:30pm, Mason United Methodist Church, 2710 N. Madison St., 360.271.8894. Info at www.nwrs.org. FREE.

• Business Nuts & Bolts for Artists – Should you be a sole proprietor or LLC? How do you file quarterlies? What are the benefits of a business license anyway? These questions and more answered by local artists and agency experts at this FREE session. Nov. 30, 7-8:30pm, Tacoma Art Place, 1116 S. 11th St., 253.238.1006. Details at www.tacomaartplace.org.

• Open Drawing Session – Bring your own materials and draw from a live model at this FREE 2-hr. session at Pacific Lutheran University (121st St. S. and 8th Ave. S.). Nov. 30, 6-8pm, Ingram Hall, Room 126. No formal instruction provided. Info at www.soac@plu.edu, 253.535.7150.

Check out the complete Art at Work calendar here. Thanks for making Tacoma’s premiere art event a success for the 10th straight year!

“Ghost Prairie” is Coming to Town

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

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

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

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

An abstract interpretation of the prairie. Photo courtesy of Thoughtbarn

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

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

Tacoma Studio Tours: November 5 & 6!

Today is the last day of October, which means that Art at Work Month starts TOMORROW! Enjoy Halloween tonight (take some You’ll Like Tacoma pictures with the best costumes you see and send ‘em in!), and get ready to get your arts on for the rest of the week. Kick off officially with us on Thursday evening at our Opening Party at the Museum of Glass!

Studio Tours 2010. Photo by Jason Ganwich.

Can’t get away until the weekend? That’s okay! Join us and 57 local artists on Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 4:00 for the 10th annual Tacoma Studio Tours. This year, the 57 artists will open 37 studios to the public (some are group studios), giving everyone a chance to see where and the techniques and tools they use to create their masterpieces. It’s also a great way to ask artists questions, see the creative process, and purchase one-of-a-kind local art.

This year, all of the studios will offer a demonstration or a hands-on activity for visitors! Most will be kid-friendly, so bring your family and try your hand at stone carving, sumi painting, linoleum block printmaking, and more. Some studios may even let you come away with a little free keepsake, to help you remember your experience at the Studio Tours this year.

Studio Tours 2010. Photo by Jason Ganwich.

So hop over to the Studio Tour page on the Art at Work website – or grab your Art at Work brochure – and get planning! You’ll find a full list of participating artists and a handy, interactive map to help you put together the best route for this self-guided, free tour. (If you don’t feel like spending the gas money, buy an Art Bus ticket and have someone else do the driving for you!) Some studios are only open on one day or the other, so make sure you plan accordingly. And who knows…maybe you’ll even get your hands on some swag.

A Gory Gourd

We’re celebrating All Hallow’s Eve with a portrait of a sickly squash, Blasted Benji from the Island of Misfit Pumpkins. The original pumpkin was carved by Tacoma artist Wolfgang Whitt; it was painted by a duo who make art together under the name, ElWit. “After the pumpkin was carved it just didn’t look right,” noted one half of the team. “But after we left it out for a week, it was just fine.” Amazing, what a little decay will do…

FREE Art at Work Booty Hits the Streets on November 3

Original booty by Art Chantry.

We were a little beside ourselves waiting to see the official 1oth anniversary Art at Work swag created by noted designer Art Chantry. Chantry is legend in these parts; his poster art was plastered all over Seattle during the glory days of punk rock, and later, grunge (he designed album covers for Hole and Nirvana). He is known for art that scratches the eyeballs and cerebral lobes with its rough graphics and text collaged together in unexpected, sometimes shocking combination. It’s art that announces itself with a scream, not a whisper. Currently, a retrospective of his work, Parkland is Burning, is on exhibit at Fulcrum Gallery through November 17.

Rock posters from "Parkland is Burning" at Fulcrum Gallery.

To celebrate Art at Work, Chantry took a different tack. He chose retro imagery, a local mantra (“You’ll Like Tacoma”) and a vintage palette to adorn keepsakes that bespeak an earlier chapter of T-town history. The objects possess a simple, gritty sweetness, much like our hometown. Our favorite is the “floaty pen,” in aqua or black, featuring a woman diver jackknifing into clear, vertical depths. But there’s more – refrigerator magnets, rub-on tattoos, keychains and posters – all featuring iconic images such as drive-in signs and diesel-wheezing trucks from Tacoma’s rough-and-ready past.

Don’t miss your chance to celebrate Art at Work’s 10th birthday with a free keepsake by Art Chantry. The artist’s work has graced the walls of the Seattle Art Museum, the Smithsonian, the Louvre, MoMA, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – wouldn’t you want it casually laying around your place? The swag will be available at the Art at Work Opening Party on November 3, 6-8:30p.m, at the Museum of Glass. Very limited quantities will also be available during the open-studio tour, November 5-6, at participating artists’ studios. Chantry will give an artist’s talk tonight, October 20, at 6p.m. at Fulcrum Gallery, in conjunction with his show, Parkland is Burning.

10 in 10: 2006 The Broadway Center Shines Anew

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Art at Work Month, our 10 in 10 series is spotlighting the best local people, ideas and events of the past decade.

Broadway Center Executive Director David Fischer

When the Broadway Center Board of Directors chose David Fischer as their new Executive Director, in 2006, Fischer took on a mandate to completely re-engineer the organization. And the results have been stellar: Under his team of revitalized staff, Board and volunteers, the Broadway Center has tripled its audience. It is the provider of Washington state’s largest, most dynamic arts education program, and its portfolio includes serving as manager of Tacoma’s Theater District and its historic anchor venues – the Pantages, the Rialto, and Theatre on the Square. The Broadway Center’s guiding vision has been “to lead and energize the renaissance of downtown Tacoma,” and to make the performing arts as accessible to the community as possible.

“[That focus] hasn’t wavered,” says Fischer, “to be relevant and meaningful to the broadest base of our community and make a difference to the social and economic fabric of Tacoma.” 

So impressive has been his leadership that this year the Tacoma Arts Commission created a new category of the AMOCAT Awards just to honor him; Fischer is the recipient of the first AMOCAT Arts Leadership Award.

The Pantages Theater

From the beginning, Fischer declared diversity and access to be the heart of the Broadway Center’s future. An important factor has been to achieve the difficult balance between bringing high-quality performances to town and offering “broad access to the community regardless of ticket price.” Though artist fees for Queen Latifah, Lyle Lovett, kd Lang and Buddy Guy demand that the intimate Pantages Theater ask for high ticket prices, a broader access was leveraged through a tiered pricing program ensuring that a minimum of 10% of every house be significantly reduced in price (usually 60% less than the top price).

In addition, the Broadway Center regularly offers many other programs at an average $22 per ticket. Access for the community is further enhanced by distributing free tickets. Since 2006, the Broadway Center has distributed, through its social service partnerships, more than 27,000 free tickets at a value of $1.1 million to those members of our community who could otherwise never afford to attend. 

Private philanthropy, individual donors and City government have all significantly increased their investments because of the Broadway Center’s authentic and earnest efforts to deliver on its promises.