Ethereal moment at a Whalesong rehearsal. Photo: Connie Riggio

Put all those hours on Facebook to good use: work your social media connections and get the buzz out about Tacoma City Ballet’s Spring Dance Extravaganza. You could win a grand prize of two 2012 season’s tickets to the ballet! Contest deadline is Wednesday, April 18, 5pm.

Spreading the word is easy: simply post Tacoma City Ballet‘s Facebook page on your wall, or tag @TacCityBallet with a link to the Broadway Center event page in your Twitter feed; every time you encourage your friends to purchase tickets to TCB’s Spring Dance Extravaganza you’ll earn another entry in the contest. There’s no limit to the number of times you can post. The participant with the most entries will win a pair of tickets to all of TCB’s 2012 productions:

• Spring Dance Extravaganza – April 20th – 22^nd
• Storybook Ballet Theatre – May 19th & 20^th
• Tacoma City Ballet’s Annual Art Gallery – July 21^st
• The Haunted Theatre – October 20th – 28^th
• The Nutcracker – December 8th – 23rd

Photo: Connie Riggio

Get creative and support your local city ballet! Are you a blogger? Write about the Spring Dance Extravaganza, repin the performance on Pinterest, or film a YouTube video – and help fill the theater. See the TCB blog for the fine print. For further information, contact Leah Taff at 253.272.4219 or visit www.tacomacityballet.com.

Take your seats for an evening of fun, Feb. 26.

Order your tickets now for a shot at a year’s worth of free tickets to the Grand for the individual with the most prescient Oscar ballot. The ticket price ($20/members; $25 general admission) includes a catered box dinner from Maxwell’s Restaurant with decadent dessert by Corina Bakery. Take this opportunity to dress up and step out at Theater on the Square; the winning costume will score $100 to Chopstix courtesy of the Weekly Volcano. Info: 253-593-4474 or GrandCinema.com.

Poster by Chuck Knigge

Attention, V-Day shoppers: Tacoma is for Lovers and King’s Books are presenting a special, romantic edition of the artist craft fair Sunday, Feb. 12, 11am-4pm at King’s Books (218 St. Helens Ave.). Find gifts to tickle the most discriminating valentine, including rabbit tees, Victorian-framed insects, letterpress prints, stylish accessories, heavenly scents, delicate corsages, vintage fashion, artisanal cheese and creamery products by some of T-town’s best-loved creative souls.

On Saturday, Feb. 18, 10am–5 pm, TAM presents Art from the Heart. Join several of the artists honored  in the 10th Northwest Biennial in this day of interactive works of art inspired by the idea of “art and social practice,” a contemporary movement in which artists encourage their audience to think about, discuss, and even act on important social questions of the day. All activities and performances are free with museum admission. Click here for information about each event.
• 12–4 pm: Abraham Ingle presents Fake Up
• 1–5 pm: Ariana Jacob discusses The American Society for Personally Questioning Political Questions
• 2-4 pm: Wynne Greenwood invites participation in Video, Performance, and Identity (pre-registration required)

Art work by Arvid Anderson. Photo courtesy of PLU University Gallery

The Human Experience is the subject of a national print exhibition opening Feb. 8, 5-7pm, at Pacific Lutheran University. The show brings together art from across the country that explores “the avant garde in terms of printmaking,” according to PLU assistant professor of art and design, Craig Cornwall, in a YouTube video.

Cornwall and Jessica Spring, PLU visiting artist of English art and design, will give a fascinating onsite demonstration of the printmaker’s art – and a few lucky gallery attendees will receive an original print to take home.

Art by Jessica Spring and Chandler O'Leary. Photo courtesy of PLU University Gallery

Visitors will have the opportunity to see how etchings are printed, “see the actual plate, the press, the pull process, in terms of how [a print] is put together,” promises Cornwall.

Can’t make the opening reception? The University Gallery in Ingram Hall is open Monday through Friday, 8am-4pm; admission free. Pacific Lutheran University, Wheeler St. S. and 121st St. S., in Tacoma. Exhibition runs through Mar. 7.

WHO:

Put-upon storybook heroines in fiction, fantasy and fairytales have morphed into arresting, razor-sharp superheroines, as Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson’s novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, illustrates. Popular culture embraces this new archetype, whose influence stretches from music, literature and urban street style to the unlikely reaches of the French haute couture, where Givenchy recently encaged models’ faces and necks with sinister “jewels” that evoked the treasures of a future eon, a different galaxy.

We don’t know about you, but after the recent winter whiteout we’re more than ready for a blast of tropical heat. Just in time comes BULA! The 14th Annual Asia Pacific New Year’s Celebration, a multicultural extravaganza celebrating the arts, culture and history of 47 countries of Asia and the Pacific Islands. At first we thought this had to be a conspiracy of fun; a cool way to extend New Years celebrations ever deeper into the spring calendar. Well, it is! Each year the family-friendly party grows in popularity, with 8,000 expected to attend this year.

The host organization, the Asia Pacific Cultural Center (APCC), is proud to showcase the Republic of Fiji at this year’s festival (bula is Fijian for “hello”). The all-day event features traditional music, dance, food, crafts, storytelling and hands-on activities from across the Pacific Islands and Asia. Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Okinawa, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Tonga, Tahiti, Guam, Korea, Japan and China are some of the cultural groups that will be represented. The featured guest of the Fijian community is the Honorable Ambassador Winston Thompson from Washington, DC.

Itching to release your inner hula dancer? Save the date – hula sessions will be offered throughout the day!

"Cone Study No. 3," the tilted cone at the Museum of Glass. Photo: Sharon Styer

The Museum of Glass opened its doors in 2002 and Tacoma instantly won a place on the international art map. This spectacular, world-class museum grew out of a conversation 10 years earlier between Phil Phibbs, recently retired president of the University of Puget Sound; and Tacoma native, glass visionary, and co-founder of the Pilchuck Glass School, Dale Chihuly. The two agreed that the emergent Studio Glass Movement deserved its own showcase, and that Tacoma should be its nexus. The idea would unfold over the next several years, achieving undreamed of success with its opening in 2002.

"The Glass Ceiling," the Chihuly Bridge of Glass. Photo: Sharon Styer

Today, the Museum of Glass forms the most recognizable silhouette on the Tacoma skyline. The MoG operates a top-flight learning facility for glass artists, with a Hot Shop Amphitheatre located inside its 90′-high tilted cone. Master glass artists from all over the world teach and exhibit at the MoG, and artists from other mediums are also represented in the galleries. The Chihuly Bridge of Glass, connecting the museum to downtown Pacific Ave.,  is a tribute to the glass artist who helped make an incredible vision a reality, and elevated Tacoma’s status as an art center.

Photographs of the Museum of Glass and art by Sharon Styer.

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

10 in 10: 2003 New Tacoma Art Museum Unveiled
10 in 10: 2004 Scattered Ephemera
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)

Photo: Sharon Styer

(To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Art at Work, our 10 in 10 series showcases 10 of the best people, ideas and organizations to enrich Tacoma in the past decade.)

In 2003, the Tacoma Art Museum moved into a sleek new headquarters at 1701 Pacific Ave., and ushered in a new era for the arts locally. The bold structure by Albuquerque, NM-based architect, Antoine Predock, was immediately acclaimed for its modern profile and silvery, stainless steel skin that evoked the luminous quality of Northwest light and water, as well as the city’s industrial underpinnings. The Predock building was the first ever designed specifically to house the museum and its collections since TAM’s inception in 1935; previous locations included the College of Puget Sound (1935-1958), a rented storefront space at 742 Broadway (1958-1963), “the Old Jailhouse,” an office building at 621 Pacific (1963-1971), and a former bank building at 1123 Pacific Ave. The new TAM proved to be a stunning symbol of the arts-fueled, downtown economic revival.

TAM's lobby with a back view of a Scott Fife sculpture. Photo: Sharon Styer

Last year, TAM celebrated its 75th anniversary with Mighty Tacoma, an exhibition showcasing the city’s venerable and varied legacy of art and artists. The museum is one of the architectural icons of downtown with 12,000′ of open, airy gallery space, plus sweeping vistas of Mt. Rainier, Thea Foss Waterway and the historic University of Washington-Tacoma campus. The central outdoor courtyard is graced with an undulating “stone wave” surrounded by 30′-high, mirrored glass walls.

TAM has announced plans for a remodel of its outdoor plaza by Olson Kundig architects, in 2012. The redesign will address issues of foot traffic and connectivity with adjacent properties, including Tollefson Plaza directly across Pacific Ave. The remodel is made possible with support from a 2011 $200,000 “Our Town” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded to the museum and the City of Tacoma. Congratulations, TAM, and many happy returns!

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

10 in 10: 2004 Scattered Ephemera
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)

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)