10 in 10: 2005 The AMOCAT Awards

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Art at Work Month, our 10 in 10 series is spotlighting a decade’s worth of fabulous things about Tacoma.

Of the literally hundreds of art events we spotlight during Art at Work Month each November, the public ceremony honoring recipients of the annual AMOCAT Art Awards is one of the most anticipated. Established in 2005, the AMOCAT recognizes those in our community who provide distinctive contributions to the arts. The honorees come from many fields, and work hard to support and build Tacoma’s creative community by innovating in artistic excellence. AMOCAT award recipients are nominated and selected by the Tacoma Arts Commission.

There are three regular categories for recognition: Community Outreach by an Artist, Community Outreach by an Organization, and Arts Patron. Each exhibits vision, dedication, and action in building a lively arts community in Tacoma.

In 2011, the Tacoma Arts Commission created a special Arts Leadership award to recognize exceptional vision, dedication and leadership in the arts in Tacoma. The recipient of the inaugural award is David Fischer, Executive Director of the Broadway Center. In the category of Community Outreach by an Organization, D.A.S.H. – Dancing, Acting and Singing in Harmony took the prize. Stella Haioulani, CEO and founder of Free Ya Mind, Inc., was recognized for Community Outreach by an Artist. The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation was named this year’s Arts Patron. An article about these four outstanding community members, who will be honored publicly during Art at Work Month, is coming soon.

“[The AMOCAT] is important because it acknowledges ways in which the arts build community,” says City of Tacoma Arts Administrator, Amy McBride. “How individuals and organizations can go above and beyond the call of duty using the arts to their best end.

“Nominations are made by arts commissioners throughout the year as they notice something exceptional or of interest,” she says. “The AMOCAT is another way to acknowledge excellence and bring light to people who are contributing to both the arts and our community in a meaningful way.”

2010 AMOCAT award recipients
Click here to learn about the 2010 recipients

2009 AMOCAT award recipients
Click here to learn about the 2009 recipients

2008 AMOCAT award recipients
Click here to learn about the 2008 recipients

2007 AMOCAT award recipients
Click here to learn about the 2007 recipients  

2006 AMOCAT award recipients
Click here to learn about the 2006 recipients   

2005 AMOCAT award  recipients
Click here to learn about the 2005 recipients

Past 10 in 10 topics include:
10 in 10: The F.W. Woolworth Building
10 in 10: 2001 Tacoma Gets Smart (UW-Tacoma and SOTA)

All Art and No Dough: “Fall Free for All,” October 8-9

WHAT: Fall Free for All, a community artfest

WHEN: October 8-9, 2011

WHERE: The Pantages, Rialto Theater, and Theater on the Square

HOW: Admission is FREE! To get your wristband pass, call the box office at the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts: 253.591.5894. Wristbands will be available for pick-up at “will call” only. Click here for your FREE wristband pass.

One of the coolest things about the Tacoma arts scene is the abundance of free, high-quality events that have grown up around it. A standout is coming up October 8-9 at the Broadway Center and surrounding venues: The Fall Free For All is a community arts festival that offers a virtually inexhaustible lineup of events all weekend long, including live theater, film, dance, music and a host of family-friendly activities. And it costs less than the price of a latté – it’s free! Come get your cultural fix, support local artists, and check out the spiffy new look of Antique Row and the vibrant Theatre District. Events include:

• A Broadway Center original production, 11 Days in the Life of Dr. King
• The world premiere of Voices of the City, presented by the Broadway Center and EnJoy Productions
• Short plays by local authors sponsored by Northwest Playwrights Alliance
• Films from the Grand Cinema
• Tacoma Philharmonic kids’ concert: Trains & Tunes in the New World
• Diverse work from many cultures, from traditional forms to hip hop
• Hands-on activities for children
• A screening of the movie, U2: Rattle and Hum
• Dance from Barefoot Dance Collective
• Plus local bands, buskers, magicians, and much more!
• For festival schedule, click here.

Free for Fall is presented by the Broadway Center with support from the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation Fund of the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation. See you there!

Art Planning Rolls On for Prairie Line Trail

A scale model of Thoughtbarn's modular prairie grass concept.

“Temporary urban theater” was the catch phrase last week when Philadelphia urban planner Todd Bressi, and the Austin-based design team of Lucy Begg and Robert Gay (Thoughtbarn) returned to Tacoma to discuss stage two of the Prairie Line Trail (PLT) public art plan. At an informal meeting at the Rain City Café, Thoughtbarn introduced 3-D scale models of their proposed onsite installation. A real alligator’s head (i.e., a café napkin holder) glared at the preliminary concepts – modular islands of “prairie grass” made from recyclable materials. Seated around the unusual centerpieces were historic preservationists, City arts administrators, interested citizens, artists and University of Washington-Tacoma (UW-T) staff.

Riding the rails (left to right): Todd Bressi, Lucy Begg and Robert Gay

Funded in part by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) planning grant, Thoughtbarn and Bressi are developing the art strategy for a proposed $5.83 million, half-mile legacy trail connecting historic districts centered around the downtown museum corridor and UW-T. Now that the public art plan is halfway complete, it’s time to identify opportunities and how to make them work, said Bressi. A demonstration project will be unveiled on the trail site Nov. 12, featuring six temporary art installations by Tacoma artists, in addition to a commissioned work by Thoughtbarn, that will be up for two to four weeks. The goal is to create art experiences, “even guerrilla art within a sanctioned framework,” that will draw attention to the historic route even before its construction begins. The planning team compares the temporary art works to “urban theater”; a way of adding a layer of excitement and anticipation to this major downtown project.

All of the local artists designing installations for the demo project are participants in PA:ID (Public Art In Depth), an intensive, multi-faceted program created by the City of Tacoma. Developed and facilitated by artist Elizabeth Conner, this powerful course is providing selected artists free training and detailed mentorship in how to apply for and advance through the process of creating public art projects. PA:ID participants are all artists who have attained a level of success in their profession, and were selected through an application process. The Prairie Line Trail opening exhibition is one of several projects of Metro Parks, Sound Transit and Artscapes that will be open exclusively to PA:ID participants in 2011 and 2012.

You’ll Like Tacoma Arts Month!

We’ve almost entered the fall season, and that means that Art at Work: Tacoma Arts Month is right around the corner! Our brochures and other materials have gone to the press, so be looking out for those in the next week or two. Have you been Liking Tacoma, with those snazzy little signs? If not, maybe this will inspire you:

A big thank you to local filmmaker Adam the Alien for making this awesome video for us!

So to ensure that you’re ready for Art at Work Month when it comes, keep on uploading those You’ll Like Tacoma photos that you’ve been taking! Click here to read more about the project or visit our Flickr and Facebook pages to look at what others have done (and to upload your own!). Don’t have a sign? Click here to download an 8.5″ x 11″ PDF or just make your own!

10 in 10: The F.W. Woolworth Building

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Art at Work Month, our 10 in 10 series is spotlighting a decade’s worth of fabulous things about Tacoma.

Woolworth's, a 1950's superstore. Photo courtesy of Tacoma Public Library

The Woolworth Building. It’s an anchor of Tacoma’s downtown, a box-shaped receptacle of local lore, and a bastion of nostalgia for those who shopped at the famous five-and-dime or filled up at its homey lunch counter before it closed to the public in January 1994. It’s one of Tacoma’s best-loved buildings, with a varied past. Today, Woolworth’s broad storefront windows provide a unique, open-air exhibition space for art, and no longer advertise the inexpensive household goods that attracted windowshoppers from 1950 on.

The building at 955 Broadway is a landmark of local history and architecture. In the 1800s, it was the location of the First Presbyterian Church (and of a freshwater spring that sometimes leaked inside. Trickles persist to this day.). The church’s minister condemned the racism aimed against Chinese railroad workers at the time, but to no avail; they were driven out of town in the 1880s.

Waiting for the doors to open at Woolworth's. Photo courtesy of Tacoma Public Library

In 1890, the church was replaced by a new altar dedicated to the world of finance: the Fidelity Building, designed by the great Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, of Burnham & Root. (Another of the firm’s structures, the Luzon Building on Pacific Ave., was demolished last year against the protests of citizens and preservationists.) Exactly six decades later, the Fidelity Building was razed to make room for Woolworth’s: such was the success of the New York-based retail chain that it could afford to tear down a handsomely embellished 12-story skyscraper and replace it with a four-story, post-Deco structure whose style was dictated by its brand image. The superstore of the future opened during United Tacoma Days, on Nov. 2, 1950.

The five-and-dime was located across from the sprawling Crystal Sanitary Market where fresh produce filled the stalls; and from the classy Rhodes department store. Other neighbors included small specialty shops, dressmakers and haberdashers. Tacoma’s theater district, one block away, came alive at night; by six o’clock the independent businesses would close, but the behemoth retailer would stay open later, selling candy to moviegoers. Woolworth’s quickly became an important fixture for those who lived downtown, a place where one could find anything – housewares, shoes, cheap jewelry, Simplicity dress patterns and fabric, toys, even pets – and still have enough left for a grilled cheese sandwich and a ‘shake at the 62-seat lunch counter.

9.11.11

Sequence by Virginia Bunker

“I was seeing a spectator to something so unfathomable” that it could not be described in words or even contained in visual terms, says photographer/writer Virginia Bunker about Sequence, her commentary on the devastating events of September 11, 2001, in New York City. Her diptych isolates a moment in time that, for many survivors, will forever bisect life into the day before, and the day after.

The viewpoint of Sequence could be that of someone working downtown on that clear September morning, “of someone looking across from Brooklyn Heights, or someone in Japan watching the news, or someone like me, watching it here,” she says. At once describing the intimacy and the anonymity of the terrorist attacks that took thousands of lives in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., Sequence conveys the deep and instantaneous shock experienced by people around the world.

• • • • •

Virginia Bunker is a Tacoma artist who lived in Manhattan in the 1990’s, honing her craft and working at a private photo laboratory pulling prints for the likes of Irving Penn, Horst, Avedon and Condé Nast art director, Alexander Lieberman.

WHAT?

A wall of wigs at What?

What? Shoppe is a tiny retail emporium dedicated to pop culture at 740 Broadway. It opened a couple doors down, 32 years ago, long before Broadway was upscaled to “Antique Row.” The neighborhood then was home to old-time businesses such as Sears and Gunderson Jewelers, and a whole lot of empty retail space, according to owners Philip Whitt and Charlotte Emrys. The Pantages had not yet been renovated, the Theater District makeover was anything but – but rent was low and so What? opened its doors.

Yesterday, the preternaturally young-looking owners celebrated the shoppe’s 32nd birthday over Oreo ice cream bars. When we visited, a soundtrack playing the theme from Bewitched purled around merchandise crammed to the ceiling: items drawn from low-brow culture, high kitsch and advertising and movie memorabilia dating from the 1950’s-60’s and on. We’d say a hairsbreadth separates this duo from the stars of the reality show, Hoarders – but in the most pleasant way.

Philip Whitt and Charlotte Emrys

The eye-popping bazaar has earned a cult following: “Four or five generations of people coming in from high school,” each one latching onto a new cultural trend, says Whitt. What? started as a specialty retailer featuring teaching toys and giftware – things that appealed to Whitt’s own small kids at the time – but has graduated to being a purveyor of gifts for adults with fringe tastes. (Victorian steampunk and zombies are trends du jour. Pirates of the Caribbean – yes, pirates! – are so yesterday.)

Hola! Day of the Dead memorabilia.

From the original paintings (Emrys and Whitt are both fine artists) on the walls to the vintage movie posters hanging overhead, the goods at What? are thoughtfully curated. Whitt, a cinephile who ran the film program for Broadway Center of the Performing Arts, and was once manager of the Grand Cinema, describes the merchandise as, “Things I really care about. Cinema. Art.” But there’s so much more to see: funhouse masks, costumes, stockings and fruit-colored wigs. Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) ceramic skulls from Mexico (also molds for making your own sugar skulls at home). Scads of tee shirts and postcards. Tiny, life-like, German-made models of humans and animals for dioramas. And a selection of art magazines and books.

Puget Sound Sumi Artists Celebrate 25 Years

WHO: Puget Sound Sumi Artists
WHAT: 25th Anniversary (three exhibitions + four events)
WHEN/WHERE: Sept. 10-Oct. 21 – exhibit at the Handforth Gallery, Tacoma Public Library, 1102 South Tacoma Ave. Reception Sept. 10, 1-3p.m.
Sept. 16-Dec. 30 – exhibit at the Reference Library, University of Washington-Tacoma, 1900 South Commerce/South 19th and South Pacific Ave., Tacoma. Library hours: Daily 9a.m.-5p.m. Reception Sept. 29, 4:30-5:30p.m.
Oct. 8-Nov. 8 – exhibit at Mavi Contemporary Gallery, 502 Sixth Ave., Tacoma. Contact: info@mavicontemporary.com. Reception Oct. 20, 5-8p.m.
Oct. 21 – activities day at the Handforth Gallery, Tacoma Public Library, 1102 South Tacoma Ave. Demos and activities, 2-4p.m.
TRANSPORTATION: For Third Thursday only, Sept. 15, gallery goers can catch the Art Bus at the Tacoma Art Museum, for $10. Come early, bus leaves at 6p.m. sharp.

"Snow Thunder" by Selinda Sheridan

This fall, a trio of exhibitions will honor the Puget Sound Sumi Artists’ (PSSA) 25th anniversary. The first tribute opening Sept. 10 is a retrospective of over 70 paintings by 42 artists at the Handforth Gallery in the Tacoma Public Library. Exhibitions at the University of Washington-Tacoma (UWT) Reference Library and Mavi Contemporary Gallery will follow.

PSSA was founded in 1986 by Fumiko Kimura, Mary Bottomley and Ann Inouye, three local artists who had studied art in Japan. The women had diverse focuses in the beginning: Kimura was a sumi-e (wash and ink) painter, Inouye’s concentration was in ikebana (flower arranging) and Bottomley’s focus was shodo (calligraphy). They opened up all three arts to interested students in the Puget Sound area. They were virtually the only organization making such cultural offerings available in the region.

Today, PSSA membership stretches across Western Washington. As some of the earliest members have passed away, a new generation of artists has signed on, in some cases edging the form in new directions. The quarter-century of work in these exhibitions shows the evolution of traditional brush painting from classical to more experimental techniques, the latter in the work of artists such as Bill Colby, who combines sumi with other media. “I studied calligraphy with Mary Bottomley with the goal of simplicity in my many printmaking processes and techniques,” says the revered printmaker. “It has worked some, but I still like to fuss!”