Application deadline for 2015 Arts Projects funding this Friday

Steamroller printing at the Wayzgoose! Letterpress and Book Arts Extravaganza at King’s Books. Photo courtesy of King’s Bookstore.

Will your organization or group be producing publicly accessible arts programming within Tacoma city limits in 2015? If so, you might want to take a look at our Arts Projects funding program. Arts Projects funding ranges from $1,000 to $5,000, and supports community projects that focus on the arts.

Applications are due this Friday, October 31 no later than 5 pm!

Past funding has supported a variety of projects including, but not limited to, arts components of festivals; arts workshops; dance, theater, and music performances; youth-focused arts programming; arts-focused cultural and historical events; exhibits; and literary events. Funded events must take place between Jan. 1, 2015 and Dec. 31, 2015.

Crafts of the Past artist demonstration at Fort Nisqually. Photo by Dane Gregory Meyer.

Eligibility extends to private non-profit agencies with a 501(c) designation; organized groups of community volunteers, such as a business district or neighborhood council with an advisory body, business license and organizational bank account; and educational institutions or for-profit businesses wishing to produce not-for-profit arts functions. Applicants are required to have offices within Tacoma or, if they have no office, a majority of the applicant’s activities must take place within Tacoma city limits. Other eligibility requirements apply. See guidelines for complete terms.

Funding for Arts Projects is determined through a competitive application process. Actual contract amounts will be based upon availability of funds and the review of each application as measured against evaluation criteria detailed in the guidelines.

READY TO APPLY?

Check out the Arts Projects guidelines and application form.

Celebrating a new artistic era for the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra

Sarah Ioannides will take the stage on Saturday for her inaugural concert as Music Director for the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Mark Olencki.

This Saturday will mark the official start of a new artistic era for the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra (TSO). Sarah Ioannides, TSO’s new Artistic Director, will take the stage to conduct her inaugural concert featuring percussion superstar Dame Evelyn Glennie. The concert will feature the world premiere of Portraits of Immortal Love, a new percussion concerto written expressly for Ms. Glennie by composer Sean O’Boyle. A concerto is a full-length musical work that showcases an instrument or set of instruments, accompanied by orchestra. Portraits is written in commemoration of the 100^th Anniversary of World War I. Also on the program will be Ravel’s Bolero, Debussy’s Nocturnes, and Respighi’s Pines of Rome. Bolero is famous for its repeating, lyrical melodic line and ostinato snare drum beat, which gradually builds in volume to a crashing conclusion. The Debussy and Respighi are big, colorful works as well, which together with the Ravel and O’Boyle will make for a spectacular, exciting evening of music.

World-renown percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie. Photo by James Wilson.

Dame Evelyn Glennie, who is profoundly deaf, is the first person in musical history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. As one of the most eclectic and innovative musicians on the scene today she creates performances of such vitality that they almost constitute a new genre. Awarded Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2007, the double Grammy award winning artist gives more than 100 concerts a year worldwide. Her diversity of collaborations includes visual mixing of live music with the likes of DJ Yoda and the ‘Beat Boxer’ Shlomo. Other collaborations include Nana Vasconcelos, Kodo, Bela Fleck, Björk, Bobby McFerrin, Sting, The Kings Singers, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In July 2012 Glennie was featured in the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London. Born in Scotland, Glennie is based in the countryside of Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.

This will mark a fitting opening to the era of Sarah Ioannides, who mounts the TSO podium as the TSO’s first new music director in two decades, on the heels of the historic tenure of Harvey Felder. Hailed by The New York Times as a conductor with “unquestionable strength and authority,” Sarah Ioannides is a passionate advocate of classical music through innovative projects, community engagement, education, and championing new works. The British conductor is a versatile musician, whose past studies include violin, viola, piano, and French horn, as well as singing, recorder, saxophone, and guitar. Ioannides served as Assistant conductor and Production Coordinator to Tan Dun, composer of the music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for many multimedia performances worldwide.

The TSO has been a vital part of Tacoma’s cultural landscape since 1946, and has operated as a professional symphony orchestra for the past 19 years. With 80 contracted musicians and an affiliated community chorus, the TSO brings music into the lives of 20,000 citizens annually throughout the South Puget Sound.

This concert, one of the premier events of Tacoma Arts Month 2014, is sponsored by Gordon Thomas Honeywell and the City of Tacoma Anchor Fund. Ms. Glennie’s appearance is underwritten by the Tacoma Philharmonic Endowment Fund and the Gottfried and Mary Fuchs Foundation.

Tickets for this concert are sold out but this is just the start of the 2014-15 season and there are 7 other concerts lined up. Find out more about the TSO’s season and purchase tickets for upcoming concerts by visiting www.tacomasymphony.org or calling 253-591-5894 or toll free at 800-291-7593.

Metal-Urge Free Community Festival this Sunday!

Tacoma Community College wows crowds with a molten iron pour.

Join us for a free, fun-filled afternoon of metal arts for the whole family.

Metal-Urge Free Community Festival
Sunday, October 19
12 – 3 pm
Tollefson Plaza, S. 17^th & Pacific Avenue, Tacoma
Free and open to the public

We’ll keep you entertained with:

• Live sword fighting reenactments and display of armor and artifacts by Knights of Veritas
• Scratch block activity and molten iron pour with Tacoma Community College’s sculpture department
• Blacksmithing demonstrations with Lisa Geertson and Travis Conn
• Textured metal charm activity with Tacoma Metal Arts Center
• Hands-on metal crafts with Tacoma Art Museum
• Steel music under the direction of Miho Takekawa
• Three Graces sculptures by Mary Coss, in the plaza pools
• Food trucks – Lumpia World and The Original House of Donuts!

 

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Metal-Urge is a city-wide celebration of metal arts that explores the many ways artists push this versatile and diverse medium. From October 1 – November 30, 31 venues will feature metal-themed exhibits, workshops, lectures, festivals, and more.

A list of all events and exhibits is available at TacomaMetalUrge.com, and brochures are available in coffee shops and cultural venues around town.

Besides the Metal-Urge Free Community Festival, two additional anchor programs are:

• “Protective Ornament: Contemporary Amulets to Armor”
  October 18, 2014 – February 1, 2015
  Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave.
  This exhibit showcases nearly 100 works—including helmets, brass knuckles, breastplates, aggressive or defensive jewelry, chain mail, amulets, talismans, and protective gear—designed to address issues of protection and empowerment in the face of everyday perils and social challenges. Ranging from protective hardware (physical fortification) and protective “software” (faith-based adornment), the array of contemporary works underlines the crucial safeguarding function of jewelry and other wearable ornaments. Organized by the National Ornamental Metal Museum Foundation, Inc. The exhibition was curated by Suzanne Ramljak, Editor of Metalsmith magazine.

• Seattle Metals Guild 19^th Annual Northwest Jewelry & Metals Symposium
  October 18, 9 am – 5:30 pm
  Washington State History Museum, 1911 Pacific Ave.
  This metal arts symposium features lectures by Metalsmith magazine editor Suzanne Ramljak, historian Stephen Fliegel, Vivian Beer, artist Jennifer Trask, jeweler Todd Pownell, and metalsmith Myra Mimlitsch-Gray. For more information or to register visit seattlemetalsguild.org/programs/symposium.

Metal-Urge is organized by the Tacoma Arts Commission and sponsored by Click! Cable TV and The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation.

 

2014 Tacoma Studio Tour Preview: Part 9

Still looking for something to do this weekend? How about the Tacoma Studio Tour! This year’s tour features 61 artists and collaborative studios and allows the general public the opportunity to see the spaces in and tools with which local artists create their work, ask questions, and purchase one-of-a-kind creations. All studios will feature demonstrations of the artistic process or will have hands-on activities for visitors. Check out TacomaArtsMonth.com for the full list of artists, schedule, and an interactive map where you can plot your own custom tour course.

What: Tacoma Studio Tour
Where: 37 studio locations around Tacoma – map your course at TacomaArtsMonth.com
When: October 11 & 12, 11 am – 5 pm
Cost: FREE!

Here are this week’s highlights:

Deborah Greenwood
    
There is an element of joy in repurposing objects. Deborah Greenwood loves old post cards, letters, catalogs, encyclopedias, charms, and dried pressed plants. As time travelers, some of the dust and experience these items have left behind still clings to them. She also enjoys making paper from discarded garden plants. Composing artist books begins with a visit to her stash of ephemera and hand made papers, where a color, theme, or image will inspire her and carry her through the planning and implementation.

Leah Fitts
    
From her light-filled studio, Leah Fitts creates abstract paintings using acrylics, graphite, charcoal, oil pastels, and other mixed media. Her original paintings on canvas and wood are inspired by mid-century and modern design, as well as her love of nature. By combining modern design with natural aspects, Leah creates original, textured, and vibrant works of art.

Bill Colby
    
Bill Colby has always used nature as a source of inspiration for his work. Water, rocks, and bright colors are featured in his new woodcuts with watercolor.

Jan Karroll, KarrollART
    
Jan Karroll is a multimedia artist who creates unique wooden jewelry embellished with vintage buttons. The pieces are completely hand crafted from selected wood and finished to enhance the qualities of both the wood and the buttons. The fasteners are fabricated of shaped and sharpened brass wire. Each piece is mounted in a custom frame.

Lorraine Toler and Ben Davis
    
Ben Davis and Lorraine Toler met, painted, and fell in love at the Jet Artist Cooperative in downtown Tacoma. They formed Sweetrain Studios (basically just a name for the second floor of their east Tacoma abode) in January 2014. Lorraine mainly paints with acrylics and Ben mainly uses oils although both artists paint, draw, sketch, street chalk, take photos, and use many mediums.

Elayne Vogel
    
Unusual materials have almost always guided the imagery in Elayne Vogel’s artwork, thus “mixed media” usually describes her medium. In recent years she has painted in encaustics and fabricated one-of-a-kind necklaces, which she calls “Unusual Adornments.” These necklaces are meant to combine humor and fashion in entirely wearable jewelry.

Ms. Darcy Anderson, Tinkertopia, LLC.
    
Tinkertopia, LLC. works with local businesses to capture safe, reusable materials from the waste stream, and reimagines these as unusual arts and craft supplies for kids, teachers, makers, and tinkerers.

 

Check out these other artists on the tour:

Studio Tour Preview: Part 8
Studio Tour Preview: Part 7
Studio Tour Preview: Part 6
Studio Tour Preview: Part 5
Studio Tour Preview: Part 4
Studio Tour Preview: Part 3
Studio Tour Preview: Part 2
Studio Tour Preview: Part 1 

Tacoma Arts Month is sponsored by Click! Cable TV, The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, Northwest Public Radio, KPLU, Weekly Volcano, Tacoma Weekly, Premier Media Group, and Exit133.

Third episode of Tacoma’s own ‘artTown’ TV show now available

 

Guitarist-singer-songwriter Nolan Garrett and the legendary Jerry Miller.

The City of Tacoma’s Media and Communications Office – in partnership with its Community and Economic Development Department’s Arts Program – are proud to announce the launch of a new episode of “artTown,” a cultural documentary-style TV initiative exploring Tacoma’s emergence as a major creative hub in the Pacific Northwest.

This episode features:

• Viewpoints and musical riffs from emerging guitarist-singer-songwriter Nolan Garrett and the legendary Jerry Miller, one of Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest guitarists of all time
• A look at Tacoma’s hot metal arts scene with Amy Reeves of Tacoma Metal Arts Center, John Simpkins of Fort Nisqually, Ed Kroupa of Two Ravens Studio, and Saign Charlestein
• An exploration into letterpress arts with Jessica Spring of Springtide Press, sweet pea Flaherty of King’s Bookstore, and Margaret Bullock of Tacoma Art Museum
• A visit to the working studios of local artists Angela Rockett, Lynne Farren, Lynn Di Nino and Mauricio Robalino
• music composed by Isaac Solverson

Hot off the press at Springtide Press.

Launched in October 2013, the quarterly series features diverse perspectives on a variety of creative disciplines. Offering a more holistic look at creativity in Tacoma, “artTown” stretches beyond what people might traditionally think of as “creative” – such as fine art, music or dance – to spotlight other creative areas of interest that have flourished in Tacoma like food, fashion, innovative education practices, architecture and more.

Those who want to immerse themselves more fully in Tacoma’s creative community are invited to participate in Tacoma Arts Month, which features hundreds of events held throughout the entire month of October.

Online viewing:

Watch “artTown” anytime at cityoftacoma.org/artTown.

Saign Charlestein at work in his metal arts studio.

TV Tacoma air times:

Mondays at noon
Tuesdays at 1 a.m.
Wednesdays at 8 a.m.
Thursdays at 6 p.m.
Fridays at 8 p.m.
Saturdays at 5 p.m.
Sundays at 5 a.m.

TV Tacoma is aired on both the Click! and Comcast Cable systems. On Click!, TV Tacoma can be seen on Channel 12 within Tacoma City limits and in Pierce County, with the exception of University Place, where TV Tacoma can be found on Channel 21. On Comcast, TV Tacoma can be seen on Channel 12 within Tacoma city limits and on Channel 21 in Pierce County. TV Tacoma is not on the Comcast system in University Place, but is accessible anywhere on the Internet at tvtacoma.com.

Future episodes will be produced in part based on some of the audience feedback culled via social media, email at maria.lee@cityoftacoma.org or phone at (253) 591-2054.

Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party Tomorrow!

Come celebrate with us. You know you want to! Join the Tacoma Arts Commission and Spaceworks Tacoma in a free community celebration of the arts as we kick off Tacoma’s 13^th annual Tacoma Arts Month.

Tacoma Arts Month Opening Party & AMOCAT Arts Awards
Thursday, October 2
6 – 9 PM
Tacoma Post Office Building, 1102 A Street
Free and open to the public

We’ll keep you entertained with:

• Music by Speed Queen and Okinawa Taiko Drums
• Exhibits of work by Jessica Spring and The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation’s Foundation of Art Award honorees
• Pop-up exhibits of work by Beautiful Angle, Isaac Olsen, Alice Di Certo, Kristin Giordano, The C.L.A.W., and Kyle Dillehay
• Mini-theater performances by Working Class Theatre NW
• Open studios of Abby Kok, Alana Tamminga, Poly Rev, and Katlyn Hubner
• Trash Fashion Runway by Tinkertopia and Friends
• Poetry by Tacoma Poet Laureate Lucas Smiraldo
• Screenings of short films by Kat Ogden, Nick Butler, Kris Crews, Kate Walker, and The Grand Cinema

A detail from Jessica Spring’s exhibit Recollection: An Ephemeral Exhibition of Exquisite & Eclectic Ephemera

Experience the newly-renovated Tacoma Post Office Building and enjoy  appetizers, dessert and a no-host bar. Help us honor the 2014 funding recipients and AMOCAT Arts Award winners – ArtsFund, Asia Pacific Cultural Center, and Jessica Spring. Mayor Strickland and council members David Boe and Marty Campbell will present the awards beginning at 7:45 pm.

It’s all free and open to the public – pack up the family, invite your friends and come help us celebrate!

Thanks to the Opening Party event partners: Post Hall, A Street Associates, and Power Property Consultants. Tacoma Arts Month is sponsored by Click! Cable TV, The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, Tacoma Weekly, Northwest Public Radio, KPLU, Weekly Volcano, Premier Media Group, and Exit133.

2014 Tacoma Studio Tour Preview: Part 8

This is part 8 in our series highlighting the artists participating in the Tacoma Studio Tour this October.

This year’s tour features 61 artists and collaborative studios and allows the general public the opportunity to see the spaces in and tools with which local artists create their work, ask questions, and purchase one-of-a-kind creations. All studios will feature demonstrations of the artistic process or will have hands-on activities for visitors. Check out TacomaArtsMonth.com for the full list of artists, schedule, and an interactive map where you can plot your own custom tour course.

What: Tacoma Studio Tour
Where: 37 studio locations around Tacoma – map your course at TacomaArtsMonth.com
When: October 11 & 12, 11 am – 5 pm
Cost: FREE!

Here are this week’s highlights:

Alice Di Certo
    
As a photographer, Alice Di Certo is particularly interested in people. She loves discovering people’s differences and similarities both of personalities and features. She also likes to explore social issues through photography. She is currently working on a project photographing children and young adults who have experienced bullying and collecting their stories.

Angela Rockett, Painted Crow Expressive Arts
    
Angela Wales Rockett creates expressive abstract paintings that soothe the soul and invite the viewer to moments of introspection. Her paintings have been exhibited across the U.S. from Seattle to NYC. Knowing first hand of art’s amazing power to heal and transform, she also leads classes in intuitive and expressive art to help artists and non-artists to experience their own creative power and their own potential to transform and heal their lives.

Elise Richman
    
Elise Richman’s paintings represent water as a phenomenon, expressing states of flux and ripple effects. Water’s relevance to political and social issues as well as its rich optical effects motivate her work. Water is a visually rich element, a transparent volume with a mutable surface that exhibits reflection, refraction, and deflection. Such physical properties operate on optical and metaphorical levels in her paintings.

Jennevieve Schlemmer
    
Jennevieve Schlemmer is a fiber artist and sculptor living the art and crafty life. Whimsy, color, and texture are her inspiration and delight. When she isn’t making felt wearables or found object sculpture in her home studio, you can usually find her cooking or curled up with a book.

Kyle Dillehay
    
Kyle Dillehay has been fascinated by photography, but, with the introduction of the digital camera, it became too predictable for him. He turned his focus on the roots of analog photography, not just by recording the image itself, but by being an active participant in the entire photographic process. This brought Kyle back to the photo processes of the mid-19th century, with an emphasis on wet-plate collodion negative processes.

Diana Leigh Surma
    
Diana Leigh Surma is an abstract painter working primarily in acrylic paint on canvas. She received her B.A. in Studio Art from Hunter College in 2010. Her paintings are typically large scale and incorporate bold colors, stripe patterns, and hard edged geometric shapes. Diana recently produced her first public art project, a 14′ x 80′ mural titled “Show Your Stripes” located on the corner of S. 11th and Market Street in downtown Tacoma.

Rebekah Slusher, Uncorked Canvas
    
Rebekah is a scholarship- and award-winning Tacoma painter, and is co-owner of Uncorked Canvas™, which provides a fun and social atmosphere in which to be creative! Skilled artists guide you step-by-step through creating the featured painting. Starting with a blank canvas (and a delightful beverage), you will go home with your own personal creation.

 

Check out these other artists on the tour and watch for future previews:

Studio Tour Preview: Part 7
Studio Tour Preview: Part 6
Studio Tour Preview: Part 5
Studio Tour Preview: Part 4
Studio Tour Preview: Part 3
Studio Tour Preview: Part 2
Studio Tour Preview: Part 1 

Tacoma Arts Month is sponsored by Click! Cable TV, The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, Northwest Public Radio, KPLU, Weekly Volcano, Tacoma Weekly, Premier Media Group, and Exit133.