Simon Moon

It’s 2 a.m., and the bars are spitting patrons out onto the street. On any other night, on the corner of 25th Street and Tacoma Avenue, hookers, drug dealers and other unseemly types would be milling about, slinging ass and addictions. But on the eve of a recent art show, the corner is barren except for a group of local artists, residents of the recently named Tac25 Collective, who have dragged their work outside onto the sidewalk.



Klezmer music — a soundtrack of gypsy celebration — blares from a Peavey bass amp as a rotating crew of artists transmutes a dozen yards of old refrigerator boxes into cladding for a self-contained art gallery. When they’re done being painted like a seascape, the recycled boxes will be wrapped around a 12-foot-tall conical frame. It’s going to look like an underwater volcano, says Stuart Dempster, who built the frame from recycled wood.



Mary K Johnson, in charge of creating and decorating the skin for Dempster’s skeletal volcano, calls it an art binge. Work all day, create all night, for several days in a row. Everyone involved is exhausted, but they power through.

Their dedication to creation is unshakable.



Residents Ann Koi, Deana Nguyen, Kendra Breeden and Joel Fizette sweat buckets as they put finishing touches on works that will hang in the construct, which Dempster calls “The Grotto.” Tac25’s newest resident Jackson Reiquam appears from time to time, helping where he can, and plays his guitar for a moment. Longtime resident Josh Lynch is off preparing for his upcoming wedding.



These artists have taken up residence in a former methadone clinic, which has been transformed into a creative commune of sorts. Occupied since October, the three-story building has slowly been transmuted by the people living and working within. The once-lifeless tower — a classic example of utilitarian, state-funded architecture — is filled with the residents’ creations: paintings, murals, sculpture, music, dance, photographs, hand-made masks, and a sick-ass, nine-foot-tall robot made from recycled televisions. Everything about the place says alchemy — transmuting lead into gold, trash into art, a methadone clinic into an engine of creation, a crime-ridden street corner into a party. Residents go to Tac25 to live amongst other artists, affordably, and feed on and into creative energy — this is the beauty of an artist live-work space.



 “I have always wanted to turn a space that was meant for something industrial into a residence,” says Johnson. “Our projects spill out onto the street. People come tell us what the building used to be, and we say, ‘We’re here now, and this is what were doing.’ And we’re excited to tell them what we’re up to.”



Residents of the Tac25 are approaching the end of their first year in the space, and are planning a host of events, including regular installments of something called an Artlatch — like a potlatch — only instead of dining, everyone makes art.

“This brings a foundation for the future,” says Lisa Fruichantie, who helped found the collective last fall. “I see people realizing that there’s a new generation of artists – very much like what came out of the depression era. We’re about to reach our one-year anniversary, and I’ve learned that it’s really hard to merge your dreams with reality sometimes. But at the end of the day, there’s always something that makes it worthwhile. And it comes from the most unexpected of places.”



[Tac25 Collective, 2367 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma, 253.921.2858]