Synesthesia
HEAR THE PAIN: Of course you've seen her.
The chem-peeled Botoxed liposuctioned Fembot strolling through the Tacoma Mall brushing off gawkers like dandruff, resplendent in her lovely and increasingly ill-fitting undergarments, hiding from the sunlight beaming through the skylights to avoid complete meltdown and forced to move to Forks.
Ah, the modern woman.
Gone are the more simple times when women perked up their form through torturous straps and pins and clamps and possibly a witch's spell or two. The old school measures women were willing to take to achieve the beauty ideals when Thea Foss was rowing folks across Commencement Bay with twigs lifting her breasts. I might be wrong about that one.
Patricia Cosgrove will be able to shed more light of the suffering women went through for beauty back in the day. The White River Valley Museum director will lecture on "Suffer for Beauty: Revealing Washington Women's History through the Study of Undergarments" Monday in Olympia.
[State Capital Museum, Monday, March 8, noon to 1 p.m., $2, 211 21st Ave. SW, Olympia, 360.753.2580]
SEE THE PAIN: A good place for reflection, a university is. A good place for introspection. A good place for looking at a different way of seeing things. Maybe the way medieval figures saw things (Bet you didn't see that one comin'!) See if you can find your way up to the Kittredge Gallery on the University of Puget Sound campus to see painter Lisa Sweet's devotion and demonstration show.
Sweet grabs symbols and imagery from medieval times and incorporates them into her modern day iconic paintings and prints that explore tradition, ritual, faith and myth. You can't help notice the haunted eyes of her figures - no doubt the resulting pain of crawling around in filth and muck in shackles during medieval times.
[Kittredge Gallery, through April 10, opening reception Wednesday, March 3, 4-6 p.m., North 15th Street at North Lawrence Street, Tacoma, 253.879.3701]
Rear of House
Years of doodling and daydreaming in class. Years of passing elaborately decorated notes. That was my artistic education.
Obviously, artist Mike Capp took his artistic education further. Much further. Yet, his current show at Mineral, I wonder what that's about?, has a youthful playfulness about it, which isn't a surprise since he states his inspiration for the show came from his children's drawings. Capp's drawings "bristle with fresh, unmediated pop imagery - four-eyed flowers with waving antennae, mutant Mickey Mouses, and the like" states a Mineral press release. His paintings center on monsters, superheroes and robots - playful subjects - yet, his colorful drawings have precise, clean lines.
The paintings "don't really mean anything dangerous, angst-y or irksome. There's no mewling social commentary," he states. Nor are they "meant to provoke the unarticulated terrors of childhood."
I asked Mineral owner Lisa Kinoshita if any of the paintings are scary.
"His small Ronald McDonald painting is nothing but scary," replies Kinoshita.
Playing off the show's title, I asked her what painting peaked her curiosity the most.
"I wonder about The Island (pictured above) - and all the things that happen when nature turns out the lights. Love the scatter of meteor showers, deathly bulbs, flamboyant octopus, and happy emanations. The stuff of dreams. ..."
Did Kinoshita draw monsters when she was a child?
"I STILL love monsters and superheroes," she says with a laugh.
Pick up a copy of Thursday's Weekly Volcano for our art critic Alec Clayton's review of Mike Capp's show.
[Mineral, I wonder what that's about?, through April 10, noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 301 Puyallup Ave., Tacoma, 253.250.7745]
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