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TAKING MORE CHANCES >>> Mavi Contemporary Art has a stable of about 20 artists whose works rotate from month to month. I may be wrong, but it seems like three of them, William Turner, Michael Croman and William Quinn, are in almost every show. These three are again featured in Mavi's
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THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC SOUNDS OFF >>> In 1970 I wrote my graduate thesis. It had the somewhat high-minded title "A Ground for the New Art: An Alternative to the Frame-Pedal Aesthetic." If you must know, my professor came up with the title and I thought it sounded too academic,
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ALEC CLAYTON REVIEWS THE VISUAL ARTS >>> How many typos can you count in the title above? The answer is none. That's the correct title for the new show at Fulcrum Gallery, complete with the threes in place of E's and weird capitalization. And the title is about as weird as
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WISDOM FROM THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC >>> I often complain when abstract painters throw in a bit of recognizable subject matter in order to please a public that is still - after more than a hundred years of abstract art - not quite comfortable with paintings that don't have things
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THE VISUAL ARTS REVIEWED BY ALEC CLAYTON >>> Three nationally prominent Native American artists and one quickly rising new Native art star are featured in the latest show at B2 Fine Arts. Joe Feddersen, of Colville heritage from Omak and an art teacher at the Evergreen State College, is best known as
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THE VISUAL ARTS REVIEWED BY ALEC CLAYTON >>> Three nationally prominent Native American artists and one quickly rising new Native art star are featured in the latest show at B2 Fine Arts. Joe Feddersen, of Colville heritage from Omak and an art teacher at the Evergreen State College, is best known as
Walkie Talkie Blog
OLD FRIENDS >>> If you go to the new show at The Brick House you'll see a lot of stuff that looks very familiar, because gallery owner Peter MacDonald invited all his friends. It's a friendly, homey kind of gallery in a - what else? - brick house. MacDonald wrote on his
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USING THE TERM "BIRDHOUSES" LOOSELY >>> While driving past Childhood's End Gallery too quickly to get a good look through the window, I spotted some house-shaped boxes on the wall that were very colorful. My first thought was, "OK, birdhouses - cute and kind of trite, but at least they're brightly
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SHOWS MISSED >>> I wish I'd been able to see Victoria Johnson's April showing at G/O Architecture in Tacoma. Maybe we'll get a chance to see her work again soon. If not in Tacoma, then just up the road in Seattle. Johnson recently moved to Tacoma from Seattle where she was an
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ALEC CLAYTON VISUAL ARTS IN THE SOUTH SOUND >>> Drink in a little art with your coffee at Amocat Cafe, where throughout the month of May you can view paintings by Angela Wales Rockett. Rockett's paintings are richly colored and expressively textured but very subdued abstractions inspired by landscape minus any overt
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JULIA HAACK IS EVERYWHERE >>> Julia Haack. That's a name to file away in an easy-to-access part of your brain. The next time the name shows up in an art exhibit in the area, go see it. As well as I can remember I first saw Julia Haack's work in the Environmental
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ALEC CLAYTON REVIEWS SOUTH SOUND VISUAL ARTS >>> There is a very interesting show at the gallery at the Evergreen State College. It's called Culture / Subculture. The theme is precisely what the title implies - artists' interpretations of the way we are, our many cultures and subcultures as depicted and/or
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A POT IS A POT IS A POT >>> A quarter century ago - I can't believe it's been that long - I was teaching art in a university down south and writing art reviews for a local newspaper, often reviewing shows in the same art department where I taught. That
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FREE ENTERTAINMENT SOMETIMES WORTH THE HASSLE >>> Olympia is gearing up for the 42nd Arts Walk this weekend. Regular readers of this column know that I do my best to avoid Arts Walk. I can't stand the crowds, and you're subjected to a dozen bad works of art for every good
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AND ANDREA ERICKSON PLANS "FLOW" >>> Lisa Kinoshita is leaving Mineral, but not leaving Tacoma. Kinoshita moved to Tacoma from Seattle in 2003 and took over a space that had previously been the Ice Box Gallery at 301 A Puyallup Ave., Tacoma. She lived and worked in the back and exhibited works
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ALEC CLAYTON REVIEWS THE VISUAL ARTS >>> I hate it when people say "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." Invariably that statement is followed by some really stupid put-down of art the speaker hasn't even attempted to understand. But when trying to evaluate Native American art,
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THE WAR EXPERIENCE PROJECT AT 906 BROADWAY >>> I heard about this show from Lisa Kinoshita from Mineral Gallery. It's part of the amazing, on-going Spaceworks Tacoma, and it's called The War Experience Project. See it at 906 Broadway in downtown Tacoma. There will be an open house this weekend, April
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TOOKER AND SCHWITTERS (SAY THAT THREE TIMES FAST) >>> Buried within the pages of the art history books I studied in college were a couple of artists who had a much bigger impact on me, and probably many another artists, than might be expected given the meager paragraph or two allotted
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RUBY BRIDGES VISITS T-TOWN >>> Ruby Bridges was a quiet and courageous hero almost overlooked by history. Few people remember her name, but vast numbers of Americans remember the painting by Norman Rockwell of the little girl being escorted to school by U.S. marshals while vicious bigots threw tomatoes at her. It
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NOTHING'S THE MATTER AT MATTER >>> If we can believe the readers who voted for Best of Olympia, Matter Gallery is the best gallery in the capitol city, and now they have the best art gallery website in the region. Matter owner Jo Gallaugher has very recently put up the gallery's
