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ADDING TO THE RECORD >>> I'd like to add a few comments to my article on the Norman Rockwell show at Tacoma Art Museum (Weekly Volcano, March 3). I voiced the usual complaint that Rockwell was too sweet, corny, sentimental and out of touch with reality - not necessarily in those
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SO MUCH MATERIAL, SO LITTLE TIME >>> There's a lot of stuff out there in the world of art that I will never be able to cover in my column. The following are some suggestions of a few things in the South Sound you might want to take a look at. Local
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GRAB A SANDWICH AND MOVE INTO THE MODERN ERA >>> Continuing my choices for the greatest artists of all time, I move swiftly to the modern era. At the risk of oversimplifying, all of modern art (or all of modern painting at least) is based on the idea that a painting is
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GRAB A SANDWICH AND SEARCH THE INTERNET FOR PRETTY ART >>> Getting in didactic mode here, I pose the rhetorical question: Who are the greatest artists in the world and how do you make that call? For starters, there is no way I can list the greatest artists of all time without
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BE CULTURED FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME >>>> Have you seen the new Google Art Project? Wow! What an amazing way to kill a few minutes - or a few hours! It's like the Google street views only instead of pictures of cities and streets it offers tours inside many
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FORMER EVERGREEN PROF'S BURLESQUE DOCUMENTARY >>> Two years ago Red Vaughan Tremmel taught a course called "Gender and Sexuality: History, Culture, and Politics" at The Evergreen State College - typical Evergreen stuff. Now he's teaching at Tulane University and he's a fellow of Columbia College's Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the
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A COMPARISON >>> I'm still enjoying the book about the artist Louise Williams that I wrote about for this blog two weeks ago, Louise Rae Williams: Her Life and Work 1947-2004. It's a fascinating book partly because her art is so inconsistent. Frankly, she sometimes can't draw worth a flip, but
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SEATTLE HERE HE COMES >>> Jeremy Mangan is going places. He's going north to Seattle to be exact - for his first solo exhibition at the popular and prestigious Linda Hodges Gallery. Mangan has made a name for himself in Tacoma, and now it's high time he moved on up. Apologies to
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Louise Williams was well loved by the Olympia area arts community. She had a short but brilliant career as an artist, teacher, wife and mother. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2000, she continued to make art until shortly before her death in 2004. Her husband, Tom Lineham, has put together a
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TACOMA ART MUSEUM CELEBRATES NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE AND ARTS >>> We know about Mighty Tacoma, the photo exhibition of Tacoma landmarks and portraits at Tacoma Art Museum. But Tacoma was mighty before most of us were here, and TAM acknowledges this proud history with a celebration of Tacoma's Native American heritage. Sunday,
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SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT >>> I recently posted an article on this blog called "Give glass a rest." It was subtitled "Dale Chihuly is bigger than you'll ever be." I don't make up the titles. There's a guy they keep locked in the basement of Weekly Volcano World Headquarters who does
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ALL OLY IS SAYING IS GIVE ART A CHANCE >>> All we want is some nice art on the walls at the new Olympia City Hall. Is that too much to ask? All we want is for the city to support local artists by spending money that is already approved, set
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DALE CHIHULY IS BIGGER THAN YOU'LL EVER BE ... ALREADY >>> Enough with the glass art already. Tacoma is saturated with glass art - predominantly Dale Chihuly glass art. Now don't get me wrong, I harbor a certain amount of admiration for Chihuly and his many protégés. But enough's enough already.
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ALMOST AN APOLOGY >>> There are critics who love the snarky comment more than anything. They'd rather fire a witty barb at an actor or artist than see a good play or art exhibit. I don't do that. Or I rarely do. If anything I'm usually overly nice, but once in
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AND OTHER DESCRIPTIONS OF WILLIAM N. COPLEY'S WORK >>> While reading an article in the New York Times online a little sidebar caught my eye. It was a cartoon-like painting of a woman's face with a saucy expression. She was wearing a snazzy, red and green tartan cap. The caption was
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TIME FOR A VISIT TO PIERCE COLLEGE IN LAKEWOOD >>> The press release said, "Internationally acclaimed painter Chris Terry will be the featured artist at the Pierce College Fort Steilacoom Fine Arts Gallery." My first reaction when I read that was, "Yeah, right. Probably some super slick commercial shmuck like Bev Doolittle
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WHAT AN AMAZING DISCOVERY! >>> Tacoma Art Supply is showing paintings and sculptures by a wonderfully authentic outsider artist, Tyrone Patkoski. Patkoski is an outsider in the purest sense of the word. He spent the past 20 years as a homeless man living and creating art wherever he could, be it
