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CLAYTON ON ART: New Emergence of Tacoma Talent

ENCOURAGING YOUNG ARTISTS >>> Arts presenters are not in it just to make a buck. Gallery owners and the people who run theaters and performance spaces are in it for the love or art, and they do what they do in order to promote art and culture in the community as

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CLAYTON ON ART: Art for art's sake

CONTENT IN ART MAY DESERVE MORE ATTENTION >>> I'm becoming a softie in my old age, reevaluating some long-held ideas about art. For instance, I've always been a formalist in the Clement Greenberg mold and have resented the trend toward content over form that has dominated the art world since the

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CLAYTON ON ART: South Sound spring art shows

TOO MANY TO REVIEW >>> There's too much art. I can't possibly review everything. Following are a few blurbs on shows I may or may not get to see, starting with Tacoma's newest gallery. It's called Iota. Nice name for a gallery specializing in small art. It means a jot, a

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CLAYTON ON ART: The resurrection of Francesca Woodman

A GUGGENHEIM SHOW 31 YEARS AFTER HER DEATH BY SUICIDE >>> Where has this girl been all my life? Since 1981 she has been dead, but her art lives on - although I was never aware of it and probably few others were either until Ken Johnson's article about her appeared

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Alec Clayton On Art: The gender spectrum in art

REASON NUMBER TWO WHY THIS SHOW IS AWESOME >>> I could write about the HIDE/SEEK show at Tacoma Art Museum every week from now until June and not exhaust the topic. I won't do it but I could. Today I want to talk about two photographs in the show, Berenice Abbott's

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Tom Anderson's studio saved by Olyphant - we hope

IT'S HAPPENING >>> Painter Tom Anderson is practically an institution in Olympia, and he may be the only contemporary abstract artist I know who has been able to support himself entirely from his art. He has major works in private and public collections such as the big pieces that grace the

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Today: 10th Annual Biennial

HAVE YOU SEEN IT? >>> The theme of the 10th Annual Biennial at Tacoma Art Museum is identity, described by the museum as "a vision of regional identity that revolves around how communities interact, intersect and overlap." These interactions, intersections and overlaps extend in intriguing ways

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Santa should stop at Childhood's End

OLYMPIA GALLERY CELEBRATES 40 YEARS >>> The latest show at Childhood's End Gallery seems to be geared toward gift buying - a prequel to the holiday season and a celebration of the gallery's 40th year in Olympia. Everything is decorative, colorful and safe almost to the point of

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TONIGHT: "Parkland is Burning!"

STOP HERE DURING THIS THURSDAY ARTWALK >>> Parkland is Burning! Oh no, call the fire department. Better yet, hightail it to Fulcrum Gallery for this sizzling hot show of posters by the great Art Chantry.  From the "Take my penis" condom posters to artwork for Hempfest, Chantry's works

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CLAYTON ON ART: Farewell to Lucian Freud

NAKED ART >>>   Last week I wrote about sculptors who specialize in the human figure and spoke of works that were "almost too lifelike to be sitting in a gallery" - the prime example being sculptures by John DeAndrea. What I failed to mention is that DeAndrea is a pimp. His

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CLAYTON ON ART: Creepy Figures

THE ART OF VALLY NOMIDOU AND SCOTT FIFE >>>   A friend posted a link on Facebook to an article in Juxtapoz about sculpture by Greek artist Vally Nomidou. When I looked at Nomidou's work the first thing I thought was that her life-size paper figures are like the life-size and larger

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CLAYTON ON ART: Great unknown - Becky Knold

ARTISTS YOU NEED TO KNOW Attention area art galleries: You need to show this woman's work. Olympia artist Becky Knold is a beginner and pretty much self-taught as a painter. She started painting seriously only five or six years ago, and her only formal training has been a few classes at The

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CLAYTON ON ART: Old folks

THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC WEIGHS IN >>>   The name of the latest show at Art House Designs in Olympia is "Three old guys and one old lady."   The good thing about old folks is they've been at it long enough to get good. Olympia painters Dale Witherow, Bob Gillis, Ron

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CLAYTON ON ART: The TAM tour

THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC CHIMES IN >>> I went to a gallery tour Q&A with Dale Chihuly at Tacoma Art Museum Thursday morning, and while I enjoyed the Q&A with Tacoma's most famous artist, the things that really knocked me out were 1) Chihuly's collection of Edward S. Curtis photographs,

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CLAYTON ON ART: Too much art

  THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC CHIMES IN >>>   OMG, what a problem to have! There's just too much art going on in the South Sound. There's no way I can cover it all - not with only a single column per week in the Weekly Volcano and one little Spew per

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VISUAL EDGE: Peter Sheesley at Fulcrum

THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC >>>   You may know Peter Sheesley from the painting demonstrations he did at Tacoma Art Museum in connection with the Norman Rockwell exhibition.   I have a confession to make: I was not impressed with what I read about Sheesley, nor with what I saw on his website.

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CLAYTON ON ART: Fool the eye

THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC WEIGHS IN >>>   Trompe le'oeil is a nice little, hard-to-pronounce French word. Literally it means "Fool the eye." As an art term it means art that makes you think it's real and not a painting. The phrase originated in the Baroque period (roughly the 16th and

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CLAYTON ON ART: “Passages: Small Tapestry International 2”

THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC >>>   The latest show at the Handforth Gallery in the Main Tacoma Library is a traveling juried exhibition of tapestry featuring small works from tapestry artists from all over the world, including at least three artists from Tacoma and Olympia - Cecelia Blomberg, Margo MacDonald and

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VISUAL EDGE: Chihuly's "Northwest"

THE UNEXPECTED >>>   Tacoma Art Museum tries to cater to every taste and every demographic by mounting exhibitions that range from the traditional and historic to today's most revolutionary and idiosyncratic art. It seems the museum tries very hard to balance a need for catering to popular taste-that is, bringing in

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CLAYTON ON ART: Dale Chihuly is Neil Diamond

THE VOLCANO'S VISUAL ARTS CRITIC WEIGHS IN >>> Here's the opening, slightly edited, of my Visual Edge for this week (see June 9 Weekly Volcano): "Tacoma Art Museum tries to mount exhibitions that range from the traditional and historic to today's most revolutionary and idiosyncratic art. ... Just when I think they're

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