MARK THOMAS DEMING: INSIDE ARTLATCH AT TACOMA'S TAC 25 COLLECTIVE >>>

Late on a recent Tuesday night I found myself alone on the roof of a former methadone clinic, gazing down at the lights of Tacoma.  Behind me, on Tacoma Avenue South at the edge of the Brewery District, a van caught fire.  Flames.  Smoke.  Sirens. 

The occasion was Tacoma’s first ever Artlatch, a come-one-come-all creative gathering based on the Native American potlatch.  The place was Tac 25 Collective, a low-rent, live-in artists’ community that has sprung up from the Asarco-tainted soil of T-town. (Note to developers: Please don’t read the following sentence as “Build condos here!”)  Now nearly one year old, Tac 25 is helping transform one of our city’s ghostliest zones into one of its most vibrant. 

My night had begun in the same place it ended â€" on the roof.  Read what happened next on the Weekly Volcano Web site.