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Spew sifts through the Internets for local arts stories so you don't have to.
Over the weekend Weekly Volcano arts critic Alec Clayton reported Olympia painter Tom Anderson - "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" - now shares a space with Olyphant Art Supply. Clayton reports the space is "a new happening place with exciting potential."
Weekly Volcano theater critic Christian Carvajal sings in a choir. No, it's true. And he says, "Singing choral music isn't like crooning along with Bruno Mars on the radio. It requires a wider range, for one thing, and it helps if you can read musical notation. I can't." Carv better get into the zone quick as he's singing in the sixth annual "100 Voices" concert March 3 at the Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts.
Post Defiance wrote a piece on how Tacoma's Graffiti Garages redefine graffiti art, touching on the history and culture of graffiti. Post Defiance writer Ben Armstrong wrote, "The creation of the Garages has placed Tacoma in the forefront nationally as a city combating illegal graffiti by celebrating and promoting the art form through legal wall space. A New York artist told his friend whom I interviewed that it was good to see a place for graffiti in the City, and that Tacoma was ahead of major cities including New York, one of graffiti's birthplaces." That's cool.
The new King of Style in Tacoma Camp 6 popped into artist Julian Peña's Tacoma space for a chat.
Over on the OlyBlog, Thad Curtz posts Kathleen Flenniken, the state's poet laureate for the next two years, has a blog called The Far Field.
And the only arts critic reviewing classical music, The Trib's Rosemary Ponnekanti, gave an 86 percent thumbs up to the Tacoma Symphony's Chopin, Barber and Mendelssohn concert over the weekend.