ARTS COVERAGE TO END ALL ARTS COVERAGE >>>

While you were trying to bake cookies from Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, the Weekly Volcano was hot on the trail of local arts stories. Our goal is to consistently provide the best local arts coverage possible to our fantastic readers. We're always on the lookout for ways to shine a light on all the awesome creativity we see around us.

This week's Volcano arts section two reviews of the huge HIDE/SEEk show at the Tacoma Art Museum, a review of Animal Farm, report from the set of film Koinonia, a review of Wrath of the Titans trailer and more ...

Here's a look at the Volcano arts coverage waiting for you this week in print and online.

ALEC CLAYTON ON ART: THE GENDER SPECTRUM IN ART

Berenice Abbott, "Janet Flanner," 1927. Photographic print. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of Tacoma Art Museum

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 portrait of Janet Flanner and Cass Bird's I Look Just Like My Daddy, 2. (There's a reason for the number "2" tagged onto the end of the title; this is part of a large series by that title.)

These two portraits, one from 1927 and one from 2003, are indicative of huge shifts in the way sexual orientation and gender identity were viewed in the early 20^th century and how they are viewed now in the early 21^st century; and that is, in essence, the theme of the exhibition HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. – Alec Clayton

FEATURE: IN FACT, ALEC CLAYTON REVIEWED HIDE/SEEK

Cass Bird: “I Look Just Like My Daddy,” 2003 (printed 2010). C-41 print. Collection of the artist, New York. Photo courtesy of Tacoma Art Museum

The big gay history/portrait show at Tacoma Art Museum is overwhelming. I came away exhausted but wanting more.

It's a marvelous show filled with fascinating history and insights into the lives of gay and lesbian artists. For instance, did you know Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg were lovers and after they broke up Johns included encoded messages to Rauschenberg in paintings like "Ventriloquist" and "Souvenir"? Did you know a whale was a gay symbol and that Marsden Hartley's famous "Painting No. 47, Berlin" was a coded portrait of his gay lover, a German army officer? – AC

THEATER REVIEW: OLYMPIA FAMILY THEATER'S ANIMAL FARM

Director Samantha Chandler and her team of designers have risen to the stature of this classic cautionary fable. Olympia Family Theater delivers a show as technically proficient as those of Harlequin Productions - thanks in large part to Harlequin's reigning tech director, Jill Carter, who designed this OFT production's set (with Lyndsey Nichols) and a jaw-dropping series of animations. Grand battles are represented in cartoon form, projected onto a movie screen in the barn of Animal Farm. This allows Chandler the freedom to portray dark history indeed, as the screen drowns in a deluge of spilled animal blood. – Christian Carvajal

MOVIE BIZ BUZZ: ON THE SET OF KOINONIA

My journey to Koinonia, the new feature by Tacoma's Andrew Finnigan, begins last Thursday. Mount Rainier looms larger and Highway 410 gets narrower as I head toward my destination. Buildings melt away, replaced by nothing but trees in all directions. I brake for a train of deer leisurely crossing the road. Every movie is a transport to another place; Koinonia hasn't even started shooting, and already I feel swallowed up in my surroundings.

But "roughing it" does take some time to adapt to. I arrive at the snowy, spacious cabin in Greenwater Finnigan has rented for the crew, and see director of photography Sam Graydon trying to find Internet service. Others wander through the rooms, phones in hand, searching for a signal. (I get one bar if I stand ... right ... here.) Finnigan's 2-year-old battles her own ennui by hopping from couch to couch and slapping everything within arm's length - including Daddy's junk. Twice. – Christopher Wood

JUDGING BY THE TRAILERS: WRATH OF THE TITANS

Here is something that the lunatics that actually liked the Clash of the Titans remake will be interested to hear: this time around, they've styled Sam Worthington's hair to look more like Harry Hamlin's. So, you know, take that, people who were appalled by the slick remake of the kitschy classic - they're trying, alright? Maybe take a chill pill? - Rev. Adam McKinney

PLUS: Comprehensive Arts and Entertainment Calendar

PLUS: EVEN MORE EVENTS WE RECOMMEND

PLUS: Animals taking bubble baths