Lost and Found: Samples from the Archives

Dear Readers,
September 2009 marks the third birthday of City Arts in Tacoma. To celebrate, here’s a look back at some of the insights gleaned from the Tacomans and Tacoma supporters who have contributed to these pages. —The Editors



On Making it Happen

"It’s important for us to show the work of artists both in and outside of the museum-going community.…Nativity House’s [homeless] guests are dealing with issues that most artists are not. Nonetheless, the work here is not far off the “outsider art” appreciated around the world."
— Michael Lent, “Gifts from the Margins,” November/December 06

"When your gallery is the closest telephone pole, the audience is whoever happens to walk by."
— Lance Kagey, “This Strange Thing of Ours,” September/October 07

"We used to gear art in Tacoma toward the elite. Now we’re getting more of a community flavor, from the ground up."
— Elton Gatewood, “The Graffiti Paradox, Part 1,” March/April 07

"[Tacoma Art Museum] is not embarrassed about its location or the grittiness of the city’s industrial history."
— Rock Hushka, “The Next Wave,”September/October 06

"On a Friday morning last April, a bulletin was stapled to virtual telephone poles all across online Tacoma: the best CARTOONIST, RR ANDERSON challenges YOU to a sidewalk chalk sketch-off.…FIRST EVER EVENT OF ITS KIND ON THE PLANET!"
— Mark Thomas Deming, “Guys in Fezzes Drawing Robots,” May 09

"We collect women’s history materials: recipe books, scrapbooks, aprons, diaries, handwork. Often people don’t know how valuable these things are."
— Shanna Stevenson, “Never Forget the Suffragettes,” March 09

"Shouldn’t there be a screen devoted to the last great film you’ve seen, the enveloping ongoingness of the world of cinema, a universe in the dark, watching a movie from inside the womb, careful with the popcorn please?"
— Bob Holman, “Grand Illusions,” May/June 08

"People find abstract painting hard to access. I think that’s funny. It should be the easiest — like playing."
— Nicholas Nyland, City Seen, December 08

“I’m not very interested in defining what it is we do, just publishing quality content about stories you’re not going to read anywhere else. Call that whatever you want.”
—Matt Driscoll, “Local NewSpaper Empire Stages Shotgun Wedding,” July 09

"One hundred percent punk. I’m not going to tell an artist what to sell."
— Sean Alexander, “Don’t Even Try the Masterpiece Routine,” June 09

"A middle-aged man performing for bed-headed youths in skinny jeans and thrift-store sweaters, [poet Lucas Smiraldo] appears as comfortable in the scene as he is in the thick-soled shoes on his feet."
— Virginia Bunker, “Speaking in Tongues,” July 09

"The cast-off musings, doodles, drug deals and office memos of Tacoma’s inhabitants make for good reading — and viewing."
— Michael Sweney, “Lost and Found,” March/April 07

“I’ve been talking about it for years…Tacoma is the cultural center of the galaxy and nobody knows it.”
—Art Chantry, “Art Interrupted,” May/June 07

On Resilience

"Fear is an opportunity to be proud of yourself later."
— Saul Cline, “If I Could Do It All Over Again, I Would Have Practiced More,” June 09

"We will continue to give people a great reason to come to this neighborhood.…Eager as we are for change, the Winthrop will not make or break us. We are patient. If it doesn’t happen tomorrow, it’ll happen the next day."
— David Fischer, “The Renewal of the Renewal of Downtown,” January/February 07

"Though the original albums were regional successes, it wasn’t until 2004 that the Sonics earned the kind of national attention they deserved back in the sixties."
— Charles Cross, “Here (Again) Are the Sonics,” May/June 08

"A full-scale model of the [Bridge of Glass] was built in a large parking lot next to my studio in Ballard. Damned if one neighbor complained because she didn’t like how it looked."
— Dale Chihuly, “G Span,” July/August 07

"You come in, hum a few notes, and I can tell you where [the record] is."
— Chuck Rice, “Street of Vinyl Dreams,” July 09

"Around the time of the shooting at Foss High, I was getting tired of arguing with people from Seattle about the “worthless ghetto” we live in. I decided to take that energy and put it into something positive."
— Jennifer Boutell (a.k.a. TacomaMama, blogger), City Seen, May/June 08

“That Tacoma bond, it never goes away.”
—Bon Von Wheelie, “Queen of Girl Trouble,” March 09

"Hoo boy, I’d love to see what a contemporary Northwest WPA [Works Progress Administration] realist style would be like."
— Margaret Bullock, “Free Money for Northwest Arts?” January 09

"If this were a science group, I wonder, would we have the same relationships? I think no. There’s something about making art together and getting to be this 'other you…'”
— Diana Falchuk, “This Shouldn’t Be So Hard,” April 09

"Those mid-career retrospectives really kind of blow people out of the water. So I had this strange feeling — it’s like, what am I, dead?"
— Michael Brophy, “Mind on Fire,” February 09

“When a junkie says you have a drinking problem, you can’t ignore that.”
—Chris Sharp, “A Hero’s Journey,” May/June 08

"Otto Youngers says he markets his artwork like a vacuum salesman. When rejected by one gallery, he simply knocks on the next door. No angst or bruised ego."
— Judy Wagonfeld, “Wood Man Rising,” October 08

"But growing a jazz radio station in any direction is bucking the trend that’s seen the number of jazz stations across the U.S. dwindle dramatically."
— Todd Matthews, “Jazz Lives Here,” July/August 07

"A Seattle artist would probably throw up if they saw this."
— Ross Matteson, “Rescued by Birds,” December 08

On Meaning and Mistakes

"Dashiell Hammett stepped off the late train at Union Station in Tacoma on November 6, 1920. He was in town for only a few months, but the events he witnessed would figure in his creation of an entirely new form of modern American fiction."
— Michael Sean Sullivan, “The Man Who Stood in the Way,” January/February 08

"[C. Rosalind Bell] refuses to make all black people a monolith. Often that’s what happens. But she gets in the guts of her characters."
— Grace Livingston, “Whipping up a Storm,” March/April 07

"A lot of people don’t realize that there are thirty-five thousand people who come to work every day at Fort Lewis. I would like people to know that I live right next door to you. …I eat at the same restaurants; I shop at the same malls. I vote. I abide by the same laws. I do all the stuff that you do. I just happen to be a soldier."
— Captain Matthew James, “Coming Home,” March/April 08

“What they know, they only seen in the movies. I get questions like, ‘Ever eat a rattlesnake?’ I say, ‘No, but I killed a couple.’”
—Fred Oldfield, “Obsessed with the Wild West,” August 09

"So the Ruins [of Western State Hospital] have been wiped away. But the memorial itself is a resonant and important piece of public art, and one that does not shy away from the place’s dark history."— Stacey Levine, “Commemorating a History of Violence,” July 09

"If you combine graffiti with acknowledgments toward culture and environment and place it creates more meaning. Otherwise, it only has meaning to the graffiti writer."
— Pubs One, “The Graffiti Paradox,” March/April 07

"When plastic bags and tape can transform into life-sized figures filled with grace, then truly anything is possible."
— Diane Kurzyna (a.k.a. Ruby Recycled), City Seen, June 09

"The city began writing source code in the ’80s based on an indigenous construct of old craftsmanship, found objects and creative assembly. The tidiness that never came didn’t matter. The chase after newness was abandoned."
— Michael Sean Sullivan, “Back in the Day,” March/April 07

"You could just present the music, with no relationship between performer and listener. But that’s not the way we do it."
— Stephen Ruffo, “Picker’s Paradise,” January/February 07

“I never use a ruler. I feel strongly that if these images were too precise, they would lose their vitality. It has to be a little wobbly. It’s crucial to allow my hand, my “mistakes,” to show.”
—Jeremy Mangan, “The Barn Identity,” May 09