- — December 21, 2009
Double Speak | Laura Eklund, artist, and Kristin Connell, singer-songwriter
Buddah Tube by Laura Eklund | Photo by Deidre Perez
At the new Speakeasy Arts Cooperative, Angela Jossy is less a curator than an organizer. In past months, she has invited artists to chip in one hundred dollars per month both to help pay the rent on the Speakeasy’s home at 746 Broadway and to fill it with vibrant and varied art. As would be expected from Jossy, who has covered music for the Weekly Volcano and helped to organize Radio8Ball, live music will also fill the two-story space.
Though Jossy is not a fan of playing favorites in this new venture, City Arts managed to harass and harangue her until she agree to pick out two representative co-op members. Laura Eklund is a master of multimedia art forms who, as one half of Pacific Fusion Productions, has brought incredible art events to Tacoma, including the Urban Arts Festival, Fresh Air, Playing with Fire and Drop of Water. Her latest series consists of wire-mesh sculpture of expressive faces that can be seen in living rooms all over town. On the flip side, singer-songwriter Kristin Connell, winner of the 2006 Gig Harbor Folk Festival Songwriting Competition, is releasing a new album titled Dance of Love. The recording, her second, features sweet soft-spoken Jewelesque vocals and roots-influenced folk-pop music that can be compared to that of Norah Jones, Eva Cassidy, Sheryl Crow and Allison Krauss.
