Jill Nordfors Clark, “Desert Journey.” Photo: Sayaka Ito.

Every so often I pop into Bellevue Arts Museum, and whenever I do, I realize I should go more often. Don’t be fooled by the museum’s focus on craft: This is a place that does exactly what good art should do–it blurs the boundaries. Aesthetically-driven craft, sculptural art–it’s all there, from Tip Toland’s eerie, life-size nudes to Etsuko Ichikawa’s gorgeous, ceiling-high slashes of flame.

Just opened this month is “Intertwined,” an exhibition of contemporary baskets from the collection of Arizonans Sara

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Bo Bartlett, “Barack Obama.” Photo courtesy Tacoma Art Museum.

In the heat of inauguration excitement, you might want to stop in at Tacoma Art Museum, where we have our very own portrait of President Barack Obama. It’s an oil by Northwest artist Bo Bartlett, and it’s hanging in the event space just off the lobby (next to the cafe.)

According to director Stephanie Stebich, the portrait (which shows an Obama considerably more carefree than he looked on TV this morning) narrowly missed being chosen as the cover on Time magazine.
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The San Francisco Symphony. Photo courtesy Seattle Symphony.

It takes a lot to convince me to drive up to Seattle through evening rush-hour traffic in the kind of fog we’re getting these days, especially mid-week. But tonight and tomorrow night there’s the kind of reason that would make me go up twice in a row if I had the time:

The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

They’re playing Benaroya Hall tonight and tomorrow, and they’re playing Brahms, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky. But even if they were playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”

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The past and the present will be on view side-by-side at the Washington State History Museum starting Saturday when a photo exhibit titled "Washington Then and Now" opens to the public.

Among the 100 photos in the exhibit is a yesterday/today pairing of pictures of downtown Tacoma (the older view taken sometime in the 1900s) and shots of a dirt road winding up to Mount Rainier in 1903 and a paved contemporary highway following the same route. The oldest photo was taken sometime in the late 1850s and is an image of

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Chris Sharp, “Activate Your Social Life.” Image courtesy Chris Sharp.

Artists in the Round

The fifth in this series where visual, literary and musical artists perform onstage together, tonight’s show features musicians David Bazan, Goldfinch and Kirsten Wenlock; painter Chris Sharp and guests, and poet 6 Deep the Messenger and guests. 8 p.m. Jan. 16. $8, all ages. Club SOTA, 1117 Broadway, Tacoma. www.brownpapertickets.com/event/52485

Trio at TAM

The Northwest Sinfonietta continues its "Music Off the Walls" series at Tacoma Art Museum Saturday with the NS Trio: James Garlick,

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The Washington State History Museum will be marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day with an afternoon of special programs beginning at 2 p.m. Monday.

The event, "Dr. MLK: From Slavery, 2 Dreams, 2 Presidency," will open with an address by former Tacoma Mayor Harold Moss and will include poetry readings, a dance performance by the Brick City Krump Dancers, a musical performance by the Henry Foss Gospel Choir and a video tribute titled "Never Would Have Made It" that links King’s legacy to the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States.

Admission to

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Carson Murdach, “Mesa.” Photo courtesy The Gallery, TCC.

Group shows are usually fairly lacking in the coherence department: big on quantity and small on voice. Not so the Environmental Art Exhibition now up at The Gallery at Tacoma Community College. With some 25 participating artists (students, staff, community) it’s certainly varied. But curator Jennifer Olson-Rudenko’s overarching theme attracts a general irony of beauty amid destruction, binding the show into a meaning all group shows should aspire to.

That said, it’s a fairly uneven show. There’s the highly provocative, like Carson

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The Grand Cinema has been having an identity problem. The problem, said executive director Philip Cowan, is that the Tacoma’s three-screen arthouse has had all kinds of logos in its 12-year history. "We have six logos on things right now," he says. Business card logos are different from stationery logos, and so on. There is no consistency. The theater’s brand identity has been muddled.

That all changes next week. On Jan. 21 the theater will be rolling out a new logo and will be throwing a coming-out party to mark the occasion. Cake and cookies will be served, and

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