“I Love You, You’re Perfect…” at Encore

Encore! Theater Company in Gig Harbor presents the hilarious off-Broadway musical revue “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” a series of scenes with four actors exploring relationship quirks. Opens 7:30 p.m. tonight, then 7:30 p.m. Fri-Sat-Sun through Jan. 14. $18/$14. 6615 38^th Ave. NW, Gig Harbor. 253-858-2282, www.encoretheater.org

Korean art in the Woolworth Windows

Just up in the Woolworth Windows downtown: a collection of work by Korean artists organized by Art Connection Korea, and sponsored by Tacoma Contemporary. 24/7 through Apr. 25. Free. Corner Broadway, Commerce and South 11^th Streets, Tacoma. www.tacomacontemporary.org …

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Walk into Fulcrum gallery and you’ve got a choice. Turn left, and it’s mangled limbs and a blood-red war memorial. Right, and you can see three Michael Jacksons and Boy George reincarnated as Queen Elizabeth II.

Hmm, choices, choices. The irony is that the two sides of the gallery are both by the same artist – Troy Gua – and they don’t, in fact, either mock or detract from each other. They don’t exactly dialogue, but then you can’t expect too much.

On the left, Gua has constructed an eloquent testimony to soldiers who have lost limbs and lives in …

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The Bodies exhibit currently showing in Seattle is opening up for artists and their sketch books Wednesday night.

Best of all, admission is only $10 (half off).

I’ve seen the exhibit once. It’s a fascinating look in to the human body that until now only medical school students have been able to see.

However, as much as I was intrigued and educated by it, I was repulsed by some of the fanciful and playful positions the bodies are posed in.

Ultimately, it’s a highly personal choice as to whether you want to see this show.

Click on the “more” button at the bottom of this post to see a photo. WARNING: It’s not for the faint of heart.

Here’s the details:

What: Seattle Sketch Night at BODIES…The Exhibition

When: Wednesday, Jan. 27. Tickets on sale from 7:00-7:30 p.m.

Where: 1505 Fifth Ave. (Corner of Fifth and Pike) Seattle

Details: BODIES…The Exhibition in Seattle is hosting a sketch night for local artists. The exhibit will stay open late this Wednesday to offer professional and amateur artists full access to the exhibit for only $10, half the usual admission price.

This is a unique opportunity for local artists to sketch studies of carefully preserved, real anatomical specimens as well as deepen their appreciation of the human form. Many of the full-body specimens are dissected in vivid athletic poses, allowing artists to observe how internal structures influence the movements involved in everyday activities.

Click here to see a photo from the exhibit: Read more »

If you haven’t stopped into Brick House yet, that’s understandable. Tucked away on a rather abandoned section of South Fawcett Street, neither downtown nor Hilltop, this residence-cum-gallery looks just like the other old houses on the block. But inside it’s different, and totally worth a stop.

Peter MacDonald, along with his wife Sandy, is the man behind the living-room gallery. A painter in Tacoma for many years, he in fact used to live in the Brick House before renovating it. Now he’s turned the front two rooms (former living and dining) into gallery space, renting the upstairs to artist Zachary …

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Animals on the walls at TAM

As well as an animal-themed concert, Tacoma Art Museum opens an animal-themed art exhibit tomorrow, “The Secret Language of Animals.” Opens 5:30-8 p.m. Jan. 23, then Sundays noon-5 p.m., Wed-Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., third Thursdays 10 a.m.-8 p.m. through June 27. $9/$8/free for five and under and third Thursdays. 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma. 253-272-4258, www.tacomaartmuseum.org

Teddy Bears’ Concert

Kids under seven will enjoy singing along with Lisa and Linda at “The Teddy Bears’ Musical Picnic,” a classical kids’ concert presented by Tacoma Philharmonic. Bring your own stuffed animal, too. 10 a.m. and …

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There’s “Social Injustice” at Tacoma Community College gallery – from the point of view of artists, that is. A new group show features 24 local artists in a big group show addressing social justice issues, and as you’d expect from such a big show, the effects are as diverse as the issues opened up, from racism to violence to poverty to war.

In the entry are a mixed bag of paintings. Karen Benveniste uses stark color fields and shadows in her neo-Cubist oils of cityscapes, contrasting corporate wealth with black poverty. They’re not subtle, but they’re striking, and portray tough survivors instead of victims. Alain Clerc is less successful with a New Age-y wash of blues, with a bright white supernatural figure in the middle. The fact that he’s moping over his own situation doesn’t help the triteness.

Further inside, the gallery showcases some of the best of local work (though not always new.) The untitled photograph from Alice di Certo’s “Skin and Flesh” series is beautiful to see again, the black and white body parts melding and anonymously, sensually unidentifiable. If only there were more…although her “Voices” video, cropping interviews about racial discrimination to just a mouth, makes its meta-racial point well.

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The Evergreen State College was recently one of 183 college and university art museums around the country to receive a gift of original  Andy Warhol photographs from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The gift, part of the Foundation’s Photographic Legacy Program, comprises 103 Polaroid and 50 black and white photographs by the famous artist, who changed the direction of modern art by incorporating photographic images of popular icons and celebrities, known as pop-art. Among the photographs donated are shots, both posed and candid, of famous figures of the 1970s and 1980s including singer Debbie Harry, artist …

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Second Series offers “Trout” songs and quintet

Hear Schubert’s famous “Trout” quintet, along with the song that inspired it and other 19^th-century lieder and chamber music from the Second City Chamber Series. 7:30 p.m. Jan. 15. $35/$30/$15. Great Hall at Annie Wright School, 827 N. Tacoma Ave., Tacoma. 253-572-TUNE, www.scchamberseries.org

Sinfonietta’s “The Golden Trumpet” at TAM

The Northwest Sinfonietta’s principal trumpet Judson Scott plays solos by Enesco, Hutchinson, Debussy and more with pianist Cristina Valdes in the second concert in the “Music Off the Walls” chamber series at Tacoma Art Museum. 7:30 p.m. Jan. 16. $28/$23. TAM, 1701 Pacific Ave., …

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