Sing-along Messiah in Lakewood

Love “The Messiah”? Love to sing? Then this is the event for you, as the choir and professional instrumentalists at Lakewood’s Christ Lutheran Church lead the audience in a sing-along of Handel’s beloved oratorio, with all the favorite choruses. 2 p.m. Dec. 2. $10 suggested donation with canned food item. Christ Lutheran Church, 8211 112th St. SW, Lakewood. 253-582-0331, christlutheranlakewood.com

Michael Ferguson’s “Impressions” at American Art Co

Michael Ferguson’s lush oils and acrylics capture the light and shadow of the Pacific Northwest landscape that inspire him, with soft brushstrokes and impressionistic outlines. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday through Jan. 19. Free. American Art Co, 1126 Broadway, Tacoma. 253-272-4327, americanartco.com

D.A.S.H. does “Dreamgirls” Read more »

Art and coffee have long gone together – art in coffee shops, artists drinking coffee, artistic latte designs, you name it – and now there’s yet another way to revel in the synergy. Tacoma painter Marsha Glazière has brought her lush, vivid-hued brushwork to Puget Sound’s many quirky coffee houses in a self-published art book “Eclectic Coffee Spots in Puget Sound,” launching at – of course – the Tacoma café Rhapsody in Bloom this Friday.

Known for neo-expressionist works that blur reality and imagination, Glazière turns to the figurative with a sympathetic eye that captures the unique spirit of …

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Is decking the halls getting you down? Holly not so jolly? You don’t need to be Scrooge to appreciate a musical offering that doesn’t involve yet another rendition of “Away in a Manger” – and luckily for you, there are two alternative holiday shows this week and next, courtesy of the Broadway Center, that’ll put you onto another musical plane altogether.

The first is Friday night’s combined show by singer-songwriter Christine Lavin – called “wildly entertaining” by The New Yorker – and Northwest folk-pop trio Uncle Bonsai, who bring tight harmonies and clever lyrics to new folk music. “Just …

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The Pierce County AIDS Foundation has been supporting Pierce County people living with HIV for 25 years now, and to celebrate the anniversary the foundation is holding

its 2012 World AIDS Day event at Tacoma Art Museum, with a chance to bid on and buy local art made for the event and representing the iconic red AID-awareness ribbon.

The 10 works of art were made by local artists, and are displayed at Corina Bakery (602 S. Fawcett Ave.) until Friday. They range from the sad, almost iconic gouache of Cheri O’Brien depicting a nursing mother contracting …

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Sing along with (or just watch) “The Sound of Music”

Sometimes it’s just not enough to watch that family favorite film, “The Sound of Music.” If you love singing along with Julie Andrews to all those fab songs (“Doe a Deer,” “Edelweiss”) then you’ll want to get your costume on and go to the sing-along screenings at either the Pantages or the Washington Center. If you want to see the Von Trapp family come to life, head to a live theater performance at Tacoma Musical Playhouse.

Sing-alongs: 2 p.m. Nov. 24 at Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway, Tacoma. $24. 253-591-5894, broadwaycenter.org. Also 5 p.m. Nov. 25 at Washington Center, 512 Washington St. SE, Olympia. $16/$14/$5. 360-753-8586, washingtoncenter.org

Theater: 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays through Dec. 16 at Tacoma Musical Playhouse, 5116 6^th Ave., Tacoma. $29/$27/$20. 253-565-6867, tmp.org

Gritty City Gift Fair

Among the many opportunities to buy local, artist-made, one-of-a-kind gifts is the Gritty City Gift Fair, held in conjunction with Tacoma’s annual tree lighting ceremony tomorrow. Find handmade ornaments, letterpress cards, hand-crafted fashion and more. 3-9 p.m. Nov. 24 (tree lighting 6 p.m. across the road). Free. 906 Broadway, Tacoma. facebook.com Read more »

Happy  Thanksgiving! It’s closed til next week, but here’s a taste of what’s up at TCC gallery.

Clay curls, intricate pencil drawings and mixed media nature works make up a new exhibit at The Gallery at Tacoma Community College, as current faculty Marit Berg and Melinda Liebers Cox plus retired faculty member Frank Dippolito combine for a group show. Each artist has something different to say, but there’s enough continuity in style and media to gell the show into an interesting whole.

For each artist, though, there’s definitely a medium that best shows their strength. For Cox it’s delicately shaded color pencil drawings. In the front of the gallery her wide prairie paintings are flat, with no sense of that enormous prairie perspective. Her pick-up truck spilling out with foreshortened melons is better, but walk around the corner and suddenly you see directly into Cox’s fine sense of humor: three birds, their feathers penciled softly and fluffily, are tumbling through a juggler’s hands in one frame, balancing cutely on a ball in the other. Like little kids at a gymnastics class, their eyes light up with quizzical joy in their surreal acrobatics. Read more »

Local poets Kevin Miller and Alice Derry will combine for a free reading of old and new work at King’s Books, Tacoma next Thursday.

Derry is the author of four collections of poetry and three chapbooks, including the most recent collection “Tremolo” (Red Hen Press, 2012), for which she received a Washington State GAP grant. A former English and German teacher at Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Derry helped conceive and direct the college’s Foothills Writers’ Series from 1980-2009.

Miller is a Tacoma poet known recently for his third collection “Home and Away: the Old Town Poems” …

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Local dignitaries and networkers were floating around the Hotel Murano’s lofty modernist lobby last Thursday at the launch of Tacoma’s newest art book, “Hotel Murano: The Collection.” But while the evening (and the hotel) was glamorous enough, the book – available in paper and iPad app – definitely isn’t.

Measuring just 8 ½ by 5 ½ inches, with a cover that isn’t much thicker than its pages, “Hotel Murano: The Collection” is everything the hotel’s actual art is not: small, hard to interpret, unimpressive. Ranging from the Costas Varotsos toilet bowl (sorry, curve of stacked green glass) on the street outside through the giant Vibeke Skov canoes and Karen LaMonte dresses in the lobby to the works that grace every one of the 21 guest floors, the book faces a black text page with a page of the art, often a collage of several works by that artist. Pretty, but tiny. Read more »