If your neighborhood could use some inspiration or TLC, now’s the time to apply for a mural from the City of Tacoma’s Murals Project. Offered by the city to combat blight and vandalism, the project sends teams of professional and student artists into neighborhoods to talk with local groups, come up with a mural that represents the area, and paint it this summer onto a wall.

“These community-based murals have proven to be positive community catalysts, bringing neighbors together, helping them find common voices, and enlivening areas that were previously neglected,” said Tacoma arts administrator Amy McBride in a press release. “It is inspiring to see how artists have been able to work within each community to develop murals that are unique and responsive to the characteristics, stories, history and future of each neighborhood.”

The project has been going for four years now, and great examples include the Portland Avenue community building, the man-in-the-moon playground at Bergerson Terrace (5301 S. Orchard St.), the giant Fern Hill postcard at South 84^th Street and Park Avenue, and the flying balloons at 220 Puyallup Avenue. Read more »

TAM free festival and paper installation

Celebrate Tacoma Art Museum’s 10^th birthday in its new Pacific Avenue building with a free community festival tomorrow. Activities include a community paper art installation and more. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. May 4. Free. Tacoma Art Museum, 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma. 253-272-4258, tacomaartmuseum.org

Vashon Art Studio Tour

Vashon Island’s many artists open up their doors this and next weekend in the annual spring studio tour. The self-guided driving tour is free and features 23 studios in media including blown glass, jewelry, woodwork, candles, pottery, tile and mosaic, sculpture, prints and painting. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. May 4-5, 11-12. Free. For maps see vashonislandartstudiotour.com or most island businesses. For ferry schedules see wsdot.wa.gov/ferries.

Medieval music at the Revels Salon Read more »

“Blasphemy” in a church? Well, yes, if it’s Sherman Alexie‘s new book.

The acclaimed Washington writer comes to Tacoma’s Urban Grace Church next Tuesday, reading from and signing his latest book of bitingly candid short stories, “Blasphemy” in a free public event organized by the Tacoma Public Library.

A collection that Publisher’s Weekly called “glimpses into a harried and conflicted humanity” with “plenty of bawdiness and Alexie’s signature wicked humor,” “Blasphemy” was released in October last year and instantly made the top-books lists in Kirkus Review, the New York Times and NPR. In 30 short stories Alexie covers contemporary issues like racism, addiction and infidelity with his usual candor and sharp wit, ranging from road-trip morality tales to lethal wind-turbines, from Asian manicure salons to donkey basketball leagues, from homeless Indians to hearing loss.

Born in 1966 to a Coeur d’Alene father and Spokane Indian mother, Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and has had an award-winning 20-year career publishing 20 books of adult and young adult novels as well as short stories. He lives in Seattle. Read more »

Opera fans, rejoice: Sherill Milnes is coming to town. No, not to sing – the former opera superstar’s heyday was in the last quarter of the 20^th century, and it was a big one, ranging over almost every baritone role in the repertoire and every major house on several continents. But Milnes will be giving four public events: one this Saturday at a interview meet-and-greet fundraiser for Tacoma Opera’s Young Artist program, free one-hour talks at both the University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran University next Monday, and a vocal workshop Monday night at UPS.

So …

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Walidah Imarisha, a spoken word artist, educator, writer, and innovative voice on issues of youth and justice, will perform with the Fab-5 artistic youth group next Thursday, April 25, at the University of Puget Sound.

The performance is free.

Imarisha, a teacher in Portland State University’s Black Studies Department, Oregon State University’s women’s studies program and Southern New Hampshire University’s English department, will address how educational systems often alienate youth through a hidden racism.

“Students feel marginalized, silenced, invisibilized, demonized, criminalized, without that being said explicitly,” Imarisha told UPS Professor Dexter Gordon in a recent interview. “They’re not learning about themselves and everything they do learn about themselves is negative. Many young, brilliant folks have dropped out of school because they were saving their spirits. And we have to see that as a survival tactic.”

Fab-5 is a Tacoma youth organization that offers creative outlets for underserved urban youth, including DJing, spoken word and writing, breakdancing and visual art. Read more »

If you don’t look now, “Look Here” will be gone. A salon-style art exhibition featuring 14 Tacoma visual artists, “Look Here” is a one-night art stand in a temporary space on Earnest S. Brazill Street in Tacoma’s Hilltop, happening next Thursday.

The brainchild of artist Victoria Johnson, the salon features work by Johnson herself as well as Bill Colby, Lynn Di Nino, Karen Doten, Kristin Giordano, Lisa Kinoshita, Janet Marcavage, Yuki Nakamura, Nicholas Nyland, Frederic Quinn, Betty Sapp Ragan, William Turner, Emily Wood and Otto Youngers, and ranges over sculpture, printmaking, painting, ceramics, photography and mixed media.

Says Johnson: “Artists …

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The Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital expansion – atop MultiCare’s new regional cancer center buildings and the emergency section of Mary Bridge and Tacoma General – isn’t open to the public yet, but the art’s already there, brightening the corridors and waiting rooms with glass sea-life in vivid tangerines and limes. And I was lucky enough yesterday to get a sneak peek at the installations by Jennevieve Schlemmer and the non-profit Hilltop Artists glass program.

The HART installation is interesting in two ways: It’s art made by kids for kids, with ongoing interactions planned; and it’s also visible from the outside. Lining the north windows of the 6^th and 7^th floor skyway bridges connecting the front building on Martin Luther King Jr. Way and the back building on South J Street are 1,400 glass floats, blown by the skilled, hardworking HART students at Jason Lee Middle School. You can see it from the alley just beside the emergency drop-off (but you’ll have to walk underneath the skybridge to see the north window, as the south one was left clear to preserve the views of Mt. Rainier). Gelato-hued floats pile up like bubbles inside an aquarium: cool blues and greens on the lower floor, warm lemons, limes, tangerines and berry colors on the upper.

But the best part can only be seen by the hospital’s young patients and staff. Up close you realize that every so often the glassblowers (at Wilson High, this time) have popped an exquisitely-blown squid or octopus inside a float, so the whole installation goes from abstract beauty to a “Where’s Waldo?” treasure hunt for viewers. Read more »

Spoken word artist Lucas Smiraldo has been chosen to be Tacoma’s new Poet Laureate for 2013-2015. The two-year post has been running for five years and is awarded by the Tacoma Arts Commission. It involves community readings, workshops and events, the first of which is a reading next Tuesday in the Tacoma Public Library main branch featuring past and present laureates.

Smiraldo, who performs as Vanilla Soul, is a prolific writer, performance poet and playwright who has collaborated with many other Pacific Northwest artists in varied disciplines. A former education director at the Broadway Center for Performing …

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