We Art Tacoma

David Fischer, Executive Director of Tacoma Arts Live, sits down to look back at the year in Tacoma arts and then look ahead to First Night! First Night buttons are $14 through December 30 and then $18 on December 31. Kids 11 and under are free.

Sara Kay and Sierra Hartman talk about Grit City Magazine, the independent magazine that “believes Tacoma has good stories.” Sarah and Sierra have been behind the magazine since it was founded in 2017. The produce a quarterly beautiful printed magazine that is a work of art on its own.

You can find Sara and Sierra this December at the Holiday Haul Crawl and the December 21 Tacoma Night Market.

After graduating Foss High School, Umi went to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. When he returned to Tacoma, he co-founded the store ETC Tacoma and the etcetera line of streetwear.

Umi talks about his interest in fashion, how the store came to be, and where it’s going. (We also preview ETC’s Black Friday sales and December promotions, so listen soon!)

Happy Thanksgiving.

John Falskow, music professor at Tacoma Community College, joins the show to talk about a series of holiday (and not-holiday) shows around Tacoma, including the free TCC Orchestra concert and a fun event called “Tuba Christmas.”

We also dig into what’s happening with arts and music education in Tacoma and we get his tips on how folks of any age can pick up an instrument and start playing.

Singer songwriter Paige Hansen joins the podcast to talk about her musical background as a singer songwriter, her time as a jazz DJ at KNKX, and more.

Lance Kagey and Tom Llewellyn have been behind the guerilla art project “Beautiful Angle” since the early 2000s. I was glad for the chance to talk to them more about their project, the origins of the words “beautiful angle,” and how they see their art project as part of the way that the Tacoma community comes together. Enjoy!

Links

What is TUPAC? (By which we mean the Tacoma Urban Performing Arts Center and not the rapper).

TUPAC help kids who are racially and socioeconomically diverse get access to classical art forms like ballet. An organization that is only two years old, they won an Amocat Award earlier this month for the great work. And coming up soon, they will present The Urban Nutcracker, a reimagining of the classic ballet that earned rave reviews last year.

Listen in!

Victoria Ashley joins the podcast to talk about her work as an actor as well as the upcoming show “Shakespeare in Love” opening this weekend at Tacoma Arts Live. The play is based on the 1998 movie. Victoria is in the role of Viola.

Enjoy!

Silong Chhun is a man of many artistic talents—music, audio, graphic design, film. He’s also a booster of Tacoma arts, having recently served on the Tacoma Arts Commission. Check out the new episode!

For this week’s episode, Melinda Raebyne and David Dinnell sit down to talk about film in Tacoma and the upcoming Tacoma Film Festival (October 3 – 10).

Melinda’s new film is Stories of Us: Camp Second Chance, a documentary about a homeless camp in Seattle that Melinda filmed while living in the camp for a week.

David is the director of the festival.

Enjoy!