Micahel Liang of Spaceworks Tacoma joins the podcast this week. He shares his background in the arts and as a park ranger for the National Parks service. His love of art and the natural world helped to bring him to Tacoma. He’s been the director of Spaceworks since last July.

This episode, we are joined by the Abby E. Murray, the current Tacoma Poet Laureate. Talking to Abby was a delight the whole way through. This wide-ranging interview goes from the work Abby does teaching poetry to undocumented boys at a detention center to her love of baking and everything in between (and there’s a lot in between).

For those who are interested, Abby is teaching a series of free poetry workshops beginning Wednesday, July 10, at Eastside Community Center.

Did you read the blog post in The Stranger by Charles Mudede? He writes:

Something has clearly shifted in the way Tacoma and Seattle are perceived at the level of the arts. My point: As the arts are in decline in Seattle, they are clearly ascending in Tacoma. And if this trend continues, it’s not impossible to imagine a situation where the latter effectively becomes the center of the region’s arts.

Inspired by that, I invited Amy McBride, Arts Administrator for the City of Tacoma, to join the podcast for a very special episode about Tacoma’s arts—past, present, and future. Amy talks about what the city arts scene was like in 1998 when she moved here and how it’s changed and grown. We talk about the Stranger article and much more.

Enjoy!

Mindy Barker joins the podcast to talk about how her background in decorative painting led her to murals. She has several murals around Tacoma, which we talk about, as well as her love for the Tacoma art and music scene that keeps calling her back to this city every time she tries somewhere else.

Tacoma Arts Live is hosting a production of the award-winning (and hilarious) play “Art” at the Theater on the Square.  Director Brett Carr sits down on the podcast to talk about what it’s like to have a career behind-the-scenes in theater and what makes the play such a good theatrical experience.

Art

Starring:

Production photo by Lisa Monet Photography

Conductor and musical director Sarah Ioannides joins the podcast to talk about Symphony Tacoma’s May 11 program which brings together Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (including Ode to Joy) with “In Hopes of Finding the Sun,” a world premiere of a new work by composer Hannah Lash. We talk about Sarah’s journey to becoming a conductor, what it takes to commission a new work, and why Beethoven is still relevant in 2019.

Wayzgoose–a letterpress and book arts extravaganza–is in its 15th year. This family-friendly event is at Kings Books and features a steamroller press, a “print your t-shirt” booth, and many letterpress and book art vendors and activities.

Taylor Cox is one of the organizers of the event this year. She is a professional letterpress artist and shares her thoughts on how Tacoma has become a welcome center for letterpress design and book arts.

On this episode of We Art Tacoma, sculptor Gustavo Martinez talks about his background, teaching, and (of course) his art, which includes a variety of fascinating styles and inspirations.

Chandler O’Leary joins the podcast today to talk about her book, “The Best Coast.” The book is an impressive achievement—it’s entirely illustrated atlas of the west coast. That means the hundred maps, several hundred locations, and many small additional images that make up this book are hand-illustrated by Chandler.

In this episode, Chandler talks about what this took and also how she thinks about her art and her travel. The book is available “everywhere books are sold” after April 9.

Meet Steve LaBerge. Originally from Minnesota who now makes his home in Tacoma where he has one foot in his day job (insurance) and another foot in fantastical, whimsical art.

Steve talks about his projects like the Crawlus, the Slug (now at Alma Mater), growing up with television, and why some of his art feels more at home here than it does when he takes it to Burning Man.