U.S. Open (Golf) Fan Guide 2015

IF YOU GO
35
What: “Riding the Express Bus
594” and “A Fable”
Who: Lynn Di Nino and 24 other
local artists
When: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-
Wednesday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday-Saturday
through July 24
Where: Handforth Gallery, Tacoma
Public Library main branch, 1102
Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma
Cost: Free
Information: 253-292-2201,
tacomapubliclibrary.org,
lynndinino.com
Courtesy University of Puget Sound
Pianist Duane Hulbert organizes and
performs in the weekly Listen Live at
Lunch free concert series at First
Lutheran Church in Tacoma.
ABLOG
From 34
by his father.
Here’s the rest of the lineup:
June 24: Colleen Raney and
IF YOU GO
What: Listen
Live at Lunch
concert series
When: Noon
Wednesdays
from June 17-
Aug. 19
Where: First
Lutheran
Church, 524 S. I
St., Tacoma
Cost: free
Information:
253-272-1538,
flctacoma.org;
go to this story
online for link to
the event’s
Facebook page.
Hanz Araki, Irish
folk music.
July 1: Neil
Hulbert,
trumpet.
July 8: Maria
Sampen and
Timothy
Christie, violins.
July 15:
Duane Hulbert,
piano.
July 22: Una
Hwang, organ.
July 29: David
Salge, clarinet
and Coni
Lijengren, piano.
Aug. 5: Piano
students of Paul
Twedt.
Aug. 12: Joyce
Ramée and friends, strings.
Aug. 19: Christina Kowalski,
soprano.
IMPERFECT IMAGE OF A CITY:
SEE IT AT TACOMA LIBRARY
GALLERY
How many artists does it take to
describe a city?
No, it’s not a joke — it’s “A
Fable,” a new exhibit at the
Handforth Gallery in Tacoma
Public Library’s main branch,
where 24 local artists plus curator
Lynn Di Nino each create their
own autobiographical sculpture
and text expressing what this city
means to them. As a practical
installation, it has a few problems,
but as a concept — especially
Courtesy Lynn Di Nino.
Curator Lynn Di Nino’s “Chihuly on the bus” is among artwork featured at a Handforth Gallery exhibit in Tacoma Public
Library’s main branch.
working in tandem with Di Nino’s
own solo show “Riding the
Express Bus 594” — it sculpts a
complex, lighthearted image of
Tacoma.
At first blush, “Riding the
Express Bus 594” is the cleaner
and punchier of the two shows.
Di Nino, with her
characteristically sharp wit, has
condensed Tacoma’s population
into 14 10-inch-high cement
people sitting on gray concrete bus
seats that jut out in relief from the
wall. Behind them are
parallelogram-shaped
photographs of the view out of the
windows of the Tacoma-Seattle
bus, many worthy landscapes in
their own right: the Puyallup
River, shining on a blue-sky day
with Mount Rainer behind; a
mediation on SeaTac high-rises;
blurry traffic. But it’s the people —
just small enough in scale
compared to their window-views
to be adorable — that say the
most. There are a couple of
celebrities riding this bus, like
Dale Chihuly clutching a macchia
on his lap, staring with typical
At Di Nino’s urging, she and other local
artists have sculpted tiny figurines of
themselves, each epitomizing how they see
Tacoma.
blankness as he rides past Di
Nino’s own house (she’s waving
cheerily from the upstairs
window); or Tiger Woods,
complete with golf clubs, staring
bemusedly out the window at an
Indian smoke shop.
But the rest are “types,”
epitomized with friendly humor:
the politician with dorky glasses
and suit, the shopper with
purple-dot blouse, the spotty teen
with phone and earbuds.
Occasionally, the contrast with
their window view is telling, like
the youth in a hoodie who’s bent
in despair, head in hands, as a
serene forest drifts by.
On the opposite wall, the story
of Tacoma gets a little more
complex and less direct. At Di
Nino’s urging, 24 local artists (and
herself) have sculpted tiny
figurines of themselves, each
epitomizing how they see Tacoma.
Following the fable of the blind
men discovering an elephant part
by part, are installed climbing up a
giant pink paper elephant taped to
the wall.
The installation itself is
problematic, and takes away from
the strength of the art. Most of the
figures have their backs to the
viewer, which means you can’t see
some of the most artistic touches:
the blind barn-owl face on
Heather Cornelius’ exquisite clay
gold-winged bird-woman; the
intricate Sumerian-style mask on
Becky Frehse’s artist decked out in
a cacophony of colors and
textures; the long-beaked nose on
Claudia Riedener’s blonde
self-portrait, ever curious. The
simplistic paper elephant doesn’t
help, either. Perhaps a better
solution would have been some
kind of clear elephant with a tiny
model of Tacoma inside it,
allowing each figure to be both
touching it and viewable from all
sides. Or maybe a mirror.
The other issue with “A Fable” is
reading the extremely informative,
often-poetic texts provided by
most artists on how they see our
city. Currently arranged on the
facing wall, this text would be
easier to match with its sculptures
on a printed sheet of paper, or
even an app (hello, Tacoma Public
Library?) that allowed an icon of
each sculpture to reveal its own
story.
Nevertheless, the concept of a
place as something only
imperfectly understood from
multiple viewpoints is extremely
well-expressed. We have Di Nino
herself, made of white concrete
and wearing protective
eye-goggles, discovering a peanut
(elephant — get it?). There’s
Marita Dingus, with a clear plastic
piping torso and red crate legs,
two black-fabric hands extended
to the elephant like a prophet; and
Di Morgan-Graves in a turquoise
turban and kaftan, gesturing like a
seer out of the “Arabian Nights.”
Ruby Reusable is there, wearing
an upcycled plastic headdress, and
Elayne Vogel sports a diva outfit of
feather-boa shoes and peacock hat.
At the top, Jeremy Gregory in
khaki skate clothes grins as he
touches the saddle-cloth: an
edition of The News Tribune itself.
In other words, what each artist
says about Tacoma through their
art says as much about themselves
— a perfect metaphor for the way
we all view life.
Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568
rosemary.ponnekanti@
thenewstribune.com
@rose_ponnekanti
Friday, June 12, 2015 • Thenewstribune.com/Entertainment