By Mariella Luz Olympia Artspace Alliance is seeking proposals from artists and artist teams to develop site-responsive, temporary, two-dimensional art installations related to the theme “Drawing on Olympia.” The artwork will be installed in vacant storefront windows in downtown Olympia from August 9 to September 20. Project Summary: “Art in Olympia Storefronts” is a new …
By JONAH BARRETT Driving to a dark park to spend 30 minutes watching Fourth of July fireworks from the dewy grass is so 2018. Also, there are bugs — gross. Why not turn the outing into an entire festival? For 19 years, the Tumwater Downtown Association has put on the Artesian Festival at Tumwater Valley …
By Molly Walsh On Sunday, June 23, thousands of members of the LGBTQ community and their supporters convened on downtown Olympia to celebrate Pride. It was the largest parade on record, according to Capital City Pride Coordinator Gina Thompson. Accompanying the parade at Heritage Park were over 100 booths of local organizations, artisan crafts and …
ART REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Mia Schulte knows her way around paint brushes and palette knives. When it comes to color, form and texture, she has a sure hand. So do the four other women who join her in the exhibition Out of the Blue at Childhood’s End Gallery: Susan Glendenning, Laraine …
By Billy Thomas Local author, entrepreneur and community activist Olivia Salazar de Breaux has written a new book that pays homage to family and her hometown of Olympia. She recently sat down with OLY ARTS to talk about her journey along the creative process. “The idea came to me in an English course a couple …
By JONAH BARRETT Growing up LGBTQ+ can be a challenge. Queer youth face a number of difficulties, like developing straight crushes, teachers using the wrong pronouns, even not being accepted by their families. It’s a tough journey, but it isn’t all gloom and doom. Two major nonprofit organizations are helping LGBTQ+ youth get a leg …
By Alec Clayton A collection of 50 small Sumi artworks from 22 members of Puget Sound Sumi Artists fills the walls at the Fifth Avenue Loft Gallery. “There’s a good cross section of traditional sumi-e and contemporary mark-making in the show, which more and more of our members are trying,” says artist, teacher, calligrapher Sally …
Annual festival showcases world-class cartoonists, and now includes a wedding! By NED HAYES Olympia’s Comics Festival returns on Saturday, June 15. This free exposition was created in 2001 by Danger Room proprietor Frank Hussey and has grown tremendously over the past 19 years. This year’s day-long festival expo will feature more than 50 tables with …
By NOAH SHACHAR Some movies win Academy Awards, are nearly forgotten and hardly spoken about again. Some movies are simply boring, while others are entertaining or insightful. But a few movies ignite themselves in a blazing pyre to emerge as a phoenix from smoldering ashes ever livelier, more passionate and mesmerizingly intriguing — growing and …
By Billy Thomas The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, one of Olympia’s premier performing arts spaces since 1985, has announced their recipient of the Anacker Scholarship for the Arts. The scholarship is provided each year to a graduating high school senior from Thurston County who plans to study and pursue a career in the …