Letter From the Publisher: Support the Arts in 2020

2020 is almost here, and we’d like to ask you to make a resolution to support the arts with us. Since we opened in 2016, OLY ARTS magazine has continued to expand its FREE coverage and offerings to our community. We hope that you will be able to take part in one or more of …

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Hundreds of Paintings: a Visit to Art House Designs

Review by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Art House Designs is a large frame shop and gallery with hundreds and hundreds of paintings, prints and other artworks displayed salon style on the walls and on tables and even stacked on the floor. The collection includes hundreds of original paintings and prints by local and regional …

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Street Art Serves as Foundation for Olympia Artists

By Anna Schlecht Olympia has become a “city of murals”, with an ever-growing number of large format artworks on walls across the urban hub and beyond. Some murals appear overnight, executed without payment or permission. Others are juried by experts and commissioned for thousands of dollars. Into this pantheon of public art enters a unique …

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Seasonal Ice Rink Solidifies Its Place in Olympia

By Jerica Pender It was 2007, just as our country took a deep dive into a recession, that the idea for a pop-up ice rink popped up on Jonathan Turlove’s radar. As the director of parks planning & maintenance for City of Olympia Parks, Arts & Recreation, it’s his job to have great ideas. But …

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Susan Aurand: Realism Meets Experimentation Meets Mysterious

By ALEC CLAYTON Almost everyone familiar with the Olympia art scene knows – or should know – Susan Aurand’s work. For many years, beginning in 1974, she taught at The Evergreen State College, and over the years she’s shown her art in such local venues as Childhood’s End Gallery and South Puget Sound Community College …

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Art Takes Flight Inside Hummingbird Studio

By ALEC CLAYTON On a Wednesday morning in November, over 20 people gather around two long tables in downtown Olympia’s Hummingbird Studio. They’re students at The Evergreen State College, or they’re from the Transitions Program of Olympia School District, which provides opportunities to envision the potential for post-secondary education. As the Transitions website puts it, …

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Photo Gallery: Ballet Northwest Previews 35th Nutcracker

An exclusive photo gallery by MOLLY WALSH for OLY ARTS. WHAT Ballet Northwest’s The Nutcracker WHERE The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, 512 Washington St. SE, Olympia WHEN 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Dec. 13 and 14, 20 and 21; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Dec. 14, 15, 21 and 22 HOW MUCH $14-$35 …

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Music and Light Herald the Winter Solstice with The Olympia Peace Choir

By Karen Lunde When the calendar flips to December, it’s nigh impossible to walk into a store or turn on the TV without hearing endless refrains of Jingle Bell Rock and Frosty the Snowman. Love them or loathe them, holiday songs are ubiquitous this time of year. But The Olympia Peace Choir’s concert at Huntamer …

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Student Musicians Spark a Season of Joy and Hope

By Karen Lunde The Washington Center and Minnaert Center stages will ring with the sounds of orchestras and choirs this weekend as Olympia’s student musicians take the stage. One will deliver a beloved holiday tradition, and the other a program centered around the universal theme of hope. On Friday, December 6, the Student Orchestras of …

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