posts by Alec Clayton
By Alec Clayton Washington State’s Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna offered up a fitting end to a glittering night of art at the Washington Center‘s “Center Salon” on Friday, April 12. Castro Luna called her suite of poems “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” as inspired by the Tina Turner song of the same …
By ALEC CLAYTON The Washington Center for the Performing Arts celebrates local artists of all stripes in its fourth-annual Center Salon. This year’s event will be headed by playwright Bryan Willis, OLY ARTS’ contributing editor and founder of the Northwest Playwrights Alliance. It features music, poetry, short stories and theater. “We’re looking forward to featuring Washington …
By Alec Clayton Painter and teacher Scott Waeschle has shown his figure paintings and landscapes in area galleries for decades. This year, Olympians get to see something new from Waeschle: flowers. Waeschle explains how the new work came about. “I had both knees replaced two years ago,” he says, “and spent two months in the …
By Alec Clayton Tom Anderson is practically an art institution in Olympia. His studio has been open to the public since the 1980s. He’s created many well-known, public-art installations: the Park of the Seven Oars on Harrison, a suite of mural-size paintings in the emergency-room lobby at Providence St. Peters Hospital.His works are in many …
By Alec Clayton The gallery space once known as Salon Refu is now Lucy Gentry’s studio. “For Arts Walk,” Gentry says, “Susan Christian and I, plus a wonderful, Seattle artist named Lauren Boilini, are showing at my studio. Lauren’s work is really wonderful. Susan will be showing some paintings and a stick sculpture. I will be …
By Alec Clayton Once again, Bob Cable and Debra van Tuinen grace the space at Waterstreet Café for Arts Walk. “I will be showing my new oils on canvas,” van Tuinen says. “I have a new series. ‘Light Revealed.’ That I am also showing at my show at Space gallery in Denver in July.” Van Tuinen is celebrated for …
By Alec Clayton As long as there has been Arts Walk in Olympia, Childhood’s End Gallery has been one of the most popular galleries to visit. In the past the gallery has featured works by no more than three or four popular area artists. This year it presents “Carved Wood & Ceramics,” a themed show …
ART REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS A warm and welcoming glow washes over you as you step into the gallery at Childhood’s End. It’s not just that the art on display is good, which it is. It’s the spacing of the art and the dominant colors that flow wavelike from painting to painting …
by Alec Clayton Coming to Olympia Little Theatre is Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy, perhaps best known from the Academy Award-winning film starring Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Aykroyd. The play was the first in Uhry’s Atlanta Trilogy. It has won awards in revival on Broadway, as well as being remade …
By ALEC CLAYTON Bunbury, subtitled A Serious Play for Trivial People, comes to Olympia Little Theatre this March — but what or whom is Bunbury? For 124 years he’s been a throwaway reference in a popular comedy. In a new play by Tom Jacobson, however, he’s the title character, who enjoys a romance and encounters …