posts by Alec Clayton
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Before there were machines called computers, there were women called computers, meaning, according to Peter Shaw (Drew Doyle) in the play Silent Sky at Olympia Little Theatre, “one who computes.” Female scientists who were highly overqualified and severely underpaid were hired to do dull, routine jobs the …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play August: Osage County by Tracy Letts is a play unlike any other. The story unfolds, or should we say erupts, over a few weeks in the rural Oklahoma home of Beverly and Violet Weston. It opens with Beverly, a crusty but kindly …
by Adam McKinney for OLY ARTS Continuing its quest to bring classical music to the people, Emerald City Music has returned for a second season. Formed in 2015 by Andrew Goldstein and Kristin Lee, ECM aims to strip away the perceived pretentiousness and exclusivity of classical music that have historically kept casual audiences at arm’s …
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Marilyn Frasca is one of the South Sound’s most beloved artists, as evidenced by the crowds that flocked to her solo show at Childhood’s End Gallery in 2013. It was a rare honor for the artist, in that the gallery almost never does one-person shows. That show featured 71 …
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS At a time when women and science are dismissed out of hand by a large segment of the population, Olympia Little Theatre presents Silent Sky, a play about pioneering, female astronomers a century ago — women who were called office “computers” and whose accomplishments were credited to men. OLT …
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Featured artists for August and September at Art House Designs are painters Susie Englestad and C. J. Swanson. Both artists present work that is colorful and abstract but derived from nature. Englestad, the owner of Art House Designs, paints with flat squiggles and organic shapes that dance across the …
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Browsers Bookshop is going into the art-exhibition business. On August 12 it opens a show of works on paper by five local artists: Arrington De Dionyso, Aisha Harrison, Evan Horback, Nikki McClure and Madeline Waits. The show is called A Paper Narrative. De Dionyso is an artist and musician …
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS When not appearing on area stages, Dennis Rolly can be found serving customers at Pellegrino’s Italian Kitchen in Tumwater or riding scooters (a Taiwanese SYM 200 and an Italian Piaggio 500) with his wife, Gail, or traveling cross country. The latter is an every-other-year excursion, usually going to Kentucky, …
by Christina Butcher for OLY ARTS When artists stop creating art in one medium, they most likely start in another. Whether the transition is from painting to sculpting, drawing to writing or dancing to photography, the chances of an artist being truly “done” with art are slim to none. When talking about Alec Clayton, Olympia’s …
VISUAL ARTS REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS New to Olympia’s art scene is metal sculptor Cyrra Robinson, a recent graduate of The Evergreen State College, who’s showing a group of sculptures derived from life under the sea. Her sculptures are monumental in concept if not in actual size. They look like they should …