posts that contain mini-bios of our writers
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 Ned Hayes for OLY ARTS “Books by the Bay,” an annual music-and-literary party, will fill the Port Plaza on July 28. The event, which expands every year, is a fundraiser for the activities of the 16-year-old South Sound Reading Foundation. Three years ago, the Reading Foundation moved Books by the Bay to the plaza. …
by Jennifer Crain for OLY ARTS On August 10, the doors to the New Orleans-inspired Tipsy Piano Bar will open. The downtown venue will feature Southern and Southwest cuisine and a lounge-style dining room designed for easy conversation. In the newly renovated space, patrons will sit at candlelit tables and order drinks from a granite-topped …
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 Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS In The Incredible Undersea Trial of Joseph P. Lawnboy, opening Saturday at Olympia Family Theater, boy meets fish — and loon, and other denizens of Puget Sound — and learns deep lessons about the importance of water. The Open Road Productions musical is educational but not dry (in any …
by Christian Carvajal for OLY ARTS StoryOly bills itself as Olympia’s premier storytelling event. On the third Tuesday evening of each month since November 2015, amateur storytellers have braved the stage to regale full houses at Rhythm & Rye with meaningful anecdotes from their own lives. Tales range from movingly confessional to outrageously frank. Each …
by Adam McKinney for OLY ARTS It’s a dream, for many, to have their presence keenly felt in their community. Whether this be through the simple act of offering a friendly face, lending a hand in civic projects or providing beauty through the arts, leaving a positive impression is an admirable goal for anyone to …
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 …
by Molly Gilmore for OLY ARTS The International Bob Dylan Tribute Festival, stopping Saturday in Olympia’s West Central Park, was founded not by a lifelong fan of the Nobel Prize-winning folk icon. Rather, tribute organizer and singer-songwriter Dewey Paul Moffitt of Keystone, Colorado, got interested in Dylan only after a stint selling merchandise for a …