Visual Arts

posts about art, art shows, galleries and other visual arts…

Here Come the Trolls 

A dozen new creatures will soon join the sea lions, tigers and bears at the Point Defiance Zoo and the wolves at Northwest Trek. The eagerly anticipated arrivals — on view to the public beginning Oct. 15 — shouldn’t be too hard to spot: Each is between 7 and 9 feet tall. They are whimsical wooden trolls created by Danish activist and artist Thomas Dambo, who has attracted international attention for the folklore-inspired creatures he makes from reclaimed and recycled materials, including branches, twigs and pallets. They’re part of the traveling exhibition “Trolls: A Field Study.”

Oly Arts Fall/Winter 2026 Print Edition — Issue No. 37

The Fall/Winter print edition of Oly Arts magazine is published! Copies of the printed version are available free of charge throughout the area – find out where you can pick up a copy and see a list of articles in this issue.

From Hwagae Market to Pike Place Market at SPSCC

The art shared in the show “From Hwagae Market to Pike Place Market” at South Sound Community College through October 16 is from fourteen artists selected from the Korean American Artists Association of Washington, which makes for a very mixed response to the theme aesthetically, with styles ranging from surreal painterly studies, still life and folk art in style, to collage, wire work, and installations.

South Sound Studio Tour is Looking for New Board Members

Many area residents and visitors have loved participating in the South Sound Studio Tour, seeing local artists’ creations up close and personal, talking with the artists about their art, and in many instances watching the magic of turning blank sheets of paper or canvas, hunks of clay or found materials into works of art. Now the Studio Tour is looking for volunteers to serve on the board, specifically, to fill the Outreach Coordinator and Volunteer Coordinator roles.

MOTHER – at TCMoFA, a Show Curated by Fern Tallos

“MOTHER” is a visual and verbal exploration at Thurston County Museum of Fine Art through September 18. The show presents personal accounts in various media by nineteen artists on birthing, motherhood, and the emotional and physical labor involved in bringing up children – a hot-button subject in these times given the abolition of Roe v. Wade, and the subsequent dangerously stringent laws governing bodies with wombs.

Form a Line at Childhood’s End

Line is the way we first learn to make a mark. From crayon drawings of infants to Kathe Kollwitz to a Leonardo da Vinci cartoon, quality of line has varied ways of evoking and portraying our experiences of life around us. Line is subtly seductive in its simplicity or can be bold, dynamic, and dramatic. The emotions we can evoke using line are as varied as any gestural mark possibly could be. “Form a Line” at Childhoods End Gallery July 31 through September 20 s a visual exploration of observations from nature through expression in line.

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