By Alec Clayton Guest juror Aisha Harrison chose a wide variety of art for the 2021 Southwest Washington Juried Exhibition at South Puget Sound Community College: paintings, sculpture, textiles in many styles and wide-ranging content. It is great to see this show returning for in-person viewing, albeit at 50 percent capacity. Indicative of the eclectic …
By Alec Clayton Each year, award winners from South Puget Sound Community College’s juried exhibition are featured in the Juror’s Invitational. This year’s invited artists comprise a quartet of contrasting but equally excellent artists selected by juror June Sekiguchi. They are painters Marilyn Bedford and Hart James, sculptor Ron Hinton, and photographer John Korvell. Bedford …
By Molly Walsh Throughout this past year, many Americans have faced an uncertain future, continuing to wrestle with feelings of isolation, a need for social justice and a longing for connection. And for many musicians, this isolation has been compounded by empty theater seats and rehearsals restricted to a computer screen. Drawing from the experience …
By Alec Clayton “It’s fabulous to be Black – celebrate it. It’s fabulous to be any color under the sun – again celebrate it. That’s what brings back dignity to each human being.” This was written by artist Sandra Bocas for the occasion of her inclusion of the exhibition “Closer” at the Leonor R. Fuller Gallery at South Puget Sound Community College. …
By Aigner Loren Wilson Recently, local artist Nancy Thorne-Chambers won the 2020 Peoples’ Prize Winner for the Percival Plinth Project for her work Girl Reading in a Story Place. Oly Arts hosted an interview with the artist about the sculpture and recent win. This article is a highlight of the interview and showcase for the …
By Molly Gilmore Literary walks, a livestreamed concert and a show of work by Black artists are among the winners of Olympia’s Arts Month Innovation awards. The city began giving the awards last year to honor projects that stood out in their efforts to encourage community connection and involvement with the arts. “We wanted to …
By Alec Clayton In the South Sound as in the country at large, black artists are poorly represented. The “Futures Rising” exhibition, at the Leonor R. Fuller Gallery inside South Puget Sound Community College’s Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts, proves that there are many more excellent black artists in the area than is …
By Alec Clayton Sharon Styer, whose work was exhibited in Harlequin Productions’ lobby during the performance of “Noises Off,” and Gail Ramsey Wharton, who recently conducted a Zoom studio tour as part of the “SPSCC Creative ‘Something’,” are collage artists. They share similar sensibilities and humor. Both artists can be wacky at times, sometimes in …
By Alec Clayton Hart James is quickly becoming one of the Olympia area’s most beloved visual artists. People who have not seen her paintings should do so. “Life is a layering of existences. Each layer is imbued with intense energy,” James explains. “My work speaks of this energy and these layers; the current of the …
By Laurie Owen, community contributor The Leonor R. Fuller Gallery at South Puget Sound Community College is hosting a remarkable show—the 12th Annual Native American Arts Exhibition, curated by Philip Red Eagle. Six Native American artists are represented, each of whose work could easily find a place in major shows in New York City or …