“The point of the studio tour is to allow people to go behind the scenes and see how the work is made.” said Susan Aurand, acting president of the South Sound Studio Tour’s board of directors. Many artists are sharing their studio space with colleagues for the tour, happening the last weekend of May in Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater, so there’ll be about 80 artists involved, showing their work and offering insights into their methods.
The 2026 Center Salon will take place Mothers Day weekend, Saturday, May 9, in the Washington Center Black Box Theater with cabaret-style seating to provide an immersive ambiance. In commemoration of Mother’s Day weekend, many pieces included in this year’s Center Salon will tie back to the themes of mothers and motherhood. This includes a slideshow that will be projected ahead of the salon, featuring family photos of performers and audience members.
The print edition of Oly Arts magazine is published! This is our 10th anniversary edition and it includes The Oly Arts Origin Story and much more! Find out where you can pick up a free copy and/or read and download the PDF version.
On April 7th the Lacey Timberland Library will host a screening and discussion of a 2016 documentary from Exhibition on Screen, The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch who painted nightmares and left them for us to interpret. The documentary takes a close look at who Bosch actually was a deeply religious 15th-century Dutch painter working at the edge of the medieval and Renaissance worlds.
This free event is part of The Painted Screen, a monthly series to explore the lives and legacies of visual artists through film. The future of the library’s series is now uncertain as Timberland Regional Library is in the midst of a serious financial crisis.
Each artist in Atmospheres at Childhood’s Eng Gallery offers not only a different environment, a different perspective, and a unique distance from their chosen subject matter, but also a different emotional response and interpretation. Albala’s Distance, suggesting meditation; Eshelman’s middle Distance, suggesting serenity; and Mathie’s close-up, suggesting awakened physical senses, are all encompassed in this show. Three very distinct individual viewpoints are able to live happily in the same gallery with unity in discourse – open through April 19.
There are so many pieces to get lost in at the Black Artists Exhibition, nestled, as it is in the modest space of The Gallery at Tacoma Community College. Repurposed art, sculptures, loving portraits (Charles Conner’s warm rendition of comedian and activist Dick Gregory was a pleasant surprise), clothes and quilt-making — all to be discovered at this show which is open through March 13.
Join us for the Center Salon, an annual dynamic gathering that showcases many forms of artistic expression – from visual artists and writers to musicians, actors, comedians, and filmmakers. Each year brings a unique mix of performances and creative showcases where artists connect and audiences discover something extraordinary.
Many who come to hummingbird studio are defined by our society as disabled, and many are not. There are volunteers from Evergreen along with community members who just love to create and be part of this community of creators. “It’s the people,” said Willow, a former Evergreen College student who first discovered the studio through the college’s work-study program, but keeps coming back. “They (the leaders) do an amazing job of creating an environment where people feel safe and relaxed,” Willow said. hummingbird sudio is an inclusive art space where everyone is welcome, with people of all kinds and all abilities creating art together. At its foundation is a belief in the transformative power of art.
South Puget Sound Community College’s Fine Art Postcard Exhibition 2026 includes 198 artworks by the local creative community of all ages, and the content of the pieces — on the theme “Out of Order” — is as diverse as the artists themselves. The annual show is the college’s best-attended exhibition and its most important in that it raises money for the college’s Leonor R. Fuller Gallery. It also provides a window into the minds of the contributors.
Painters David Noah Giles and CJ Swanson, who, after 33 years as a married couple, are having their first two-person exhibition this month. The show runs Jan. 2-30. It is titled: Art Story: Reflection of an Artist Couple. It can be seen in The Art Gallery at Tacoma Community College. “This exhibition will give the viewer some insight into two artists’ lives together,” Swanson said. She and her husband view their experience to be similar to the experiences of other artist couples such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Elaine and Willem de Kooning and others who came before them in art history.