Submitted by Tacoma Art Museum

Even with doors closed to the public, Tacoma Art Museum is connecting the community through the arts with new ventures into digital programming and events this summer.

“Adapting to the challenges presented by COVID-19 has called for TAM staff to demonstrate new levels of collaboration and creativity,“ noted David F. Setford, TAM Executive Director. “From our second annual Pride celebration to an online panel discussion about the community murals created as a response to business closures, Tacoma’s arts and cultural sector has rallied.”

PRIDE Party

Thursday, July 16
Free, Online

Tacoma Art Museum is excited to celebrate Tacoma Pride with our second annual PRIDE Party! We’re partying virtually this year. Sneak into the galleries with two of our favorite drag queens, Indika Haze and Patsy De Cline, for a one-of-a-kind video tour, try your hand at crafting a cocktail or mocktail designed by 1022 S. J Street bartenders Chandler Crite and Shelby Stewart, and express yourself with some art-making. Join us for all this and more! Find it all at www.tacomaartmuseum.org

TAM Teen Art Council

“NakeyCebolla”
Online at www.tacomaartmuseum.org

As COVID-19 rages on and the world unceasingly grows more complex, teens are finding alternative ways to connect in isolation. Created by TAM’s Teen Art Council this quarenzine, “NakeyCebolla”, is a collaborative effort to build a community of young creatives and allow teens to express their thoughts, feelings and frustrations surrounding this strange time we find ourselves in, with all the layers and vulnerability the moment requires.

TAM Teen Art Council Applications Open

TAM is proud to announce that we are onboarding for Teen Art Council’s 2020-21 school year. The program puts youth in the lead, asking them to apply their unique perspectives in developing new programs for fellow teens on Third Thursdays and for other teen programming.

The Teen Art Council will include youth who are interested in engaging other high school students around art and contemporary issues. These young museum leaders will develop innovative and lively events to shift the way teens think about museums, and the way museums think about teens.

Members of the council are eligible to receive volunteer service hours through their participation. Artists, change-makers, and outside-the-box thinkers who are entering grades 10–12 are encouraged to apply.

Applications are due by Friday, August 7, 2020

Online Exhibition Tour of Forgotten Stories: Northwest Public Art of the 1930s

Tour can be found here

Enjoy a virtual tour of Forgotten Stories: Northwest Public Art of the 1930s which opened on February 22, 2020 led by Margaret Bullock, Interim Chief Curator and Curator of Collections and Special Exhibitions.

During the economic hard times of the 1930s, U.S. government art projects under the Works Progress Administration [WPA] and other agencies created a wealth of public art and supported communities across the country. In the Northwest, hundreds of artists were employed and thousands of artworks created but their stories are almost unknown. This exhibition offers an extensive overview of the bounty and variety of work created in our region and brings forgotten treasures back to view.

Forgotten Stories: Northwest Public Art of the 1930s was organized by Tacoma Art Museum and generously supported in part by ArtsFund and Tacoma Arts Commission. The publication is made possible by the Henry Luce Foundation. Both the publication and exhibition have been thoughtfully supported by associate sponsors Matthew and Kimberly Bergman. The virtual exhibition video series was supported by Nordstrom.

Conversation and WPA Era Artwork with Nina Olsson

Thursday, July 23
6:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Free
Zoom™ event
Registration required

Join us as we dive deeper into Forgotten Stories: Northwest Public Art of the 1930s with stories about the discovery and conservation of WPA era murals. Conservator and contributing author Nina Olsson and Interim Chief Curator, Curator of Collections and Special Exhibitions Margaret Bullock will share what conserving these murals entails and the work that it takes to track down forgotten works of art.

Nina Olsson is a researcher and conservator of paintings in private practice based in Portland, Oregon since 2001. Olsson has 30 years of professional experience in both Europe and the US, with an emphasis on the conservation of paintings and polychrome sculpture. Olsson has exper­tise in the technical examination of works painted on panel, canvas, paper, wood, murals and various mediums, their conservation, and restoration treatment, collection surveys, and provides consultation on the framing, storage, transport and exhibition of works of art, servicing private and institutional clients in the Pacific Northwest region and beyond.

Margaret E. Bullock is Interim Chief Curator and Curator of Collections and Special Exhibitions, Tacoma Art Museum. She holds an MA in Anthropology from Washington State University and an MA in Art History from the University of Oregon. Prior to joining the Tacoma Art Museum in 2007, she was curator at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico, Associate Curator of American Art at the Portland Art Museum, Oregon and a research fellow in American art at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama. She has curated exhibitions and written articles and books on American and European fine and decorative arts. Her specialty is late 19th and early 20th century American art with a particular focus on the art of the Pacific Northwest.

You can read Nina Olsson’s essay and many more in the catalogue available through the TAM store.

Public Art in the Pandemic

Thursday, July 30
6:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Free
Zoom™ event
Registration required

During the economic depression of the 1930s, U.S. government art projects created a wealth of public art and supported artists across the country, as explored in the exhibition Forgotten Stories: Northwest Public Art of the 1930s.

In our current global economic crisis, brought on by COVID-19, artists have once again been called upon to create government-sponsored public art, this time on the boarded-up businesses around Tacoma.

Spaceworks Tacoma has been helping connect artists to places with their Rapid Mural Response Program. These temporary murals, painted directly onto installed plywood panels, serve to reduce crime and graffiti, support local businesses, provide income for local artists, and offer civic hope and positive messaging.

Join us for an online discussion with some of the artists and organizers who have been brightening up Tacoma during the pandemic. We will take a look at the work they have made and check in with their art-making practices during the shelter in place orders.

Second Saturday Studio & Storytimes

Now online at www.tacomaartmuseum.org

We can’t meet in person, but Studio & Storytime continues online! Check out our storytime and activity videos on TAM’s website.

TAM Gala

Wednesday, September 16
5:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Save the date for TAM’s first-ever virtual gala. More details to come soon.

Tacoma Art Museum remains closed to the public.