Cutting a window into the trestle

Jeremy Mangan mural installed under trestle at Freighthouse Square

By Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, Dec. 28, 2017

Crane installing one of a dozen mural panels, photo courtesy Jeremy Mangan

A large mural measuring 7½ by 48 feet by Tacoma Foundation of Art Award winner Jeremy Mangan was installed beneath the railroad trestle near Freighthouse Square last week and revealed in an installation celebration at the Amtrak Cascades Station on December 15.

Titled "The Wood Carving Beach," the mural depicts a beach where wood carvings have piled up along with driftwood. Mangan says the carvings could have washed up on the beach, or they could have been carved on site, or both.

Mangan made a 12-inch by 77-inch painting in oil on panel. Then, Winsor Fireform in Tumwater scanned the painting, converted the colors to multichannel/duotone, enlarged it, and printed the image onto 12 steel panels, each 7½-feet tall by 4-feet wide, using porcelain enamel pigments. These panels were then fired in kilns and sealed to create the finished mural. The artist says the scanned and enlarged image accurately reproduces the painting down to the detail of a single brush hair embedded in the paint.

Mangan is a well-known Tacoma artist. In addition to the Foundation of Art Award, he has been the recipient of a 2015 Tacoma Artists Initiative program grant and a 2013 Artist Trust fellowship. He was a Neddy Award finalist, and he won the People's Choice Award at the Tacoma Art Museum’s 10th Northwest Biennial.

Mangan says, “I wanted the mural to relate to the neighborhood and the area. I wasn’t looking for overt connections, but rather more subtle overlaps in form and content. Wood and lumber became a central theme, and I took my primary cues from the clapboard construction of Freighthouse square, the wooden dome of the Tacoma Dome, the history of logging and lumber transport in the area, the timbers of the old railroad trestle itself, Thea-Foss waterway, the beaches and driftwood that surround us, and the history of wood carving and shaping in the Dome District and the region — indigenous peoples to present.

“Given the mural’s location on a retaining wall underneath the trestle, I wanted to create space, light, distance. I wanted to ‘cut a window.’ I thought about people driving and walking by, so I aimed to create an image that would work well from a distance and up close. And given the public nature of the piece, I wanted it to be inviting, bright and whimsical (but still with the dose of mystery and strangeness which is typical of my work). I wanted it to interest both adults and children. Hopefully it’s an enjoyable image that invites the viewer to both visually explore and posit narratives. Why are all these wood carvings on this beach? Where did they come from? How long have they been there? Why would someone go to the trouble to create them? I hope the mural stirs the imagination and rewards multiple viewings.”

The Wood Carving Beach by Jeremy Mangan, underneath the railway trestle at the intersection of E 26th and E G Streets in Tacoma's Dome District.

Shon Frostad’s maritime paintings at the Seaport Museum

Reviewed by Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, Dec. 28, 2017

 “47° North, 122° West, Turquois,” mixed-media painting by Shon Frostad, photo courtesy the artist

When I walked into the Seaport Museum to see Shon Frostad’s painting exhibition, there was a moment when I could not recognize the paintings as paintings, because the museum is filled with boats, anchors, charts, bones of whales, and other memorabilia of sea life, and I thought the paintings I saw on a wall to my left were sections of old ship hulls. As it turned out, they were paintings of sections of ship hulls —so realistic that they become almost surreal. Like Andy Warhol’s replicas of Brillo boxes, they are indistinguishable from what they are paintings of, yet clearly not the real thing. There’s something eerie about that, especially in such a setting as a seaport museum.

The title of the show comes from the symbols seen on the sides of commercial vessels.

“The symbols on the ship's hull indicate such things as a vessel's 'draft', or depth in the water, what the allowable draft is for that vessel depending on the season, and even the particular ocean the ship may be traveling in,” says Frostad. “One circular symbol indicates the insurer of the vessel; another where a tugboat may or may not contact the ship's hull. Yet others show where a ship's inner bulkheads or compartments are.”

The tile of this show, 47 º North, 122 º West, refers to the geographic coordinates for Tacoma.

Frostad’s paintings on wood panels vary in sizes up to 4-by-8 feet. Some of the lettering, as well as such painted details as brads and welded seams, are built up to a quarter inch above the surface, either through the use of thick paint or with some kind of gel or other media.

What stands out is the stark simplicity and straightforwardness of the images, the color combinations, and most of all the incredible textures that lend the works the look of rust, scratches, worn and peeling paint. The only thing separating them from actual sections of ship hulls is none of them are literally bent or scratched. It is all illusory trompe le’oeil painting.

In addition to these paintings, Frostad has included two more traditional modernist figure paintings, both of surfers. One, called “Hang Ten” is a close-up, realistic painting of feet with toes hanging off the front edge of a surfboard. The other one, “Surfers,” shows a line of surfers with tan bodies and swimsuits standing on a beach holding their upright surfboards. The figures are painted flat, with what appears to be pencil or graphite outlining their bodies. Both are nicely executed but do not have the visual impact of the paintings of ship hulls.

This is a show that is guaranteed to be enjoyable, and the museum itself is filled with fascinating memorabilia of a working seaport.

47° North, 122° West by Shon Frostad, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, through Jan. 19, admission $6-$10, free to members and children under 5, 705 Dock Street, Tacoma, www.fosswaterwayseaport.org.

Codependent Menageries

Katlyn Hubner at Feast Art Center

by Alec Clayton

Published in the Weekly Volcano, Dec. 14, 2017

 “Undertow” painting by Kate Hubner, courtesy Feast Art Center

In an artist’s statement, painter Kate Huber quotes a dictionary definition of the words in the title of her show at Feast Art Center. “Codependent : a codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior. Menagerie: A collection of wild animals kept in captivity for exhibition.”

She goes on to define the state of mind depicted by the paintings. “As I have been trying to find myself again for the first time in years, I have been exploring my bad habits of how toxic it can be to make someone else’s ‘problems’ my own. The pretty pain of being engulfed by a cunning and quiet lack of boundaries. That eventually, you begin to lose or confuse your own thoughts, becoming entangled with another. A self-imposed identity crisis.”

There are only five paintings in this exhibition, all in the five-by-six-foot range. If I might go out on a limb with a potentially ludicrous statement, these five paintings might be the best figure paintings I have ever seen outside a major museum, the best by a local or regional artist. Each painting is of a naked human figure or group of figures. Some of the figures are realistic, while some are of ambiguous gender and others devolve into unrecognizable, animal-like shapes —or grow out of such shapes or are wrestling with them. The colors are sizzling with hot reds, pinks and purples, contrasting with a variety of blue tones in the cerulean-teal family. There are harsh and uncomfortable angles of bodies and limbs. Arms ending in clutching hands appear out of unrecognizable animal forms. In many instances, background shapes created by the spaces where body parts meet become positive shapes. The artist explains, “In hopes of making complicated compositions with the form, I want the lines and the triangles of the limbs and reflections to bring a controlled anxiety to being. When you can't tell just how many people are involved; Using colors to bring a slight euphoria to the dark matter.”

Hubner’s painting style is like a marriage of the realism of Phillip Pearlstein and the lushness of Wayne Thibeaud, with the drama of Alfred Leslie or Jack Beal  — that’s like a catalog of the best modern figure painters all combined in the work of one woman from Seattle.

Kate Hubner’s Codependent Menageries, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, and by appointment, through Jan. 7, Feast Arts Center, 1402 S. 11th St., Tacoma, www.feastarts.com 

Evolution of a Painting

“Fun in the Sun” oil stick on board 13” x 47.5”

I did the painting "Fun in the Sun" sometime around 1990. It was a painting of a group of men and women at the beach sitting on folding chairs. Friends at the time were convinced that the figure on the far left was a self-portrait and the far right was my wife, Gabi. I can't remember if that was intentional or not, but they do look something like us at the time.

Starting a little more than a decade later, I made a few other paintings based on it. Sometime around 2004 I did a large series of digital art works done by scanning photos of my earlier paintings and then manipulating them with Paint Shop Pro. "Digital Triplets" was one of those. It was based on the figure third from the left in "Fun in the Sun." I changed him into a woman and copied and pasted the figure twice, and digitally drew into it. I thought of the center figure as breaking into molecules like people from "Star Trek" being transported.

“Digital Triplets” scanned and manipulated photo

Next came "Doublemint Gerbils." It is the man on the left in the first painting again and the woman in the yellow bikini doubled.

“Doublemint Gerbils” Oil stick on paper, 10” x 13” 

With “Parents of Narnia,” done in 2006, I began to abstract the figures more.

“Parents of Narnia” oil on canvas, 21” x 25”

Finally, I made one of my favorite paintings, “Champagne Summer,” in October 2006. With this one I think I pushed the abstraction as far as I could and still be recognizable as figures. I thought of it as celebratory, champagne bubbles. Thus the title.

“Champagne Summer” oil on canvas, 48” x 60”

Review: Once Upon a Mattress at Tacoma Musical Playhouse

by Alec Clayton

Published in The News Tribune, Dec. 8, 2017

Emma Deloye as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone and Jeremy Lynch as Prince Dauntless the Drab, photo by Kat Dollarhide

It is rare for me to Google a play before reviewing it, but I Googled “Once Upon a Mattress” to see if my suspicions about the 1959 Broadway production were true, and I found this on Wikipedia: “Initial reviews of the play were mixed, but critics and actors alike were surprised by the show's enduring popularity.” I suspect it’s popularity was due to one thing, the star power of Carol Burnett. Minus a lead actor with Burnett’s magnetism, it is a run-of-the-mill musical, entertaining but not extraordinary.

The Tacoma Musical Playhouse production might not have Carol Burnett, but it does have Emma Deloye as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone and Jeremy Lynch as Prince Dauntless the Drab, and there is a lot of star power between those two. I might also point out that the cleverness of those names, plus others such as King Sextimus the Silent (Joe Woodland) and the absurdity of Princess Winnifred wanting to be called Fred, are evidence of the kind of sneaky little comic touches writers Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller and Marshall Barer slipped in to elevate “Mattress” a step or two above the mundane.

Based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea,” Prince Dauntless is dying to find a bride, but his mother, the thoroughly despicable Queen Aggravain (Deanna Martinez) insists he can marry only a woman who is a true princess – meaning she must not only be of royal blood but must also be of princess quality. And to prove she is of princess quality, she must pass tests devised by the queen and her minion, Wizard (John Miller) – tests that are impossible to pass. Surely telling what the test is Princess Winnifred must past will not be a spoiler. It is a test of sensitivity, to see if she can feel a single pea place under the bottom mattress of a stack of 20 mattresses.

Minstrel (Tony Williams) sets the personal and fairy-tale mood of the play by opening it with a sweet song as he plays both the narrator and a character in the story. Then the curtain opens on an elaborate castle set designed by Bruce Haasl as the prince and Lady Larken (Ashley Koon) and the ensemble sing the comical “An Opening for a Princess,” which basically announces that the kingdom is advertising for potential princesses to audition for the right to marry Prince Dauntless, followed by a romantic love song, “In a Little While,” between Lady Larken and Sir Harry (Josh Wingerter).

All the principle actors are strong in their roles. Minstrel, King Sextimus and Josh Anderman as Jester make for a fun comic trio plotting against the queen and for the prince and princess. Anderman performs some hilarious physical feats on a dance number, and the king, who has no voice, speaks delightfully via charades. Some of his facial expressions bring to mind Tim Conway. Deloye is funny and strong as the princess. Her rendition of “Shy” is one of the best things in the show, along with her ridiculous gyrations atop the stack of mattresses. Finally, Lynch wonderfully plays the prince as a hapless, dimwitted and lovable man-child.

“Once Upon a Mattress” is a silly bit of comic fluff that might not be the best thing TMP has every done, but it is enjoyable and skillfully produced and acted; love is triumphant, and the evil doer gets her comeuppance.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m., through Dec. 17

WHERE: Tacoma Musical Playhouse at The Narrows Theatre, 7116 Sixth Ave., Tacoma

TICKETS: $22-$31

INFORMATION: 253-565-6867, http://www.tmp.org

On Golden Pond at Olympia Little Theatre

 by Alec Clayton

Meigie Mabry and John Pratt as Ethel and Norman Thayer, photo by Austin Lang

On Golden Pond, written by Ernest Thompson and directed by Kendra Malm for Olympia Little Theatre, is a sweet, touching, funny story about aging, about facing death, about family strife and perhaps most of all about a crotchety and wisecracking old man learning — perhaps in the nick of time — how to express his love for his wife and daughter.

It is not a Christmas play; in fact, it is set in the summer. And this reviewer for one is glad they decided not to do a Christmas play this holiday season. Jews, Muslims, and people who practice religions other than Christianity and atheists who are part of our community are bombarded with a slew of Christian-related entertainment every year at this time, and I applaud OLT’s decision to present a warm and tender show about the love of family with no manger scenes and no Santa Claus.

Oliver Garcia as Billy Ray and John Pratt as Norman, photo by Austin Lang

Veteran actor John Pratt plays Norman Thayer, the crusty old man at the heart of the play. I had the pleasure of interviewing Pratt and Malm, along with Christian Carvajal, for the OLY ARTS “Sound Stages” podcast, and he told us he was 79 years old. Norman is 79 when the play opens and celebrates his 80^th birthday during act one. Pratt told us of many other ways in which he is like Norman. Even if he were not an outstanding actor, which he is, he would be the ideal person to play Norman, and that is evident from the moment he walks onto the set, a beautifully built rustic cottage designed for OLT by Christopher Valcho. Pratt becomes Norman, just as Valcho’s set becomes their old cabin on Golden Pond, a cabin that shows with excellent detail in the marks of 48 years of the Thayer family living out their summers there.

Norman believes it is going to be his last summer in the lake cabin. He has heart palpitations and is convince he will not live out the summer. At least that’s what he tells his wife, Ethel (Meigie Mabry) —over and over and over. But Ethel puts little stock in his dire predictions of impending death because he’s been saying he’s going to die soon for decades. Norman puts everybody on with brilliantly barbed humor that borders on vicious, and Ethel knows he doesn’t mean a word of it. His crustiness is a cover for his inability to express sensitive feelings.

Their daughter Chelsea (Lorana Hoopes) stops by the cabin for a short visit with her boyfriend, Bill Ray (Garrett Shelton) and Ray’s 13-year-old son, Billy Ray (Oliver Garcia). Chelsea and Norman clash as they have done all her life. She says they’ve always been mad at each other, and Norman retorts, “I didn't think we were mad; I just thought we didn't like each other.”

When Chelsea and Bill leave Billy Ray with her parents for the summer, Norman bonds with Billy Ray and has, for a short time, the kind of relationship Chelsea wishes she could have had with her father when she was growing up. Fishing with Billy Ray and introducing him to his favorite books (he is a retired English professor), rejuvenates Norman.

Except for Pratt, all the cast members are relatively new to OLT. Mabry was seen in OLT’s recent production of All the Kings’ Woman, and Garcia played the young Galileo in Starry Messenger. None have extensive acting experience, but you’d never suspect it from their thoroughly professional acting in this play. They portray their characters as down-to-earth, flawed but likeable people. Dean Phillips who plays Charlie the mailman is a charming frequent visitor to the cabin on the lake.

Note: The play was written in the 1970s and set in that time period. By today’s standards, some of Norman’s witticisms are politically incorrect, if not downright offensive, but as directed by Malm and acted by Pratt, it is clear to the audience that he doesn’t really mean those things but is just trying to get a rise out of Ethel — which never really works.

On Golden Pond, 7:25 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 1:55 p.m. Sunday, through Dec. 17 Olympia Little Theatre, 1925 Miller Ave., NE,Olympia, 360.786.9484, http://olympialittletheater.org/, $11-$15, $2 student discount, available at Yenney Music, 2703 Capital Mall Dr.