"Contents of a Dream"

New works by Preston Singletary welcomed to the William Traver Gallery

Top: "Courageous Object," 21"h x 5.5"w x 2"d; Bottom: "Bright Eyes" blown and sand carved glass, 11.5"h x 11.5"w x 8"d. Photos by Russell Johnson courtesy of Traver Gallery.

The Weekly Volcano, March 30, 2011
If you missed Preston Singletary's big mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Glass last year, or if you saw the show and would like to see more of Singletary's works, this is your chance. The William Traver Gallery in Tacoma now has an exhibition of new works by Singletary called Contents of a Dream.

Singletary is one of the Northwest's most well respected Native American artists, known for creating traditional Tlingit art with contemporary materials, thus giving a modern cast to ancient art forms.

The glass sculptures in this show are all new, yet they look to me to be almost identical to pieces shown in the retrospective at MOG. I would probably have to see pieces from the two shows side-by-side to tell if there is any difference at all.

There is, however, one striking and significant difference - not in the works but in the way they are displayed. You see, Traver Gallery has windows, whereas the space where Singletary's work was displayed at MOG didn't; and that makes all the difference in the world. It makes a difference because his blown and sand-carved glass objects have incised shapes on the surface that are not transparent and not even, strictly speaking, translucent, but light can be seen through them. When backlit by the sunlight through the windows and the double glass doors, these areas glow with beautiful colors - brilliant turquoise and a fiery red typically combined with black and in some pieces black and white or sand colored and white.

There is one piece in black and white that when seen from a point of view facing the doors looks ghostly and almost vanishes as if seen though layers of gauze. You'd have to see it on a sunny day to get that amazing effect.

Singletary's sculptures are all of a modest size, approximately 20 inches in the lengthiest direction. Most of them are stylized or abstracted figures of ravens or fish or other figures sacred or culturally significant to Northwest Natives. They are simple shapes with elaborate surface decoration. They are abstract enough that it is hard to tell what they are. Some look like they may be birds or fish, and one in particular, called" Bright Eyes," looks like either a fish or a turtle.

Singletary's simplest sculputres are the most striking. "Bright Eyes," for example, looks like the head of a creature rising out of the water with black and turquoise markings and green eyes (the color of the eyes may vary depending on light and viewpoint). It is a powerfully dramatic image.

Also very dramatic are a number of fish or birds with a single red ball caught in their mouths. The contrast between simple and complex forms in these is very striking.

Another one that I like a lot is "Where the Soul Resides," which is a hollow cylindrical shape with heads in two directions. It is sand colored with the incised areas a soft, translucent white.

The least impressive are a few pieces that picture people riding on the backs of ravens. These illustrate Tlingit legends and probably have significant meaning to people familiar with their customs, but to me the figures look comical and out of context. Even if I knew the stories they illustrate they would still look like unrelated forms that do not work together well from a purely visual point of view. Despite this one criticism, I think the rest of the show is definitely worth seeing.

Through April 17, Tuesday–Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday noon to 5 p.m.
William Traver Gallery
1821 E. Dock St., Tacoma
253.383.3685

Into the garden

“The Secret Garden” at Capital Playhouse

Top, from left: Kate Hayes as Mary, Kurt Raimer in the role of Archibald Craven and Clarke Hallum as Colin. Bottom: Mary and Dickon (Stephen Anastasia). Photos Courtesy of Bailey Boyd.

This will be my third review of “The Secret Garden.” Each has been a different adaptation. Encore! Theatre in Gig Harbor did the musical version by Tim Kelly and Bill Francoeur in the summer of 2005. It was a lighter and less complicated adaptation of the classic story by Frances Hodgson Burnett that was scaled-down and had more children’s parts, making it ideal for small community theaters.  A year later I reviewed a non-musical adaptation by Paula Wing and Michael Shamata at Tacoma Little Theatre that was dark and magical. Those were each entertaining in different ways, but neither had all the big songs and the full-on Broadway-style production values of the more complicated adaptation by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, which was a hit on Broadway. That’s the one Capital Playhouse is doing.

In its grandiose vision, this one has the feel of an opera. In places I was reminded of Steven Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” and of “Les Misérables.” Kurt Raimer in the role of Archibald Craven reminded me of Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean in “Les Miz,” and his duets with Bruce Haasl as Dr. Craven put me in mind of duets by Valjean and Javert. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The plot of “The Secret Garden” is difficult to follow, and it is hard to keep straight the relationships between the various characters living and dead. The inclusion of ghosts, called “Dreamers” complicates the already dense relationships, but these ghosts are essential to the story. They contribute to the dreamlike atmosphere and make the magical transformation of the garden – and of the children Mary and Colin – believable.

Mary (played by Kate Hayes, a fifth grader at Lincoln Options Elementary in Olympia) is a 10-year-old English girl living in India when her parents die in a cholera epidemic. She is sent back to England to live with her uncle Archibald in his bleak country manor in Yorkshire. Archibald’s wife, Lily (Katin Jacobs-Lake) had died years ago, and Archibald is still grieving. Since her death the manor has gone to ruin and the garden she loved has been locked.  

Mary is not the only child in the house. Her cousin Colin (Clarke Hallum) is bedridden, dying, spoiled rotten, and mad at the world. At first Mary and Colin clash angrily, but eventually they become friends, and together they explore the “secret garden” behind a locked wall. 

Hayes plays Mary with skill and has a lovely voice. Hallum, suddenly a local star who gained fame as Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” at the 5^th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, throws himself into the role of Colin. It’s not a large role, but it is demanding, requiring mercurial changes of attitude from hateful to sweet and also requiring a strong voice. Hallum excels in this role.

Jacobs-Lake seems to float across the stage as the ghost of Lily, and she sings with a well controlled soprano voice. She is more suited to this role than she was a Mimi in “Rent,” a role she played both at Capital Playhouse and Tacoma Musical Playhouse last year.

The most outstanding actors are Raimer and Haasl as, respectively, Archibald and Dr. Craven. The tension between these brothers is palpable, and each of these actors expresses their essential natures through body language and posture – Archibald depressed and perpetually hopeless and Dr. Craven haughty and self-assured. The brothers were each in love with Archibald’s wife. Their duet on “Lily’s Eyes” is the most beautiful song in the play. In this song they each express their longing for Lily after being reminded of her because Mary has Lily’s eyes.

Other actors of note include Carolyn Willems Van Dijk as the cute and upbeat chambermaid, Martha; Patrick Wigren as Mary’s father Albert; and Stephen Anastasia as the leprechaun-like gardener Dickon. 

One of the things I have always admired about Capital Playhouse is the way they integrate set changes into the performance as choreographed movements not by stagehands but by characters in the play to avoid awkward disruptions to the flow of the story. In this play the set changes are done as a kind of ballet of movement by the Dreamers, who also serve as a Greek chorus.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, through April 9. Note: the April 6 performance is tentative at this time.

WHERE: Capital Playhouse, 612 East 4^th Ave, Olympia

TICKETS: $30-$41

INFORMATION: 360-943-2744, www.capitalplayhouse.com

'Woman in Black' at Centerstage Theatre is dark, mysterious

COURTESY OF MICHELLE SMITH LEWIS
Rachel Wilkie, from left, Daniel Wood and Vince Brady perform in “The Woman in Black” at Centerstage Theatre.

The Woman in Black” at Centerstage Theatre is an old-fashioned ghost story with exceptional acting from the two-person cast and spine-tingling special effects. It’s a simple story presented with heightened theatricality.

This gripping tale of dark terror begins on a comic note as Kipps, a dowdy and highly nervous solicitor, enters a theater to meet with an actor who is going to help him tell his tale.

The actor (played by Daniel Wood) wants the telling of the tale to be a theatrical presentation, but Kipps (Vince Brady) simply wants to tell his story to family and friends to gain some kind of closure before his horrible memories drive him insane.

His attempts at reading his story in a dramatic fashion are comically inept, as are the actor’s melodramatic attempts at directing him.

But soon they switch identities. The actor steps into the role of Kipps, and Kipps assumes the roles of everyone else in the story. With this change comes a change in atmosphere.

The tale becomes dark, mysterious and frightening as Kipps returns to the fog-enshrouded Eel Marsh House in the marshlands on the eastern coast of England, and there he relives the horror.

“The Woman in Black” is beautifully directed by John Vreeke, and is a technician’s dream, filled with exciting and mysterious lighting and sound effects and an almost bare, yet highly effective set. To credit all the great work from the technical crew and consultants, I would have to list everyone in the production crew, including set and lighting designer Richard Schaefer and sound designer Andrew Senna, with special sound effects from Harlequin Productions in Olympia.

In the wings stand two tall porticos, each with a small window. Against a back curtain, steps rise to a heavy wooden door. The only other set pieces are a few props, such as a couple of trunks and some chairs. Dramatic beams of night light – moonlight and flashes of lightning – shine through unseen windows and reveal a shadowy cemetery and later a child’s bedroom through a back curtain.

Brady and Wood, the only actors, are on stage through almost the entire play, and they are each outstanding. Brady displays great versatility as he goes from playing Kipps to playing other characters, including the taciturn carriage driver and village residents who refuse to talk about the mysterious woman in black. His posture and facial expressions and manner of speaking change to fit each character. Even such a simple matter as moving to the rhythm of a horse-drawn carriage, he does so convincingly that we almost see the horse.

Wood does not become various characters in the same manner, but as the actor he is comically over-dramatic and as Kipps his intensity is nerve-wracking as he tries to conquer his fear and solve the mystery of the woman in black.

No actor is credited for the role of the woman in black, but she does appear on stage. I’m pretty sure there were at least two people playing her part, and I suspect they were costumed stagehands.

Warning: There is a lot of heavy fog, and there are frightening sound effects including blood-curdling screams. It is probably not a good idea to bring small children to this play.

WHEN: 8:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, through April 3
WHERE: Knutzen Family Theatre, 3200 SW Dash Point Road, Federal Way
TICKETS: $10 to $25 depending on age, group discounts available
INFORMATION: 253-661-1444, www.centerstagetheatre.com

Composites on Broadway

Holly Senn’s latest installation
The Weekly Volcano, March 23, 2011

I feel like I have a stake in Holly Senn's art career. I don't; she's done it all on her own, but I still feel that way. Years ago I taught a class for Bellevue Community College where I took students on tours of Seattle art galleries and discussed the art. Senn and her partner were in the class. They were very soft spoken and didn't have a whole lot to say. I don't think she ever told me she was an artist. A few years later I was very surprised when I was asked to profile some of the artists in the Tacoma artists' studio tours and saw her name on the list - and even more surprised when I visited her studio (her garage) and saw the quality of her work. She was showing small sculptures made from the recycled pages of old books scavenged from the library where she worked. The thing that was fascinating about them was that the subject matter of most of the sculptures related to books on reading or the trees from which we get the paper to make books in a kind of circular resonance between subject matter and material.

What is fascinating is that in the years since Senn has matured as an artist but has continued to mine books and paper as subject and material. You would have thought she would have run out of ideas long ago.

I did see a slight branching out (pun intended) in the last Holly Senn installation I reviewed, which was at 908 Broadway and which was part of the Spaceworks program last fall. Still using pages from books as material, she veered off into new subject matter by replicating with paper the plaster facade of the Pantages Theater across the street. That installation was a great example of something else I appreciate in Senn's work: the appropriateness of her installations to the venues in which they are installed.

For years now I have admired the idea of installing art in the vacant windows of the old Woolworth building, and many artists I admire have installed works there, but often I have been disappointed that the works on display were more often than not simply displays of art and not installations that in any way used the unique properties of the venue. Lately they've done a better job of integrating space and works, and Senn's work fits the space nicely.

She has filled six windows with large photographs of parts of plants. Hanging in front of each photograph are sculptures of what appears to be the buds or pods of the same or similar plants.

"In my sculptures and installations I explore the life cycle of ideas - how ideas are generated, dispersed, referenced or forgotten," Senn says. "In these explorations I engage the qualities of permanence and impermanence. ... As I cut, rip, realign and glue, I reflect on each new generation's collective erasure of some element of the past and the casting of new ideas into the future. My work is as ephemeral and fleeting as ideas committed to paper or the digital sphere."

Visually the comparison and contrast of the sculpted and photographed forms are nice. Perhaps more important from a purely visual point of view is the relationship between the illusion of space in the photos, the 3-D space of the sculpture and the actual shallow depth of the windows.
Composites by Holly Senn

Through July 1, open 24/7
Woolworth windows
Commerce and Broadway at 11th, Tacoma

The other reviewer

With a title like "The other reviewer" you might have thought I was going to write something about Weekly Volcano theater critic Christian Carvajal or TNT arts writer Rosemary Ponnekanti, but no I'm not. I'm giving long overdue credit to my spouse, Gabi. I can't list her in my byline, but her input on my reviews is invaluable -- especially my theater reviews (art reviews not so much, even though she studied art and could offer valuable comments).

Gabi goes with me every time I review a play, and on the way home we discuss the play. Countless times she has pointed out things I would not have thought about. And then she edits everything I write before I send it in. So when you read my reviews think of them as OUR reviews.

Eye floaters

Growing old sucks. Big time.  But it’s nowhere near as sucky as the alternative, which is not growing old. I’d rather not, not grow old, thank you very much.

At least I don’t have the big bugaboos of aging: Alzheimer’s, incontinence and erectile dysfunction. And if I did I wouldn’t tell, 'cause some things are none of your business.

People tell me I don’t look my age, but we have mirrors at home. I can see the wrinkles and the flaccid muscles that were once firm and the gray hair and receding hairline. Friends who are my age keep sending out mass emails about how great it is to grow old and how good the good old days were, but they’re not fooling me (I refer you back to paragraph number one).

The body and the mind start to deteriorate at different times and at different rates for different folks. I know some people who are a lot older than I and don’t look it or act it, and I know younger people who appear to be ancient. Overall I guess I’m doing OK.

But I can’t dance or run or lift heavy stuff, and I can’t walk more than a couple of blocks without stopping to rest. With hearing aids and false teeth and glasses, and all the repairs to my heart (triple bypass and five stints) I have more replacement parts than a 1961 Volkswagen. It’s a wonder I don’t rattle when I walk.

The most infuriating of all are the damn floaters. Do you ever get floaters? Do you know what I’m talking about? Mine look like little black bugs that are larger than a gnat but smaller than a fly.  They hover in the air about a foot in front of my face.  Sometimes they move very slowly and other times they dart about like zippy little creatures. Usually I can see only one at a time, but sometimes there are two or three. The worst is when they come at me from the side, and I’m not expecting them and I jerk my head around. Sometimes I even reach out and try to swat them even though I know they’re not really there.

I don’t know if my eye surgery caused it or not. The doctors said not, but I never had them before and I thought it was strange how they kept asking me about them.  Before my cataract surgery the doctor asked if I got floaters. I said no. After the surgery he asked again, and again I said no. But there were other problems and he sent me to another eye surgeon for another surgery.  And of course the new doctor also asked if I had floaters, and I said no. And he asked me again after the surgery, and again I said no. It was almost like they were determined to keep trying until I got them. And I did. About a week after the second surgery the little buggers started taking up residence in my eyes. When I told the doctor he said there was nothing to worry about.

I went online and found this on Righthealth.com:

The floating specks you sometimes see in front of your eyes are not on the surface of your eyes, but inside them. These floaters are bits of cellular debris that come and go without treatment. To some people, these "floaters" look like spots. To others, they look like tiny threads. Most of the time they are nothing to worry about, but sometimes they can be a symptom of a retinal tear...

And from ask.com:

Posted by Doodlesmgee: Getting rid of eye floaters is very simple. Are you ready for this? The answer is... stop paying attention to them. There is no sure fire way to get rid of them, no cure, and no treatment. The only time surgery should even be considered is if they cause pain when you see them. The annoyance felt when they fly through our vision is strictly psychological, and just means your brain's all powerful Ignore It powers haven't started working yet. The only thing you can really do is just alter your diet slightly to be more healthy for your eyes, such as eating lots of veggies and fruits. Also drinking a glass of red wine before bed, one glass mind you, not a bottle, is shown to be very healthy for your eyes and heart. Aside from that, the best thing you can do is find something more productive to focus your energies on.

Albert has floaters too. Albert is an 85-year-old former German pilot who was shot down in World War II and put in a Russian POW camp. Yep, he was the enemy way back then, but now he’s an American citizen who helped build the Space Needle in Seattle. Albert plays water volleyball with us at the Y. He said his floaters are so bad he sometimes doesn’t know which ball to hit.

I don’t want to be like Albert. I think I’ll try Doodlesmgee’s advice and just ignore them. I’ll also ignore all the crap about how good the good old days were.

Future artists

High school art show at SPSCC


The Weekly Volcano, March 16, 2011

"Books Everyone Should Read" - a painting by an unidentified high school artist. Photo courtesy SPSCC





South Puget Sound Community College's exhibition of student art from area high schools surprised me. It was not a happy surprise. Maybe it's been too long since I taught high school art and maybe I no longer know what to expect from students, but I really expected the overall quality to be better. Not that there aren't a few very nice works.

The style and subject of the art also surprised me. It has been my experience that the most popular art forms among young artists are surrealism and art inspired by graphic novels and graffiti, but there is practically none of that in this show. Nearly all of the pictures in this show are of faces or figures. There are no abstract paintings, unless you consider a painting of a logo or crest or symbol (it's hard to tell which) an abstract painting. There are also very few landscapes and hardly any still life paintings or drawings.

For the students involved, it's not just a chance to showcase their art. The exhibit is a competition for students vying for a spot at the state art competition. And for gallery attendees, it's more than a viewing, as visitors get to vote for their favorite pieces. To keep the voting unbiased, they have labeled the work with numbers and no artists' names. When I went two people had voted, both for number 488, a picture of a cowboy silhouetted against a sunset. I voted for number 5-something, a Pop Art image of book covers on a shelf. There are six such paintings in the show. At first I assumed they were all by the same artist because they are all variations on the same theme done in almost identical styles, but after giving it some thought I decided they are probably paintings from a class assignment, which would account for them looking so much alike.

Whether by the same artist or different artists, these are among the best works in the show. In most of them the images are closely cropped so viewers can read only parts of the book titles or author names, thus turning them into semi-abstract paintings and creating a fun guessing game to figure out what the books are. Some have more complete titles shown and are, for that reason, not as much fun. The one I picked as a favorite is more loosely painted than the others and has the word "Bloom" is big white letters with rough red outlines. The letters have a nice shimmering quality.

Also looking like they may be by the same artist were a few pictures of faces seen in extreme close-up. One of them called Kristi, a portrait of a girl, was labeled as an acrylic but looked more like a pencil or charcoal drawing with very soft shading and no color other than a very subtle green in the eyes. This one was very well done, as was one called Memories, which pictures a boy with a goofy grin and his chin resting in his hands. Both of these are skillfully drawn.

Two other works of interest were an untitled masked figure of a face with a Joker-like smile and big, pointy teeth, and a figure called High Five done in a Pointillist style with one hand extended forward with extreme foreshortening.

I wish these students luck in making it to the state competition. I just wish there was more variety in style and subject matter and a little more skill demonstrated.
South Puget Sound Community College

through March 23, noon to 5 p.m. Monday–Friday
closing reception March 23, 6-8 p.m.,
South Puget Sound Community College
2011 Mottman Rd. SW, Olympia