3 Spaceworks Tacoma art installations debut New Year's Eve

Spaceworks Tacoma will debut three new art installations in downtown Tacoma on New Year’s Eve.

The Artscapes installations mark the 11th round of exhibitions presented by Spaceworks Tacoma in the Woolworth Windows at South 11th Street and Broadway/South Commerce Street. The artists include:

  • Becky Frehse, who will present the very colorful “Music Box,” composed of mixed media paintings and constructions using repurposed musical instruments, including a piano, guitar, several violins, and a Chinese yue qin. Forrest Rumbaugh from Northwest Staging and Sound is collaborating with Frehse to provide theatrical spot lighting with timers to animate the installation.
  • Acataphasia Grey, creator of phantasmagoria and featured earlier this year on the AMC reality show, Immortalized, about the art of taxidermy, will present an installation entitled Own the Nightmare, in which she posits: “Nightmares are bad, everyone knows that. But what if that was never the truth? On the other side of a belief thinner than a sheet of paper is an entirely different perspective.”
  • Finally, taking over two of the largest windows will be the 20 Year Retrospective of RAGS, which includes a gallery of work from 30 artists. RAGS is an annual wearable art sale and show where all proceeds go to benefit domestic violence programs at the YWCA-Pierce County.

The exhibits will be on display through Third Thursday in April 2014.

Spaceworks Tacoma Artscapes applications were reviewed in October by a panel that include Kyle Dillehay, Art Instructor at Tacoma Community College; Dane Meyer, Dane Gregory Meyer Photography and Tacoma Arts Commissioner; Naomi Strom-Avila, Cultural Arts Specialist for the Tacoma Arts Program; and Frank Terrill, Artifact Restorer and Senior Engineer at the Tacoma Planning & Development Services Division.

Locations and support for Spaceworks Tacoma are provided by property owners that include A Street Associates, Bristol Equities, Lee Noble, Seven Seventeen Investors, University of Washington Tacoma, Pioneer Health Services, and AT&T. Funders include the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, the City of Tacoma, the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Americans for the Arts, and Ovation TV.