Art at Work Studio Tour review

The studio of Laurel Lawson appealed to me, with the buoyantly spring-toned Mary Cassatt meets Henri Matisse portrait of a mother and her child, simple ink drawings, and kids’ drawings that connected me instantly.  Seems Laurel’s heart and motivations lie not so far from my own, though she has an enviable North End Tacoma home complete with killer yard and amazing studio space, and artistic ability to boot. My first stop of the day, Lawson’s studio, prepared me to be impressed by the rest I would see during my Art at Work Studio Tours this past weekend, and I wasn’t disappointed. 

At Holly Senn’s, I was arrested first by the beauty of the neighborhood, then by the beauty and serenity of her conceptual art involving books. “I’m not a book artist, I’m a sculptor, books are my media,” she clarified, and I can see and appreciate the different ways she utilizes her media, from the papering of the walls, to the baskets woven of book-chunks, to the papier mache apple-like globes suspended in branches. She mentioned that in her work, she’s marrying the natural world to the intellectual world, and it’s a concept I could actually grasp. More of her conceptual work will be on display in her “Enchanted Forest of the Mind” Exhibition at the Tacoma Community College gallery from Dec. 1-31.

From the conceptual to artisanal, I went to Court C in downtown Tacoma, where I met artists Anne Elrod, whose multi-artist books inspired me, Lynne Farren, whose assemblages reminded me that my daughter’s things are beautiful, and Cheryl Laurenzo, whose hand-woven and hand-dyed textiles awed me.

Textiles also featured in the Loyalty Clothing space, though Daniel Blue and Danii Backwell were using already-woven and dyed items and creating fantastic items for a night at the House of Kubla Khan fashion show at Indochine.  These works will be seen at the event on Nov. 18, 4 p.m., after which point the hard workers can finally get some rest.

Rest is what I needed after a day of wandering around studios, though the glimpse into the creative spaces of the artists, varied as they were, inspired me to create my own space.  What will the mate say when I tell him his car has to go out of the garage? — Jessica Corey-Butler