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City employees, families show their creative side

By John Larson

Tacoma Weekly
jlarson@tacomaweekly.com
Published on: July 17, 2008

Eight floors of Tacoma Municipal Building and two at the headquarters of Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU) are currently serving as art gallery space, displaying the creativity of city and TPU employees, retirees and family members.

This is the third year the two buildings have displayed artwork during the summer. It is sponsored by National Arts Program, which provides opportunities for artists of all ages and skill levels to display their work in public. They are split into categories of amateur, intermediate, professional, youth under 12, and youth 12 to 18.

The relatively short hallways at city hall seem well suited for displaying art.

Ceresa O’Bryan from Public Works/engineering shows her talent at beadwork in “D Is For Dragon.” A red “D” is in the background behind the blue dragon.

Veronica Pratt, daughter of Mariann Pratt from Tacoma Police Department, offers an interesting take on femininity on “Amazon Beauty,” a pencil sketch in the youth 12-18 category. The subject has a mermaid-type flipper instead of legs, scales along her spine and a short Mohawk hairstyle.

A cute piece in the youth 12-18 category is “Gabby Road” by Gabriela Aleman, daughter of Kathi Aleman from Tacoma Public Library. It is a takeoff on the famous Beatles’ album cover done Anime style.

Charles H. McPherson is a retired city employee. His painting “Doing What He Likes” could be a self-portrait; it is an older gentleman clearly having fun playing fiddle.

He makes a statement on the cultural mindset of Southerners who glorify the old South in “Mistaken Pride in the Past,” which depicts a man decked out in Confederate Army garb.

Another retiree, Lorna Dawson, displays her quilting skill with “City Sunrise.” Purple, blue and pink columns are arranged on a light blue background.

Amy McBride is the city’s arts administrator, so it is no surprise to see she offers one of her creations. Her untitled jewelry piece is an object with two wings, one eyeball in its head and a crooked ladder for legs.

Her son, Oliver McBride-Younger, has some drawings in the youth under 12 category. On “I Robot” he colored on one piece of paper. Laying over this is some sort of thicker paper with wording along the edge indicating it came from the Public Works Department. On this is drawn the robot figure in black. An interesting technique.

Nikki Anderson, daughter of Kathleen Anderson in the Finance Department, has two pieces entered in the youth 12-18 category. One untitled piece is a color pencil sketch done in a late ‘60s hippie motif with a modern message of environmental awareness with peace signs and a message urging “Stop global warming.” Another urges the viewer to “Love the Earth.”

Anne Michael-Smith from the Human Rights and Human Services Department gets quite colorful on her found object piece “Found Rainbow.” All sorts of small objects are done in the same color of a particular band of the rainbow, which ends in a pot of gold.

Sarah Rome, a relative of Dan Rome from the Community and Economic Development Department, offers two interesting, untitled fabric art pieces. Each depicts a butterfly and calligraphy.

There are many photographs in the exhibit. The best by far is “Forest Floor” by Susan Storey, a relative of Chris Storey from Public Works. This photo shows sunlight through the trees. The leaves on the ground are a brilliant shade of gold. A great effect from a skilled photographer.

Over at TPU, Randall Marquis of Tacoma Water has two interesting machines on display in the intermediate division, “Green Steam Engine” and “Blue Steam Engine.”

Mazie Van Den Broek’s watercolor “Pristine Waters” is an aerial view depicting islands surrounded by purple-tinged water.

Shawna M. Stracke pays tribute to a great Renaissance man in “Da Vinci: Works of a Master Artist.”

Leeza Woodard’s watercolor “Mt. St. Helens” depicts the mountain prior to its 1980s eruption. The tranquility of the greenery gives little warning of what was come to come when the volcano blew its top.

Perhaps the most interesting piece at TPU is “Iris” by Arianne Duong, in the youth 12-18 category. The painting closely resembles the famous, haunting photograph of the girl from Afghanistan that appeared in National Geographic.

The artwork is on display through July 31. It is free and open to the public during normal business hours.

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