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PHOTO BY DAN HILL

SPINNING A YARN. Tacoma artists Lynn Di Nino and Jennevieve Schlemmer have a unique performance art piece planned for the festival: they’ll spend hours crocheting costumes onto two dancers who will then perform while looped together.

Tacoma's vibrant urban arts scene celebrated at Glass Roots Arts Festival

By Matt Nagle

Tacoma’s amazing line-up of summertime street fairs, arts festivals and neighborhood shindigs continues this month with Glass Roots Arts Festival on Aug. 24, noon to 6 p.m. at South11th and Market streets. Showcasing the wonderful world of art that flourishes within the City of Destiny in many forms, this free event packs a lot into one day of fun, creativity and community spirit for people of all ages.

In presenting this festival for the third consecutive year, organizers built upon successes they’ve already established in years past. “We want to build on that energy level,” said events coordinator and artist Houston S. Wimberly III. “We’re really trying to build on a deeper level of connecting to the arts community as well as the public in general.”

One important way Glass Roots planners connect to the community is by charging no fees for artists/vendors to participate. This opens the field wide for everyone equally, particularly young artists and artists who are still getting established. “We want to make sure that what you’re seeing is a good representation of what’s out there in the community,” Wimberly said. “We decided we aren’t going to charge for vendor space because we want the arts community to really feel connected, to be able to demonstrate their works, and to sell them.”

This is at the crux of the festival – art and how it’s made by painters, drawers, sculptors, fiber artists, fashion designers, jewelry makers, graffiti artists, glass blowers, carvers, clay artists, actors, dancers, poets…this and much more presented in a carnival-like atmosphere.

“It’s going to be very electric and a lot fun,” Wimberly predicted.

Chalk artists will be decorating sidewalks, the scent of delicious foods will ride the breezes, and six bands will make sure the music plays all day:

• Library Science (dub/experimental/visual)

• Beehive (pop/electronica duo)

• Umber Sleeping (new wave/psychadelic/progressive)

• Deborah Page (melodic rock)

• Can-U (rap/hip-hop)

•Kim Archer Band (heavy soul/groove jam band)

The theme for this year’s Glass Roots is “Think Green” to encourage environmental responsibility among Tacomans and to highlight earth-friendly businesses and organizations in the area that will be present at the festival such as Tacoma Food Co-op.

Local artists Lynn Di Nino and Jennevieve Schlemmer will be reminding people to think green, and raising awareness about all the objects that come in and out of our lives, with a yard sale on-site to benefit the Emergency Food Network. Featuring nothing but gently used, recycled objects, every item in the sale will be painted the same shade of lime green and cost $5 each. Last year the pair raised more than $600 for Habitat for Humanity, and this year they’re hoping to double that amount.

Di Nino and Schlemmer are also organizing a performance art piece scheduled to take the stage at 5 p.m. The artists will crochet costumes onto dancers Stephanie and Katy all day, culminating in an innovative dance by this professional duo looped together.

More creative movement will happen onstage when hip-hop dancers from D.A.S.H. Center for the Arts perform as a prelude to the hip-hop and rap music of Can-U.

Children will have their own play stations at Glass Roots where they’ll meet artists and make their own crafts.

Local visual artist Teddy Haggerty will be filming a documentary during the festival this year, and a still photographer will be taking photographs from the top of a nearby roof to document the event from set-up to tear-down.

Wimberly said ideas for next year’s Glass Roots Arts Festival are already being tossed around by key organizers of the event, but he’s being mum about the details. “I don’t want to give it away, but it’s going to be bigger than what we’re doing this year. It’s going to be more electrifying.”

For more information on the festival, including volunteer opportunities for the day, telephone Wimberly at (253) 226-7070 or e-mail him at hwimberly@comcast.net.

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