Arts & Events

By Parker Barry “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive” — James Baldwin. “Everything I Needed to Know I learned from Fiction,” the title of African American studies professor Renee Simms’ Feb. 27 lecture, seemed to ring true. She took the audience through her life and...

By Brynn Svenningsen Placed at the center of the gallery, paper cutouts of rock climbers, ladders, and a cheetah-human hybrid all sat suspended in resin and glass. In artist Dustin Yellin’s extremely detailed art piece titled “Migration in Four Parts,” layers of resin with small paper figures work collaboratively to create a scene too chaotic for the viewer to look away from. Yellin’s piece is part of a new exhibit that has recently arrived at the Tacoma Art Museum (TAM). The exhibit is called “Immigrant Artists and the American West”...

By Evan Eelsh We all rooting for you, Grammys. I have personally sworn off caring about the Grammys multiple times, but with many articles preceding the show applauding the awards for addressing racial diversity, it seemed like this might be the year the Grammys did better. Even I took hold of the glimmer of hope that this might be the year it all works out. However, of course, this was not the year; it was a trap. Like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, music fans convinced themselves this...

By Parker Barry ART BY ANJ CUNNINGHAM A man in his late 50s dropped his robe and assumed a position where he contorted his naked body, showing the muscles of his thighs and the curvature of his neck. I am in the full experience of Figure Drawing Club, held on Mondays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at an off-campus location called “Feast Arts Center,” a community space for artists to create and collaborate on 11th and South L St. “Figure drawing is a rather intimate environment. I have found...