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Below, read about the 13 artists selected for this years award. Click on their names to their artwork and learn more about their style, inspiration and the Tacoma, Pierce County art community.
The 2011 Nominees:
"Town"
Jennifer is an artist, teacher, mom and creative entrepreneur, her art encompasses everything from beauty, utility and re-use to irony and eclecticism. Fans of renegade craft, and all things DIY, may already know Adams from her popular craft fair, “Tacoma is for Lovers,” founded in 2008. Link to article
"We Belong Together"
 Sean started drawing about seven years ago while attending Evergreen State College. At first, he said the drawings weren't very good; lots of dots, dot blobs and dot mud piles. Now his work demonstrates obsessive patterning, mutation, cutesy bootsie, shrouded characters and sad looking objects. He begins with small thumbnail compositions and lots of little stick people and scribbles. He later takes the most appealing of these small doodles and works them to imagined size. When putting together a drawing he doesn't use any measuring tools and mostly avoids under-sketches, so all the lines end up wonky. Straightness/correctness doesn't interest him. Website
"The Butlers"
.jpg) The work submitted by Nick, is collectively called Nuba Mythos. This is an exploration of the evolution of the African American culture; intersections, tension and art of African and European culture. Inspirations of classical European art and African culture brought in stories and inspiration from classical art of the renaissance. The works are derived from themes that were used through the renaissance, stories whose origins crossed several cultures and religions. The paintings of Nuba Mythos focused primarily on the love of the Greek gods. Website
"Uprooted"
A freelance artist since 1974, she is self-taught and completely self-supporting through private commissions, shows and galleries. In recent years, Lynn was more inspired by ideas than mediums and let miscellaneous sculptural materials dictate size, scale and required effect. She continues to use concrete: cast, veneered and formed over lath, and she sometimes uses household objects as structure because she likes their shape. She is known for organizing large themed performance-style artworks in collaboration with many artists in Tacoma. Website
"Cloched City"
An Artist from a young age, Oliver began working in glass at 16 and continues to be an active member of the contemporary glass movement. His artwork ranges from cast glass sculptural forms to public installation to scio-community-art-stewardship. He owns and operates the Fulcrum Gallery and is a recognized community leader in the arts development within the city of Tacoma. Website
"Abandoned Spaceship"
Her most recent body of work was created between 2008 – 2010 while she lived in Doha, Qatar. The images were made using a vintage twin-lens reflex camera and medium format film. Her work examines the marginal spaces where developed land intersects with underdeveloped land or wilderness. Kristin returned to Tacoma in the fall of 2010 and continues to explore this theme in a series of ex-urban landscapes in the greater Tacoma area. Website
"Staple"
The images submitted here are of refuse left behind by visitors in the museum spaces: Why do we leave traces of ourselves wherever we go? Is it unconscious or deliberate? Website
"Fircrest (Lowes)"
Matt finds himself compelled to draw cell-towers. To him, they represent individuals; collectively, they are everyone he knows and everyone he has yet to meet. The drawings submitted are the remnant of the traditional portrait; fleshy, visual likenesses which have been boiled down to their essence. The towers are the connection to his world, one that is the result of his reliance on the cell-phone as a communicator. This has led to a depersonalization of his relationships through his phone’s convenience. Website
"Humvee"
Rick embraces struggle and feels it whole heartedly both as an artist and a combat veteran dealing with the emotional after-effects of war. His art fuses stories; finding his voice as an artist and as a combat veteran. He sees art as a challenge, both technically and emotionally. Website
Sumo"
 Nicholas' work is driven by a fascination with the life of form, the nature of creation and the will to decorate. He feels reassured to borrow freely from our gloriously diverse visual culture. Website
"Saturate (detail)"
 Her paintings explore the relationships between engaging in an artistic process, evoking a sense of place, and expressing time’s passage. She pools, stacks, scrapes, scrubs, pours, stains, drips, collages, and fuses oil, acrylic, and encaustic paint, engaging in processes that reflect forces of nature and capture a state of flux. Color is applied as a palpable, optical element, as a substance that can be felt as well as seen. She uses color for its inherent perceptual power and to reference ecological and visceral systems. The fluid nature of the water-based paint and inks she applies determines her paintings’ compositional structure. Website "Sit Long Winter"
 Peter is self taught in just about everything he has done over the last thirty years, including photography. He took what he considers his first “fine art” photo in 2007 and has been pursuing photography seriously ever since. Although he has taken pictures off and on for many years it is only in his 50’s that he found an artistic voice as a photographer via digital photography. Digital photography has opened a world of self-expression that has an immediacy which drives and reinforces his emerging artistic vision. Website
"Unnatural Light"
Jessica has been designing, papermaking and printing for more than twenty years. She loves working with vintage metal type and handmade papers and creates her own style of art using vintage foundry type, printing presses and bindery equipment, much of it more than a century old. She is the founder of locally-based Springtide Press, has an MFA from Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University’s Elliott Press and the The School of Visual Concepts in Seattle. Website
What is the Foundation of Art Award?
The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation believes "Thriving Arts & Culture" are necessary for a Vibrant Community. This annual program was established by the Community Foundation to honor professional artists living and working in Pierce County. The award is possible thanks to a fund created to support the Pierce County art community.
The $7,500 award recognizes talent and commitment to the creative community of Pierce County. This regionally significant award results in a commissioned art piece for the Community Foundation.
A special thanks to our selection committee including Amy McBride, Arts Administrator, City of Tacoma; Jeremy Mangan, local artist and recipient of the 2009 Foundation of Art Award; Rock Hushka of the Tacoma Art Museum; Susie Russell Hall, Local Artist; Kit Severson, Community Representative and Community Foundation Board Member; Rose Lincoln Hamilton, President and CEO, the Community Foundation; and Jim McDonald, Panel Moderator.
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