Community champion dindria barrow and the collective power of storytelling

Jamika and Katy are back in the host chairs, excited to learn from dindria of the Tacoma Public Library’s Community Archives Center.

From left to right, Jamika, dindria, and Katy in the recording studio

From left to right, Jamika, dindria, and Katy in the recording studio

dindria and the Tacoma Public Library team are collecting stories and oral histories through the Community Archives Center. From the website:

For more than fifty years, scholars and archivists have illuminated a significant problem with the American historical record: missing from it are the experiences of our marginalized and underrepresented communities. Their histories have not just been excluded from the historical record – they have been actively suppressed. In response, archives are being formed around the core values of social justice. There remains an urgent need to preserve and make accessible the histories of communities that are missing from archives and to reshape the historical record.

The Tacoma Community Archives Center was established to begin addressing the gaps and silences existing in the local history record through a community-driven, participatory process. In August 2021, the project was awarded a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Over the next two years, the Tacoma Public Library will partner with the community on digitization, oral history, and storytelling projects aimed at moving our city toward a more inclusive historical record.

dindria, Jamika, and Katy discussed the exciting, upcoming Hilltop Story Fest, happening Saturday, May 6, 2023, 11 am – 3 pm at the Tacoma Community House.

Hilltop Story Fest logo and historical photo of three young Black boys playing outside on the sidewalk.

Here’s what you have to look forward to at Hilltop Story Fest:

  • Share your story and add to the Community Archives Center digital archive:record a short oral history (any language welcome!) about your life in Tacoma.
  • Bring a special family photograph, document, or recipe that helps tell your story and have it scanned at our Digitization Station.
  • View highlights from the Northwest Room’s local history collections related to the area.
  • Participate in a gallery walk answering questions about Hilltop on paper.
  • Engage in a virtual story map.
  • Enjoy stories from local artists.
  • Kids of all ages are invited to create their own comic book.

Shout outs and topics include: dindria barrow, community storytelling, Hilltop Story Fest, Tacoma Community Archives Center, poetry, spoken word, stand-up comedy, Hilltop neighborhood, Eastside neighborhood, South End neighborhood, Salishan neighborhood, Hilltop Artists, First Creek Middle School, Tacoma Public Library, Institute for Museum and Library Services, Kenya Adams, Tacoma Colored Women’s Club, Dr. Nettie J. Ashberry, Helen Stafford, City of Tacoma’s Office of Arts & Cultural Vitality, Hilltop History Plaques, lore, myth, nostalgia, resiliency, truth-telling, Boss Mama’s Kitchen, Grit City, Since I Been Down, Dr. Gilda Sheppard, cross-age learning, mentorship, teaching, middle-schoolers, kleenex, youth voice, journaling, anxiety, Mt. Tahoma High School, Stadium High School, The Cave at PLU, 24-hour coffee shops, Alma, Parable

Painting of producer Doug and his cute dog. Painting also features a sun, a crying moon, and guitars.Special shout-out to the lovely artwork memorializing producer Doug’s dog (that distracted us in the studio)!

 

 

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“The Tacoma Method” | A special “Off the Record” with Gregory Youtz

The “Off the Record” podcast is normally available exclusively for Channel 253 members. But this was a special enough episode we wanted to publish it widely.

If you appreciate this interview with Gregory Youtz about The Tacoma Method opera, please consider joining Channel 253 as a member.

Links

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Reimagining the Museum with Eden Redmond: Why the Tacoma Art Museum Staff is Unionizing

Eden Redmond is the Institutional Giving Manager and one of the representatives of TAM WU: Tacoma Arts Museum Workers United. She graciously educates the We Art Tacoma team on the importance of union recognition and gives us all sorts of helpful info and updates!

TAM WU represents over 80% of eligible employees at the Tacoma Art Museum and are joining with the growing national movement of museum workers in Cultural Workers United (affiliated with WFSE / AFSCME Council 28 in Washington State). As of November 18th, 2022 the Tacoma Art Museum board released a statement refusing to voluntarily recognize TAMWU – a move that by many has been called union busting.

This movement is a big deal for Tacoma and for cultural workers around the country. A union in our local museum empowers the staff, gives them representation, bargaining power, and confirms their voice and perspectives are heard and considered. From the TAMWU website: “unions are not granted by employers, though they can be. They are voted into existence by workers themselves. If we need to create our union that way, without the good will of our employer, we are determined to do it.”

Check out TAMWU’s website for ways to support their organizing, including signing the community letter of support.

We also dig into Eden’s fun and fascinating creative work and research. Follow Eden on instagram!

A quick note: when Eden discusses the Seattle Art Museum and their unionizing, Eden wants to clarify that the SAM VSO Union is not part of WFSE; they are organizing as an independent union, and are responsible for their own representation and fundraising. 

Topics and shoutouts include: Bernal Baca, Tacoma Art Museum, Art Aids America, Stop Erasing Black People, WFSE, AFSCME, Cultural Workers United, Tacoma Art Museum Workers United, TAMWU, quiet time, arts leadership, unions, toxic work culture, reimagining museums, Human Rights Campaign, Tollefson Plaza, City of Tacoma, Clark County Historical Society, Nine to Five (the movie), research projects, The Bechdel Cast, film studies, women’s labor, women’s work, propaganda, art therapy, and more!

 

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The Beauty of Grit City Magazine with Sierra Hartman

Jamika and Katy talk with Grit City Magazine publisher and writer Sierra Hartman. Sierra and his publishing partner Sara Kay received the Amocat Art Award for Arts Patron. Sierra shares the trials and joys of creating the beautiful and beloved Grit City Magazine.

(And Katy manages to skirt apologizing to Sierra for co-creating the myth that Tacoma’s “gritty” nickname is after a non-existent grit-eating festival.)

Support print! Subscribe to Grit City Magazine. And/or pick up the most recent volume of Grit City Magazine, featuring an article by our own Jamika Scott!

From the Tacoma Arts Month website:

Grit City Magazine was founded on the notion that Tacoma has good stories to tell. They explore the places that define it, pay homage to the history that built it, and celebrate the people who make it what it is today. This is a city of makers and craftsmen, artists and philosophers, natives and newcomers, dreamers and doers, and above all, grit. If you have a story to tell, they want to hear it.

Grit City Magazine wrote that mission statement in September of 2017 just before they launched the magazine. They had no idea if any of this would work out but they were 100% certain that the stories they saw unfolding all around them were worth sharing. It was just a matter of getting them in front of people.

A lot has changed in the last five years—globally, locally, personally—but that conviction hasn’t wavered a bit. The core of what they do hasn’t changed. There are amazing people all over this city with the most captivating stories you’ll ever hear, artists with the most mind-blowing talent, and writers with the ability to make the common and mundane feel unique and inspiring.

Those people deserve to be seen and their skills deserve to be celebrated. From day one when Grit City Magazine staff were sitting at Bluebeard on 6th Ave scribbling ideas on napkins, they wanted the magazine to be a platform for the people of Tacoma to share their stories.

Shout-outs, mentions, and topics include: William Manzanares, Sierra Hartman, Sara Kay, Grit City Magazine, I Can’t Read, Post Defiance, Exit 133, Rotator Magazine, Rotator Collective, Gritty City, Tacoma Christmas Grits, Seattle Freeze, gentrification, Tacoma history, Lance Kagey, print magazines, Office Space, the power of googling. Alma, diversity, representation, community building,

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Amocat award winner and author Tamiko Nimura waxes rhapsodic

Jamika and Katy talk with author and community builder Tamiko Nimura about her well-earned Amocat Art Award for Community Outreach by an Individual. We explore her incredible literary and historical work, and “wax rhapsodic”!

Listen for Tamiko’s incredible stories, stay for the love of the Tacoma Arts Listserv and lots of laughs.

Read Tamiko’s books: Rosa Franklin: A Life in Health Care, Public Service, and Social Justice and We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration (co-authored with Frank Abe and artists Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki).

Read Tamiko’s essay, To My 11-Year-Old Father in the Camp.

And get excited for Tamiko’s upcoming memoir, Pilgrimage: a Japanese American Daughter’s Reckoning with Memory and History (working title), as well as her poem The Essayist Reaches for Poetry, soon to be featured at Yellow Arrow Publishing.

Check out the exhibition Resisters: A Legacy of Movement from the Japanese American Incarceration for which Tamiko collaborated with the curators and created the text panels. Tamiko also wrote the copy for the Tanforan Memorial & Exhibit: Tanforan Incarceration 1942; Resilience Behind Barbed Wire, a long-term exhibit inside the San Bruno BART Station.

Shout outs, mentions, and topics include: the Tacoma Arts Listserv, Tacoma Youth Theatre, King’s Books, The Neely Mansion, singing, Dukesbay Theater, Aya Hashiguchi Clark, poetry, creative nonfiction, essays, Wing Luke Museum, Sashiko embroidery, letter writing, cookies, UW Tacoma, Tacoma Japantown (Nihonmachi), grief, Frank Abe, Ross Ishikawa, Matt Sasaki, fathers, Japanese American Incarceration, memory, history, journalling

 

Featured image courtesy of Tamiko Nimura.

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Go to REAL ART Tacoma: interview with all-ages music advocate Tom Long

Jamika and guest host Hannah Devine interview community-builder and all-ages music advocate Tom Long!

Tom Long represents Real Art Tacoma, the Amocat Award Winner for Community Outreach by an Organization. Tom is the president of Real Art Tacoma, and owns the Beyond Thunderdome Cafe. As a (now aging) hardcore/punk kid, he has always been passionate about all-ages community spaces.

From the City of Tacoma website: “Real Art Tacoma is a 501(c)(3) all-ages creative arts and music event space. They provide space for young people to exist, express themselves, build community, and to be empowered through art, music, and the free exchange of ideas. For Real Art Tacoma, music, art, and culture should be enjoyed by everyone and not be inhibited by age restrictions.”

Check out the Real Art show calendar here,  and consider volunteering! Follow them on the various socials to learn about upcoming shows and ways to support their work.

From the Real Art website:

“When Red Room closed — house venues were often the only options for young fans to play and enjoy music. There wasn’t much else that was accessible to all ages events. From 2007-2010, the venue was called The Viaduct which hosted many all ages DIY hardcore & punk shows and was helmed by organizers of Rainfest: a hardcore festival that was nationally recognized. When the original space for Viaduct was available to rent, the leaseholders considered it a no-brainer to return to 5412 S. Tacoma Way. The current business license still uses the Viaduct name.

“Real Art’s namesake is a movie theatre (built in 1919, open in 1920) until 1961 when it was converted into a dance hall across the street. [RealArt Theatre, now Edison Square] Our logo is based on the marquee. Every step of the way each of the five leaseholders had a specific intention in mind: ‘Give young people space to exist.”‘ Each brought their own expertise from booking and promoting shows on the festival scale and within house venues, clothing retail, screen printing, business and tax law. Each person on the project either performed or was involved with local music and art in Tacoma within some capacity. To build community and maintain a steady exchange of experience and expertise passed down from each generation of artists, bills were booked intentionally to include new artists — often from marginalized groups including but not limited to womxn, young artists of color, artists from the LGBTQ+ community. All ages events did have a void within city limits. Real Art opened its doors to serve that need of providing access and experience for the next generation of artists.”

Shout outs and topics include: karaoke, Alex Vile, hate5six, Rainfest, Tacoma Girls Rock, Ted Brown Music’s Live It OutLoud, Tacoma History, South Tacoma Way, Hammerhead House, Nate Walters, Porchfest, and PNW Hardcore.

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We ART Tacoma Arts Month!

Jamika and Katy sit down with the incredible Chevi Chung – actor, director, and Community Programs Specialist at the Office of Arts & Cultural Vitality for the City of Tacoma – to learn what we can look forward to during Tacoma Arts Month.

From the website:

“Tacoma Arts Month is dedicated to showcasing the very best about our community. October is brimming with hundreds of arts and culture events, exhibits, and workshops for all ages.

“‘There is something for everyone to enjoy: music, dance and theater performances; hands-on experiences; visual art exhibits; literary readings; lectures; workshops; film screenings and cultural events. Find out more at tacomaartsmonth.org. #TacomaArtsMonth

Jamika and Katy are both very excited about the opening party, and Katy is looking forward to live performances, even though she consistently confuses “conductor” with “composer.”

Beyond Tacoma Arts Month, we learn more about Chevi’s journey as an artist, and her work as an actor, director, fight choreographer, intimacy director, and advocate.

Shout-outs and topics include: Tacoma Arts Month, Kaleidoscope Opening Party,  Symphony Tacoma, potential, community building, Vision Step Team, The Playground Kiki, Lydia K. Valentine, Jan Parker, 2022 AMOCAT Arts Awards, Tamiko Nimura, Real Art Tacoma, Grit City Magazine, glass pumpkins, Pacific Lutheran University, acting, Tacoma Little Theatre, Afrocentric Pedagogy, fight choreography, intimacy direction, Nicole M Brewer, Ann C James, mentors, The Little Mermaid, empathos company, Tacoma Arts Commission

 

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Part 2 with Writer Nakanee Monique: Worldbuilding and Finding Community

We jump back in with Nakanee Monique and they kick us off with a reading of part 2 of her epic poem Listen. Take some time to read the full poem, included below.

Tacoma-based writer and activist Nakanee Monique (she/they) has been writing poetry since they were 8 years old and is “inspired by nature, science, literature, and all the great and terrible beauties of this world.” Find Nakanee’s poetry on their Instagram, @Lunarrhythm_6. Listen to Part 1 of our conversation with Nakanee here.

In this episode, Nakanee, Jamika, and Katy nerd out about the triumphs, struggles, methods, and tactics of writing. Nakanee is a four-time NaNoWriMo champion and entices us with the descriptions of their as-of-yet unpublished books! Nakanee also generously shares this link to their short story The Lore of the Blood Tree.

We talk through pandemic lessons learned, rediscovering ourselves, branding and monetizing creativity, and building strategies to survive and thrive as a working artist. Event planning also ensues including brainstorming about silent reading parties and write-ins.

Shout outs and topics include dragons, poetry, journaling, capitalism, commodification, hand-washing, TikTok, astrology, goals, boundaries, NaNoRiMo, worldbuilding, death, fantasy, imagination, naming, community building, write-ins, editing, vulnerability, trust-building, constructive criticism, Blue Cactus Press

(Featured photograph by Jamika!)

We want art tips! Email us at wearttacoma@gmail.com or hit us up on Twitter @wearttacomapod!

Listen

By Nakanee Monique

pt 1

Can you not hear
the past echoes
coming from our
throats, we’re choked
and we are suffocating
Still advocating for
ancient blasphemies
and trafficking
a tragedy
of souls by the soulless.
Made homeless,
then controlled us…
left alone in a sea
of apathy.
They sound like screams
like the roar of
collective dreams
unheard, on repeat
Always the frequencies
reverberate upon
frigid mountaintops
unmoved
like the screams are
merely a breeze
an afterthought;
an imperfect black spot
on the snow that
maddens though no
blot can stop
the avalanche your
hell hath wrought
for all your treasures
were paid and bought
with those screams
with those dreams
then hoarded
by dragons who
own the word ‘Free’.
Those worshiped
fiendish beasts have
pulled sheep’s wool
used cheap tools
to blind you.
But are you deafened too?
Learned no lessons through
songs and stories consumed
like cannibals…
Careful to whom
you refer as animals
For if you cannot hear it
the animal is you.

pt 2

Our cities glitter in the distance though
all that glitters is not gold, I know.
If they were gold, those cities—
no matter how pretty—
would be mined
to and fro, back and forth we’d go as we
excavate the ruins
of ourselves.
Mine and mine,
and yours and yours
would dig and dig
deep enough to build a
well intentioned
path to hell
One foot then the other
into the grave we go
Mistakes were made
as dragons taught us
that life itself
is a treasure,
but to a dragon a treasure
is made for taking
exploitation
made forsaken in homelands.
A dragon teaches us that
what’s mine is mine
and what’s yours is mine
so mine and mine and mine and mine
until gold turns to blood
and Earth turns to smoke—
and how are you not choking
on all of this?
Pollution industrial neglect
I can’t breathe enough to object
See how it all connects?
How short-sighted a dragon is?
‘Cause the paths that we built
will soon go both ways:
Hellish gate
Titans released
Dragons slumbering
True monsters await at the end of the path
and we are their final offering…
From up on high, despite
rising tides and the devastating truth of
Mother Nature’s might,
Dragons still choose human suffering
and to them
when the whole world’s on fire
it will be worth it
for the glittering recovery
&
when those fires of our desires
take us ever higher
reaching for their pinnacle—
the marketed “grind” lie—
the truth of what it means to be human
pigeonholed in the cynical
poison of our choosing
we must ask ourselves:
if here there be dragons and dragons have souls
how aren’t their souls the ones worth losing?
When they’re the ones refusing?
And we’re the ones bruising at the end of the day…
So, yes indeed
if here there be dragons isn’t it time that
we rise up and slay?

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Poet Nakanee Monique and the art of activism – part 1

The first of a two-part series, Jamika and Katy talk with Tacoma-based writer and activist Nakanee Monique about her art and activism. Nakanee (she/they) has been writing poetry since they were 8 years old and is “inspired by nature, science, literature, and all the great and terrible beauties of this world.” Find Nakanee’s poetry on their Instagram, @Lunarrhythm_6.

Nakanee and Jamika have known each other via social media, and met in person this past June at a protest in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Nakanee shares their experiences as an activist artist, and their philosophy that art can change the word.

Nakanee closes this episode with a reading of part 1 of their poem, Listen.

Shout outs and topics include protesting, writing, pandemic healing and recovery, safe spaces, procrastination, the creative process, chaos, setting the mood, fountain pens, artmaking tools, thievery,  journaling, public speaking, dismantling the patriarchy, comedy, community-building, grief, fear, racism, vulnerability, Kate Bush, gatekeeping, rituals, crying, Beyonce, Rage Against the Machine, Everything Everywhere All at Once, nostalgia, SVU, Now and Then, Aviations band,

We want art tips! Email us at wearttacoma@gmail.com or hit us up on Twitter @wearttacomapod!

 

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Art, Death, and Grief

Jamika and Katy turn to the art of the essay for healing, processing, and metabolizing grief, as our community and country faces compounding trauma and tragedy.

“Joy is not the opposite of grief. Grief is the opposite of indifference. Grief is an evolutionary indicator of love — the kind of great love that guides revolutionaries.” – Malkia Devich-Cyril

Topics this episodes include: gun violence, Tacoma politics, running for office, pandemic, collective existential crises, the murder of Iyana Ussery, death denial, the cult of productivity, relational culture, the unknown,

Shout outs include: art as revolution, marijuana, bodily functions, crying, reading books, journaling, journaling at the club, Malkia Devich-Cyril, Adrienne Maree Brown, Andre Henry, joy, tattoos, Target, therapy, metabolizing sorrow, dogs, dancing, honoring inspiration.

References:

 

Photo by Jamika Scott

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