The Pierce County Arts Commission has been keeping me busy teaching recycled art workshops to school kids in the Tacoma area. We utilize empty plastic water bottles, old socks, fabric scraps, telephone wire, candy wrappers and used plastic bags to create dolls, dragons, and other wild things. I should start an on-line gallery to show off all of their incredible work; no matter how many times I do this project, the students always come up with ways to inspire me. This sweet first grader turned candy wrappers into bows for her hair!

Saturday was the City of Olympia’s Open Studio Tour, so I visited George Kurzman, one of my favorite Olympia Dumpster Divers, at his slated-to-be-demolished studio, which is in an old warehouse on Port of Olympia property.

Olympia is not an easy town to be an artist. Due to the dearth of affordable studio space, most of the artists do their thing in their homes (and I’m not talking about downtown live-in art studio lofts here), which contributes to the lack of professionalism, camaraderie and community, and keeps us isolated from new ideas and spontaneous possibilities. I really wish the Raccoon Collective good luck with their pursuit of an Arts Community Center. I think the City of Olympia needs to expand the public library and include a visual arts facility (there are already plenty of theaters and music venues). Maybe instead of a city hall with retail space, they should build the new city hall to incorporate art spaces. Other cities subsidize artists (check out Portland’s Pearl district for one fine example), why can’t Olympia?