National Network Spotlights Tacoma 
As Vital Arts Community
by Alec Clayton, August 19, 1999, Tacoma City Paper

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Arts commentator Penny Stallings and her crew from Bravo, The Film and Arts Network spent
two hectic days filming Tacoma's art scene for the nationally televised series "ArtsBreak,"
the network's original news magazine on the arts. Arriving in town Wednesday night, they
spent all day Thursday and Friday videotaping local artists and community leaders, winding
up their dizzying tour Friday afternoon just in time for Stallings to fly back to Los Angeles and
catch a Brian Setzer concert. "It's seriously intense," Stallings said. "I will feel completely
drained by the time we leave."
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When I caught up with the crew Thursday afternoon at Grounds for Coffee, they had already
filmed the Hilltop Artist in Residence glass blowing project and interviewed Eli Ashley at the
Pantages Theater and sound artist Dan Senn at the site of his sound garden along the Point
Defiance walkway.
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"The first thing this morning we went to the Pantages -- a most beautiful theater," Stallings
said. She said Ashley talked about how Tacoma was a wild west lumber town when the
Pantages first opened, and how the audiences went there for vaudeville shows. At this point
another patron in the coffee shop interrupted to ask, quite loudly, "Are you insulting
Tacoma?"
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"No, not at all," she replied. And the heckler wanted to know if she was an out-of-towner and
what she was doing here. She told him she was from Los Angeles and that she was here
"checking out the art scene."
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"There's no art scene in L.A.," he said, and told her everybody in Los Angeles is crazy.
Both Stallings and her companion, Tracy Nolan, a marketing director from the Bravo network,
were high keyed and already seemed to be tired, running on nervous energy. Stallings said
she was excited about the glass program at Hilltop, which she called "intriguing," and Senn's
sound garden, which she described as "very real." She said that Senn, who has often worked
in Europe, told her Tacoma has a European feel and that artists here "are more famous than
sports figures."
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The show's producer came in and said, "We're ready," and they walked across the street to
film an interview with Phyllis Harrison, owner of the Art Stop. Studio lights were set up to
highlight a display of glass art and pottery, which glowed like a thousand little rainbows under
the powerful lights. Harrison stood in front of the camera, and Stallings faced her slightly
off-camera where she asked about Third Thursday Art Walk and the downtown arts scene. "I
think we have a very knowledgeable arts community," Harrison said. "It's a cool thing to be
an artist in this town." That was her response when Stallings related how Senn had compared
artists with sports figures.
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Harrison said that Art Walk is "a great example of a collaboration between the artists, the
galleries and the city."
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"What brings a community to life is not what's going on in office buildings," Harrison said. "It
doesn't matter how many bajillions of dollars lawyers and businessmen make on the 10th
floor of an office building. It's what's going on with the people on the streets that brings life to
a community."
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The Tacoma segment of "ArtsBreak" is slated to air in October on Channel 65. TCP
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