The Tacoma Art Museum was awarded a $20,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The grant will be applied toward an exhibition featuring artist Zhi Lin, exploring the experiences of Chinese immigrants in the Puget Sound region during the late 1800s. It is scheduled to open in June, 2017.

“TAM is commissioning new works from Zhi Lin for the exhibition. The works will emphasize concerns that are especially significant to historic cultural relations in Tacoma. We are grateful to the NEA for providing resources that will help TAM to organize this exhibition as part of our Northwest Perspectives series,” said Stephanie Stebich, Executive Director at Tacoma Art Museum. “We are thankful to NEA and all those who support our mission of connecting people through art.”

Zhi Lin’s exhibition will be supported by a full-color catalogue and education and outreach programs, including docent tours, public programs, free admission days, artist lectures, workshops, and free art activities in the TAM Studio.

This is the second round of competitive grant awards during the NEA’s 50th anniversary year. In all categories, including Art Works, NEA awarded more than $82 million to fund local arts projects and partnerships across the nation. For the Art Works category, 1,763 eligible applications were received, with 1,002 grants approved nation-wide, totaling more than $26 million.

“The arts are all around us, enhancing our lives in ways both subtle and obvious, expected and unexpected,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “Supporting projects like the Zhi Lin exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.”

Zhi Lin holds the Floyd & Delores Jones Endowed Professorship in the Arts and is a professor of painting and drawing at the University of Washington. His work has been shown in many notable museums in the United States, United Kingdom, and China.

“I was very pleased to know that my exhibition at TAM will be supported in part by the NEA grant. I’m very grateful,” said artist Zhi Lin. “In order to produce the work I have been making on-site studies in specific locations where the radical riots against Chinese — and even ethnic cleansing and massacres of Chinese Americans — took place. This includes Tacoma, Issaquah, Black Diamond, Coal Creek, Newcastle, Renton, and Seattle. I intend for the work to raise social awareness of Chinese Americans’ contributions to this region and to our country.”

 —Tacoma Art Museum

Gig Harbor to unveil Peace Pole

The Gig Harbor Midday Rotary and the City of Gig Harbor will hold a ceremony Monday, June 13, to unveil and dedicate a new public art piece in the front garden at the Gig Harbor Civic Center. The public ceremony will be held at 5 p.m.

The Gig Harbor Peace Pole will include the message, “May Peace Prevail On Earth,” in eight languages; Spanish, French, Croatian, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Lushootseed (Puyallup Tribe) and English.

– City of Gig Harbor