‘Don’t Look’

A new group collective has formed in Tacoma and its basis lies in the former Madera Gallery owned by Carlos Taylor-Swanson – now Madera Architectural Elements (MAE). He has teamed up with many other artists to create a group of furniture artists and designers to showcase their first show out of their own showroom entitled “Don’t Look,” inspired by the exhibit’s boudoir vignette aesthetic and the associations that naturally accompany the term.

The members of MAE include seasoned Tacoma artists and a few textile artists some may not be familiar with yet: Diane Roberts (fused/stained glass, ixia tile, custom ceramic tile, sculpture), Gennevieve Schlemmer (mosaics and wire sculpture), Lynn di Nino (concrete), Swanson-Taylor (wood), Mindy Barker (muralist and painter), Pacific Rim Tapestries (textiles), Shape 3 (custom metal and artwork), Jeff Turner (furniture and upholstery), Two Ravens Studio (art/metal casting), Design Tech ArtGlass (glass), Burnett Forge (artist blacksmith), Madera Fine Woodworking is Taylor-Swanson, Steve Lawler and Wade Martin (wood surfacing).

The idea for the exhibit came about when Lisa Kinoshita’s gallery Mineral, which is located right next door to the space where “Don’t Look” is being exhibited, was planning its second annual juried chastity belt show. “She wanted to work with our group so she invited us to create a theme that could include chastity belts,” MAE President Lynn Di Nino said. “It presented a dual challenge: the chastity belt idea could involve work for our members, many of whom are based in furnishings. We knew it couldn’t be a kitchen, and involve a chastity belt. It had to be a bedroom. Carlos is making a bed, Gennevieve is making a chandelier and various other art objects are being made by our members,” she said.

The room that will take up the gallery space is divided by a screen made by Shape 3, and it helps create a cozy bedroom environment and the gallery space has windows along Puyallup Avenue. “A bedroom environment has to be moody looking, so we have lights on the floor behind the bedroom projecting white along walls, red, magenta and blue. We’ve also put up black paper on the window with torn holes so people could see. It blocks light, adds intrigue to the situation and creates a good mood for a bedroom,” Di Nino said.

The descriptive term used to describe the show – “boudoir vignette” – was one of Di Nino’s contributions, as she felt that it was fitting when someone looks at a scene that has fuzzy edges around it that you cannot see perfectly, like through a peephole.

“When you look at peepholes you can’t see to left or right, only a range of what’s in front of you. It’s like a vignette photo in that way, not walking through it just peering through it. To call a bedroom a ‘boudoir,’ which is a French word, gives it a sexual connotation,” Di Nino said. She went on to note that the general idea for the scene was not so hard to come by, but instead it was the details of how the scene would be decorated and housed that was difficult to decide on with 15 or so member artists all having a unique opinion.

“Did we want the bedroom to be spare looking? Or more like a jungle of things? Those were the details we were hammering out each day…for installation, you can’t describe what you want ahead of time when you’ve got so many people working on it. It’s a lot like a theater production with certain props and thinking, how does that look? Does it add or subtract? And then you add something else in and go oops! We have to remove something because the new thing doesn’t go with what you’re doing. We kept going this way until we say ‘aha’ and finally got it.”

The title of the show is meant to be intriguing despite what it is telling viewers to do. Di Nino and other member artists intended for this title to be intriguing and reel visitors in as it will be visible from the street outside. “When we put our black paper on the window, we cut out negative letters that say, ‘don’t look,’ and lowered the peepholes so people can look. Puyallup Avenue is mostly filled with people driving by so we needed something big to attract attention, and we think the red light will translate so it says ‘don’t look’ in red and the peepholes will have red light coming through, too.”

This is the first official collaboration by MAE member artists and it most certainly will not be the last. The group is already looking toward the future and planning on opening up their scope to include many more opportunities for sharing their art with the public.

“Someone in the group came up with the idea of members in the group collaborating together for public art projects,” Di Nino affirmed. “I’m a concrete person, and we also have someone who works with mosaic tile and ceramic tile, steel people. Plenty of creative ideas can come with mixing mediums up like that for public art.”

MAE is a new group to the city and they are currently working overtime in an effort to make their presence known so that more architects and developers might realize that this group could be a resource to them, or “one-stop shopping” as Di Nino puts it. Though they want to get more visible and do city-based projects, the group’s president affirms their capabilities and scope are wide. “We want to do public art projects, but those are just one spoke on a wheel. We want to do more collaborations.”

“Don’t Look” will be on view at 301 Puyallup Ave. in the Dome District for two preview events: Aug. 14 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the Aug. 19 Third Thursday Artwalk from 5-8 p.m. Admission is free. The show runs through Sept. 14 and can be viewed through peepholes from the sidewalk.