ArtSEA: A ceramics show with sharp edges in La Conner

It is indeed pretty weird.

But with its Mad Hatter vibes, Build Me Up, Tear Me Down, Why Don’t You Love Me Babe Like There’s No One Else Around? (through May 11) is an excellent collection of work by 12 Northwest ceramicists that feels especially well-timed with a world gone topsy-turvy. Bonus for me: “Weird ceramics” is one of my favorite art genres.

The (surely) self-appointed centerpiece is the aforementioned “Greedy King” by Tip Toland. The Washington artist is revered for her ability to capture the look of human skin — wrinkles, pores, warts and all — in clay.

For this remarkable piece, made in 2021, she also invented a fairy tale about a king “whose only objective in life was to think of ways to enhance his own image,” she writes, “specifically his crown.” The king sends his men out to pillage more and more gold for his shining headpiece, the weight of which eventually deforms and snaps his neck.

Stand close — if you dare — to see his bloodshot eyes and peer into the moist recess of his ravenous mouth. Harrowing.

Also on view are several large works by the incomparable Patti Warashina, whose naked and bendy figures toss and tumble and make towers of each other, forever hinting at human foibles.

Dark humor is embedded in several of the show’s collections, including Bellingham-based Ryan W. Kelly’s shelves full of curious characters transformed into bug-eyed vessels (look for an angsty Humpty Dumpty, a green-hued imp and a grumpy shrimp).

Claudia Fitch’s figures recall paper dolls, posed and sporting patterned outfits. See the “Marching Lawyer,” block-headed and striding, and “Vessel/Dress,” in which female forms sport retro dresses (and lack heads).

Portland artist Dirk Staschke, known for his layered ceramic cakes, is showing an intriguing set of ceramic portraits that resemble photographic negatives. Somehow both faded and shining, the faces here are ghostly, giving what he calls “impressions of a presence.”

In Holly Hudson’s three-walled installation “The Giving Tree,” human legs stretch upward to sprout branches, pomegranates and, perched in a nest, a human head. Such disembodied bodies abound, including in Chris Theiss’s black-and-white rows of finely illustrated eyes, which seem to watch all the proceedings with untold insight.

And in what feels like an antidote to the avarice of the Greedy King, in another room sit several queenly glazed-stoneware heads by Seattle artist Emily Counts. Despite having a few too many mouths and eyes, these regal faces feel welcoming and protective, thanks to flowering crowns, pastel hues and a soft neon glow emanating from within.

Looking for more clay kicks? Follow Saltstone Ceramics (in Wallingford) for their annual “Mug Madness” event (beginning March 1). Modeled after the March Madness basketball tournament, this competition pits wildly different handmade mugs against each other in “bracket” fashion, until one mug rules them all. Vote for your favorites on Saltstone’s Instagram stories and get to know a new klatch of clay artists in the process.

This week the City of Seattle announced our newest Civic Poet: Dujie Tahat. 

A joint project of city with the Seattle Public Library and Seattle City of Literature, the two-year post is intended to increase public engagement with poetry and literature.

Known for their poetry slam prowess, as well as three chapbooks, Tahat will follow past Civic Poets Claudia Castro-Luna, Anastacia Renee, Jordan Imani Keith and Shin Yu Pai in developing creative approaches to proliferating poetry.

And in more word-nerd news, the season is awash in new titles by local authors. Just in case for some reason you feel the need to bury your head in a book:

< Elita, by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum. This “Nordic noir” novel takes place on two small fictional islands in Puget Sound: Elita and Adela, based on the real-life McNeil Island (which housed a federal penitentiary from 1875 to 1976) and Anderson Island (where about 100 Scandinavians lived in the 1950s).

Lunstrum uses lyrical language in this tale of deeply held secrets, illustrating it with local imagery: “white like the opal skim inside an oyster’s shell;” “the slap and clink of rigging from the nearby work boats — a lonely, vacant kind of sound.”

< Tartufo, by Kira Jane Buxton. From the author of the darkly comic-apocalyptic Hollow Kingdom comes a scent-heavy story set in a tiny Italian town full of quirky characters — most of whom have no idea what lies beneath, in the form of a giant, possibly life-changing truffle.

< The Heart of Winter, by Jonathan Evison. The prolific Northwest novelist strikes a chord with this latest title, set on his home island of Bainbridge. Praised as a poignant and insightful look at a long marriage, the story follows Abe and Ruth Winter, a couple who moved from a bad blind date to 70 years spent together — with all manner of ups and downs in between.

< The Harder I Fight, the More I Love You, by Neko Case. “I have never seen a ghost, but I have been haunted,” the Bellingham-raised rocker says early in this memoir. She goes on to share stories of her poverty-stricken, adult-lacking Northwest coming of age, all while reflecting the laughter-through-tears stance of her songwriting. 

< The Birth of Seattle Rap, by Novocaine132 (aka Ben Camp). This deeply researched history of Seattle rap was penned by a longtime local music journalist (The Rocket, The Stranger) whose love of the music shines through. Featuring a foreword by the recently deceased DJ Nasty Nes (see below), the book makes clear that grunge wasn’t the only music genre on the rise in 1980s Seattle.

Passages

Photographer and filmmaker Della Chen, 53, was killed by a speeding driver on February 23. Chen’s debut documentary, She Marches in Chinatown, about the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team, had been earning acclaim while making the rounds at film festivals. 

Seattle DJ “Nasty” Nes Rodriguez died last week at 63. Known for discovering Sir Mix-a-Lot and hosting popular radio shows, including “Rap Attack” on KCMU (now KEXP), Rodriguez was instrumental in expanding Northwest hip-hop.