TaCo to run Tollbooth
Tacoma Contemporary (TaCo), the non-profit running the Woolworth Windows on Broadway, will soon program the Toolbooth Gallery, also on Broadway. The gallery was created by ArtRod and billed as “the World’s Smallest Gallery Dedicated Exclusively to Experimental Video and Wheat-Pasted Paper Fine Arts.”
From ArtRod’s website:
The Tollbooth was once a TV-Tacoma information kiosk that had long since been abandoned and abused. During the Summer and Fall of 2003, ArtRod was granted access to this kiosk and given authority by the City of Tacoma to use this former eyesore to program artworks for the public.
ArtRod also published the magazine Toby Room and ran the gallery Critical Line on St. Helens (now the home of the Rainbow Center). Last week the Board of ArtRod asked TaCo if they would like to take over the Tollbooth as part of ArtRod’s decision to disband the organization.
5 comments
K Kari March 10, 2008
I’m thrilled to hear BEAN is coming to town! I joined beanonline.org awhile back because I’d been in a service/social group with the executive director previously and loved the experience. I have a conflict for the first Tacoma meeting, but I hope they have a good turnout!
M morgan March 10, 2008
Slight rant:
This is great for Tacoma’s young, urban professionals. And for the oldsters I guess there’s the Elks. What about the rest of us?
The thing I find interesting about all these real and virtual social networks coming into vogue is that very few of them do much to create community. Sure, you can meet someone and make a new friend, but what about the larger sense of connecting with society? I’m all for excuses to drink, but where’s the larger good?
For example, BEAN has as its cornerstones: leadership, friendship, and service. But the service portion is just a single day. Yes, better than nothing, but a single day? Rome has a couple thousand years on us, Tacoma needs more than just a single day if we are to catch up!
Ok, enough grumpiness. Play on.
S Sarahsnow March 11, 2008
So just what is the definition of ‘young professional’ anyway? It’s been my experience that Love Tacoma and YPN are all about the 20-somethings. Great for them, but what about those of us in our mid-30s? I’ve got a different take on life than I did 10 years ago, and would love to meet more like-minded folks in my general age range. So I’ll try to go check out these BEAN people, and hope for the best!
H Howard Wu March 13, 2008
This is Howard, and I am the executive director for BEAN. Thanks for all the discussion around this. A few extra bits of information about BEAN.
- BEAN actually does a lot of community service work. Yes, they are primarily single-day events, but we strive to provide a large variety of them, from food banks to tree planting to fund raising walks to teen shelters to voter registration to youth gardens to elderly home clean-up. If you can think of them, we have probably done them. We also have our annual Think Global Act Local campaign (http://www.beanonline.org/tgal) that is year-round for awareness/fund raising. We also have a scholarship fund now. Many of our members found inspiration in these one-day events and then go on to serve on different charitable groups’ board of directors or become mentors later on.
- About 35% of BEAN’s members are 21-25, about 35% are 25-30, about 25% are 30-35 and about 5% are over 35. We don’t know what Tacoma’s membership will look like, but if you are young at heart, interested in meeting diverse new people and want to give back to the community, BEAN is the right place for you.
Finally, many of us seem to commute for work or on the weekend back and forth between Tacoma and Seattle, so having BEAN spanning the greater Puget Sound area should hopefully offer wider variety of events/programs, no matter where you are.
I hope to meet all of you next Tuesday at the kick-off planning meeting. If you are interested in taking a leadership role, please show up or let me know. :-)
C Crenshaw Sepulveda March 13, 2008
I’m starting up a Latino version of this group called FRIJOL. I’ve got another one for the cynics out there called “BEAN there done That”.
It is sad they don’t allow AOL users to join, I’ve got a life time supply of AOL cds.