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FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 2015
Vol. CXXIV, No. 108
OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE CITY OF TACOMA Devoted to the Courts, Real Estate, Finance, Industrial Activities, and Publication of Legal Notices
Published Published Since Since 1890 1890
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Artist Lynn Di Nino's creative commute By Todd Matthews, Editor For more than a decade, local artist Lynn Di Nino has traveled several times per week between Seattle and Tacoma via public transportation. While most passengers nap in their seats, study their smart phones, or read a book, Di Nino has found creative inspiration aboard Sound Transit's Route 590/594 Express buses, which cover roughly 35 miles in 45 minutes between the two cities. "I love to take the bus," Di Nino recently explained. "The bus gets there faster than cars do. It takes 45 minutes and you couldn't drive your car for the price [of bus fare]." Di Nino's enthusiasm can be found in a new exhibit that opens this month at Tacoma Public Library's Handforth Gallery. Entitled Riding the express bus Seattle/Tacoma, the artwork consists of 14 vignettes of three-dimensional 10inch, wall-mounted figures seated next to photographs of landmarks Di Nino captured on her smart phone while the bus traveled its route— the shimmering Puyallup River and snow-capped Mount Rainier visible as the bus leaves Tacoma and enters Interstate 5; the brightly-colored tubes and slides that comprise the Wild Waves Theme Park between Fife and Federal Way; and a lush, open field rimmed by several copses of trees near Weyerhaeuser's headquarters in Federal Way (among others). The figures were created using paper, cement, wires, and other mixed media, and represent composites of some of Di Nino's fellow bus passengers—a bored stoner wearing a gray hoodie with a giant marijuana leaf design ironed onto its back; a man in a kilt reading a newspaper; a machinist on his way to work at Boeing; and a young woman holding a large potted plant (among others). There are even a couple celebrity figurines who would probably never be found on a public bus. Each figure took one week to complete, and Di Nino began the project three months ago. The figures are charming and fun, and the photographs are surprisingly crisp and beautiful (no blurry drive-by shots or grainy digital images here; it's as if Di Nino asked the driver to stop the bus so she could set up her camera and capture the images). "I think Lynn is an incredible craftsperson, and even the concept is beyond my imagination," said David Domkoski, Tacoma Public Library's
community relations manager who also manages Handforth Gallery. "Who would think about doing an art show about a bus ride? Lynn is full of big ideas, but she can execute them, and this is stunning." Di Nino's work is on display next to another exhibit, A Fable, which she curated and features more than two-dozen local artists who created their own figures inspired by the parable of the blind man and the elephant. Both exhibits will officially open this weekend during a celebration at 2 p.m. on Sat., June 6. The event is free and open to the public. Handforth Gallery is inside Tacoma Public Library's main branch, located at 1102 Tacoma Ave. S., in downtown Tacoma. The Tacoma Daily Index met De Nino this week to discuss her artwork. TACOMA DAILY INDEX: How did this idea come about? LYNN DI NINO: It was really my boyfriend's idea, in a way. He lives in Seattle. I've trained him to take the bus. Before that, he said, "You've got to be kidding. No way am I taking the bus." So now that he has taken the bus quite a lot, he talks to me about the stations of the cross, which are basically the places you pass on that express bus to Seattle over and over.
"I love to take the bus," says local artist Lynn Di Nino, who travels between Seattle and Tacoma several times per week aboard Sound Transit's 590/594 Express bus. The commute inspired her latest exhibition, which is on display at Tacoma Public Library's Handforth Gallery. "The bus gets there faster than cars do. It takes 45 minutes and you couldn't drive your car for the price [of bus fare]." (PHOTO BY TODD MATTHEWS) For example, you look up from your reading, see the Federal Way towers, and say, "Oh, good. We're two-thirds of the way home." Or you see Weyerhaeuser on your way to Seattle and say, "Oh, we're one-third of the way to Seattle." When he was talking about the stations of the cross, it occurred to me that I could make these small people in bus seats looking at the scene as they go by. I'm no photographer, so I had to figure out how you get pictures of these places on the freeway as if they were taken from the bus. It just so happened that I got a [smart phone] at the same time and the [smart phone] I have freezes a frame at 60 miles per hour. I had to go back and forth between Seattle and CONTINUED Tacoma quite a lot to get ON PAGE 2 the pictures that I wanted