Celebration of art

By Molly Gilmore

Arts Walk is the most wonder ful time of the year, according to Sydney Hann, who owns the funky boutique Hot Toddy in downtown Olympia.

"Everyone's so amazed," she said. "The shops are so cute, and the art is so wonderful. It's like Christmas for me.

"It's just that jolly, merry feeling that people have. Everyone's excited. There's a buzz in the air."

Hann is far from the only one who's eagerly awaiting Arts Walk XXXIV, a collage of arts of all kinds happening Friday and Saturday at businesses throughout downtown Olympia.

This year, there's a record number of locations for the biannual event, which is particularly big in spring when it is combined with Saturday's Procession of the Species - and when the efforts of South Sound schoolchildren often are showcased along with works by professional and amateur painters, potters, photographers and performing artists.

"There are 131 spots on the map, and I think the most we've ever had was 123," said Arts Walk organizer Erin Conine of the Olympia Department of Parks, Arts and Recreation. "It was quite a jump. I was worried about finding space, but it worked out."

Hann said, "Arts Walk provides a wonderful opportunity for a creative outlet, whether you're an artist in a window, whether you're walking in the parade or whether you're just wandering around downtown doing random performance art.

"It's the atmosphere of art that I love."

Hot Toddy, 410 Capitol Way S., is doing all of those things. (Hann and daughters Zela, 9, and Mirin, 7, students at Lincoln Elementary School, might participate in Procession, too.)

Hann is celebrating her store's first official Arts Walk with mosaics by cover-map artist Jennifer Kuhn, oil paintings by Bethany Hays and folk-pop music by Dream Kitchen on the sidewalk out front.

Both Hot Toddy and Bella Boutique also will have models strolling around, possibly accompanied by a photographer. "They'll be really outrageously dressed to the nines," Hann said.

This Arts Walk is the first for about a dozen new businesses, Conine said.

"Most of the businesses have done it before," she added. "They just don't do it every year. But for some reason, everyone is doing it at once this year.

"There must be well over 400 artists when you count all the classrooms of kids."

Among them: Ray Evans, whose "Junkyard Creations" will be installed as a Saturday-only sculpture garden in Sylvester Park. The city is forgoing the usual entertainment in the park this time.

Of course, the reality is that there are innumerable artists involved, from the creatively dressed crowds to the artists who join after the map is printed.

The Experimental Puppet Theater Mini Festival, for example, has moved from Washington Street Arts to Le Voyeur, 404 Fourth Ave S.E. The experimental performances, based on Victorian toy theater, will happen at 2 and 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

"Toy theater is a kind of puppet show that happens in a box," said Ariel Goldberger, a professor at The Evergreen State College. "I told my students that using that as a departure idea, I wanted them to show me what they think the toy theater of today is.

"It's an exercise in thinking outside the box."

Hann of Hot Toddy is another example of the Arts Walk lagniappe. Although this is her shop's first official Arts Walk, she had art in the windows at Hot Toddy for the past two.

In fact, she had art in the window last spring, even though the shop didn't open until September.

"I was working in there during Arts Walk last spring, and I listened to people," she said. "There were good reactions to the art that was in the windows."