Twice-yearly arts party returns to downtown Olympia Friday. Visit 126 locations

Olympia is having a party, and you’re invited.

The city’s twice-yearly Arts Walk, happening Friday and Saturday, celebrates arts and artists of all kinds. More than that, it celebrates community.

“At the heart of it, Arts Walk is about community,” said Arts Walk coordinator E. Jessica Strauss Tomy. “We’re so caught up in ourselves and our own struggles and our own objectives that we forget sometimes that other people are not just extras in our lives.

“Arts Walk reminds us that we are all in this together,” she said. “People are so willing to share and to say, ‘This is my story; what’s yours?’ It’s a cultural exchange and a way of celebrating all the things that make us human.”

“I love Arts Walk,” said Fern Tallos, whose acrylic painting “Spring Garden” is on the cover of the event map and posters. “I’m shocked by how big it is. I love that the whole town comes out.”

This spring’s event offers art at 126 locations, compared to 116 in spring 2025, and Strauss Tomy estimates that at least 350 artists, from professionals to schoolchildren, are participating.

With that many options— plus the art and events that pop up in other shops and the street entertainment centered at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Washington Street, closed to traffic for the event — it’s difficult to choose destinations.

Tallos’ “Spring Garden” and other paintings will be on view at the Oly AHA Museum, 203 Columbia St. NW. Her work is also part of two current exhibitions at the museum: “Paint the Town,” about Olympia murals, and “You Are Here,” which explores the history of Olympia and of the museum site.

The artist (https://www.ferntallos.com/) is on the board of the Thurston County Museum of Fine Arts, 120 Olympia Ave. NE, an Arts Walk mainstay. TCMoFA is showing the group exhibition “Chrysalis” during Arts Walk.

Other longtime centers of Arts Walk activity include the Olympia Center, 222 Columbia St. NW, hosting the Olympia Art League juried show, a show by an unnamed unhoused artist and music and dance performances; Childhood’s End Gallery, 222 Fourth Ave. W., showing the group exhibit “Dream Logic” and offering a reception with live music from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday; and Art House Designs, 420 Franklin St. SE, showing prints and mixed media pieces by John and Tom Lysak and offering jazz by the Dennis Hastings Quartet from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday.

The city showcases more Arts Walk stops with its Innovation Awards. Here are the winners:

• Heart of the Deernicorn and Studio Golden, 207 Fourth Ave. E., encouraging collaboration with the interactive gallery show “Joyful Practice: Analog Play in a Digital World.” Visitors can type on a typewriter, draw their dreams, make Shrinky Dinks and do other activities from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday and from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday. (The show will be open during all Arts Walk hours.)
• Ossa Skinworks, 109 Capitol Way N., showing Travis Johnson’s “Black Innocence” series, dedicated to his three young nephews.
• Abigail Stuart House, 1002 Washington St. SE, which will show watercolors, jewelry, collages and art made of reclaimed wood. There’ll be art demonstrations, a tango performance and free tango lessons.
• Three Magnets Brewing Co., 600 Franklin St. SE, hosting a student art show and market featuring artists from Olympia High School. And visitors are invited to make prints with Edgar Martinez of Line Marker Screen Printing, who’ll have a portable screen press.
• Sylvester Park, 615 Washington St. SE, hosting “Urban Poetics” from 5 to 8 p .m. Friday. The performance will include dance by the Feral Butoh Collective, poetry by Olympia Poet Laureate Ocean, and shadow puppetry and lanterns by FernMetal Arts Collective.

Want to buy as well as admire? Make time for the popular arts market, which this year has moved to Percival Landing. “It has a beautiful atmosphere,” Strauss Tomy said. The new location also allowed for an expansion of the market (https://www.artswalkoly.com/p/about/arts-market), which will feature work by 89 artists.