City of Destiny warms to cultural life

Although Seattle may turn a cruel and indifferent face to your struggles to find affordable studio space, Tacoma promises it will not. City officials will listen to you, hold your hand, even drive you around town to see the possibilities.

Wood sculptor Otto Youngers with some pieces of his work in the Tacoma home he shares with his wife, artist Amy McBride.
Dan DeLong/P-I

Want gritty industrial live-work space where you can pursue your artistic vision? Tacoma's got that.

Desire a 900-square-foot studio with high ceilings, wood floor and a water view? How does $275 a month sound?

Need the inspiration of a thriving museum scene? Tacoma's got three major museums going in. It's already got the much-praised state History Museum and a popular children's museum that's looking to expand.

Several weeks ago, the city even held a summit for artists to sell them on relocating to Tacoma. More than 30 showed up.

Admittedly, the gallery situation is sparse at present, and there are fewer hip restaurants and clubs citywide than you'll find in some Seattle neighborhoods. But if an artist has the right pioneering spirit, a hunger to create the scene as opposed to just joining it, and maybe even a yen to buy a home, Tacoma just may be the place to be.

So says artist Amy McBride, a metalsmith, and her husband, Otto Youngers, a wood sculptor. A couple of years ago, they started shopping around for a new studio after outgrowing the basement of their Beacon Hill rental and growing weary at noise complaints from neighbors.

The couple discovered their $100,000 budget fell laughably short of their needs for a home and property big enough for Youngers' monumental creations. And in the back of their minds, the pair thought they might like to start a family, so they needed a couple of bedrooms, too.

"Beacon Hill is supposedly one of the last best place for affordable homes" in Seattle, McBride said. "But teeny houses were going for $160,000, $200,000. We finally looked literally from North Bend to Bremerton and Ballard, in an almost 40-mile radius."

But they found nothing with the right blend of urban diversity, natural beauty and affordability until they hit Tacoma. They'd visited the city a number of times for shows at the art museum, which they consider one of the best in the state, so it occurred to them that the city might be the place for them.

Youngers said he could hardly contain himself.

"You start pulling the (information) sheets on the houses and they're like 3,000 square-feet for $100,000, with grand yards and outbuildings," he recalled.

And the sculptor, who grew up in Wichita, found out something native Tacomans already knew: every neighborhood, indeed almost every house they looked at, boasts views of either Mount Rainier, the water or the Olympics. Some offer all three.

"We knew we had to move on it now," Youngers said. "We knew prices were escalating."

They ended up buying a 1925 South Tacoma home with graceful mullion windows and a carriage house complete with a hayloft on one-third of an acre. Room for several studios, room for their two dogs and plenty of room for a garden. Price: $102,000.

McBride found a job she loves as public arts coordinator for the City of Tacoma, and the couple now has a baby on the way.

McBride said she can hardly wait until Tacoma is considered chic.

"I wanted to be here before that happens so we could brag about how cheap our house was," she laughs.

They admittedly took a bit of gamble. The gallery scene remains fledgling, and their neighborhood is a still a little rough around the edges. More than a few of their artists friends can't quite believe they would leave the Seattle arts establishment for the unknown in Tacoma, an attitude that amuses McBride.

"Sometimes you take a risk and things fall into place," McBride muses. "Of course, the scene is evolving here. Seattle has more of a scene -- duh."

But if an artist has a pioneering spirit, the vision of the possible, and the desire to create a community, than Tacoma is the place to be, she said.

"It's not beautiful yet, but it's going to be beautiful," Youngers said. "Bellevue was once, what, nothing but blueberry farms."

Josie Emmons is the point woman in Tacoma's efforts to lure artists. A simple request to Emmons, the manager of the city's culture and tourism division, will get you a tour of the city's most promising areas for artists. The city has zoned the warehouse district near the University of Washington branch campus on Pacific Avenue to allow live-in studios, and officials work hard to link artists with developers and real estate agents.

And for those who viewed the words "Tacoma" and "the arts" as an oxymoron -- a perception perhaps reinforced by a vote 20 years ago to repeal the city's 1 percent for public art after a flap over an installation in the Tacoma Dome -- Emmons is happy to point out signs of a blooming cultural life that rivals any city in the nation. In no small part that's thanks to world-famous glass artist Dale Chihuly, a Tacoma native who owns three buildings downtown.

The Museum of Glass is now under construction near Chilhuly's buildings. Set to open in the summer of 2002, the museum will feature a dramatic, cone-shaped area where actual glass blowing will take place. A 500-foot Chihuly Bridge of Glass containing $12 million worth of the artist's work will link the museum with the downtown core.

And a sleek, 50,000-square-foot art museum clad in stainless-steel will rise near the state History Museum. The museum, designed by architect Antoine Predock -- called by Time Magazine at the first great New Age architect -- will frame views of Mount Rainier.

Meanwhile, near the Tacoma Dome, the $50 million LeMay Museum is planned to house a collection of some of the more than 2,300 classic and antique cars collected by Harold LeMay, who built a fortune through garbage-hauling and recycling.

Tacoma's arts and education community is also attempting to nurture the next generation of artists by creating an arts high school. That project has been bolstered by a $450,000 development grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The school will offer intensive training for aspiring artists, musicians, singers and actors.

"All these cumulative things are happening," Emmons said. "It's an enormous sea change in Tacoma."

City Manager Ray Corpuz says strong support for the arts makes sense.

"The city has taken a leadership role in the community to promote and support cultural art in both staff resources and funding," Corpuz said. "We consider it to be an important element in our economic development strategy."

Tacoma's interest in the arts -- and in artists -- is spreading, Emmons said.

"We're getting a lot of calls from artists who need a place," she said. "They're frustrated over (Seattle's) prices, frantic because they've lost their space. A lot are well established artists, showing in well-known galleries."

Fritz Church, an art blacksmith whose work graces the homes of a number of high-tech millionaires, moved his forge and shop from Georgetown to a cavernous studio just off South Tacoma Way nine months ago. He couldn't be happier with the blue-collar ethos and friendliness of neighbors who went out of their way to greet him and help him move in. Seattle was like that, before it grew sophisticated and expensive, he said.

"I swear, I had half a dozen people jump in to help when I moved," Church said. "They were just guys on their way to the bar. What I like about Tacoma is it has pockets of areas that remind me of Seattle back in the '70s."

When he tried to find new studio space in Seattle last year for his growing business -- he's now so successful he's booked with work 1 1/2 years out -- he almost went nuts. The few landlords willing to rent to a blacksmith asked top dollar for veritable shacks, Church said.

"I thought to myself, 'I may as well be trying to site a meth lab,"' the Seattle native said. "I'm so glad to be down here. I'm seriously considering buying a house."

P-I reporter Elaine Porterfield can be reached at 206-448-8022 or elaineporterfield@seattle-pi.com.