ART

By DOUG MACKEY

It’s not too much to say that when professional artist Lynn Di Nino moved from Seattle to Tacoma in 2001, she single-handedly consolidated and galvanized what had been a functioning but fractured art community. Di Nino promptly set to work spearheading audacious communal projects involving Grit City’s visual artists, musicians, photographers—and those working in just about any other medium you can think of—creating amazing public spectacles year after year: all while fabricating, showing and selling her own sculptural artwork. In the process, she became a Tacoma cultural icon. (Look for her image on the walls of McMenamin’s Spanish Ballroom.) At 78, she may have slowed down a tad, but she is thinking of the creatives following in her footsteps. 

For October’s Tacoma Arts Month Studio Tour, she composed and handed out a one-page manifesto: advice for aspiring artists. Not surprisingly, her main theme is community. The document—which you may access on her website, https://lynndinino.com/bio-resume at the bottom of the page— begins with: 

“It’s unlikely that you, the artist, will be ‘discovered’ and jet to fame. It just doesn’t happen that way. Much of your time will need to be focused on networking and getting out into the community. Go to every art show and cultural event (even plays and poetry readings). 

Aside from constantly MAKING your art, you will need to promote yourself, and make your work known.” She goes on to discuss social media (of course), resumes, galleries, pricing, press releases, and more. But her ultimate exhortation is to simply SHOW UP, in person. 

To wit, she has created and hosted Tripod Slideshows. These monthly events feature three presenters per themed show to do just that: appear the third Friday of each month from 7-8:30 p.m. to show slides and speak (and sometimes play and/or sing), delivering 15-minute- max presentations. “I prefer very short shows,” she says. “I have a bias against 90-minute talks that punish you.” Held at the Center for Spiritual Living, the presenters are often artists showing images of their work. But Tripod has also highlighted local organizations, travel, architecture and issues like homelessness, nearly always with a local focus. It’s a great place to see and be seen. 

Of her own artwork, the septuagenarian says she doesn’t particularly care about selling anymore. “I make what I want.” Presently that would be a typically humorous series she calls “Spy Pigeons”. “I was in New York City recently, and I noticed that, outside, under the table where we were eating, were these pigeons. They were intent on staying under the table and I imagined they were listening to our conversation.” Fashioned from recycled plastic—a Lynn Di Nino signature material—each has a small window on its body, with a view into its interior, betraying its mission with a variety of what look to be surveillance components. What are the pigeons up to? Who do they report to? Lynn is willing to dispense her invaluable knowledge to artists-to-be, but she’s not spilling the beans on the birds.