Bellevue Arts Museum Biennial – Metalmorphosis


Detail image of work My House - Tanya Lippe's Lunch Box, made out of lunch box steel, stainless steel, vitreous enamel. 2016.
Detail image of work My House – Tanya Lippe’s Lunch Box, made out of lunch box steel, stainless steel, vitreous enamel. 2016.

Yesterday my newly finished piece My House: Tanya Lippe’s Lunch Box was installed at Bellevue Arts Museum just in time for the opening of the much anticipated juried metal exhibition Metalmorphosis, which opens this Thursday night.

Delivery of the pieces and installation went smoothly, though the complexity of hanging my piece made it the longest single hang of the exhibition thus far (Maria Phillips’ hang was still in progress – I think she’s now officially the longest BAM hang of all time!) … A dubious honour  I can tell you, as Elizabeth, who I spent the day working with, is a real pro. That said, the 3rd floor of the museum was an incredible place to be yesterday, especially as most of the works were in situ (and those with power were running) and it is looking really magnificent. I hitched a ride home with Kirk Lang (a locally-based jeweller/sculptor who is an incredibly precise metalsmith and artist) and both of us were sharing our experience of awe on arrival into the space, at seeing the pieces already installed. It’s a little hard to communicate how amazed and thrilled I am to have my work precariously dangled alongside the glorious fruits of so many high calibre artists and artisans.

Needless to say, if you’re in the Seattle area and you haven’t already got a ticket, then please consider yourself invited to the Thursday night shindig by me! You can head over to the ticketing page and grab a ticket for the opening night party that starts at 6pm on Thursday the 1st, or they’ll be $20 on the door. If you’re willing to wait a day (you will miss out on seeing me though…) you can have free entry for Friday’s opening to the general public. And if you’re in Seattle right now but are going to be in town before February, I encourage you to get along. It’s a heck of a show, and I’ve not even seen it fully installed yet!

From the exhibition media:

BAM received a record-breaking 330 applications for this year’s biennial. From this vast and talented pool of applicants, 49 Northwest artists were selected to participate:

Rik Allen, WA Ruth Beer, BC Lanny Bergner, WA
Jana Brevick, WA Julie Brooks, WA John Buck, MT
Ben Buswell, OR Deborah Butterfield, MT Melissa Cameron, WA
Christine Clark, OR Andy Cooperman, WA Maria Cristalli, WA
Casey Curran, WA Garri Dadyan, WA Marita Dingus, WA
Andrew Fallat, WA Chelsea Gaddy, WA Aran Galligan, WA
Catherine Grisez, WA Laurie J. Hall, OR Bruno Hervieux (Normandie Woodworks), WA
Ron Ho, WA Mary Lee Hu, WA Lynne Hull, WA
David Keyes, WA Bob Kramer, WA Kirk Lang, WA
Cheryll Leo-Gwin, WA Phillip Levine, WA Keith Lewis, WA
Micki Lippe, WA Susan Madacsi, ID Chris McMullen, WA
Taiji Miyasaka &
David Drake, WA
Ries Niemi, WA Allan Packer, WA
Ross Palmer Beecher, WA Beverly Petow, BC Maria Phillips, WA
Peter Reiquam, WA Lyndsay Rice, OR Midori Saito, WA
Anika Smulovitz, ID Julie Speidel, WA Spencer Staley, OR
Nicky Statius, OR Lori Talcott, WA Kristin Tollefson, WA
Nancy Worden, WA
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