Farewell, Tacoma!

Mat on McKinley Hill with the Tacoma Dome

Ah, Tacoma! We have such memories: we spent 14 years doing business with you with our gallery, BKB & Company, and Mat got to be there for 6 of those years downtown delighting customers and creating many more fans of the Art*o*mat® program. It is a bummer that we could not find a new host downtown willing to make the commitment to keep Mat in Tacoma so we must take him back to his owner/creator in Winston-Salem, NC.  We're not going to embark on our long journey without doing a practice loading/unloading run -and what better way to pay tribute to this fine town than to take Mat to model for his first Epic Art*o*mat® Road Trip photo shoot in front of a few of her more famous landmarks: Bob's Java Jive, the Tollefson Plaza Welcoming Figure, and the magnificent Tacoma Dome!


We learned during our first move of Mat in December, from BKB & Company to Corky's garage, that it was a mistake to move him with any art or tokens inside.  Cigarette pack-sized art was escaping out of the drop area in the bottom and slipping out of the tops of the columns. What a jumbled mess! Mat must make this trip sans art. With all the art and artists' placards (the signs above the pulls that show which art is in which column) packed safely away in boxes for the move the bare metal placard holder looked empty and lonely. We decided to do something creative and colorful about that: the new traveling "placards" read, "Hi! My name is Mat. What is your name?"

Mat's new sans-art placards read, "Hi! My name is Mat. What is your name?"

We watched the weather reports for the least-rainiest day this week to do our farewell photo shoot with Mat and Boy! Did we luck out or what? We donned our Art*o*mat® uniforms (hoodies), sunglasses, brought some gloves for the anticipated heavy lifting, and headed out into the chilly sunny February morning. We managed to make it to three stops in front of Tacoma's iconic landmarks without any bumps, drops, scrapes, or oopsies. The first was the kitschy crazy dive bar, The World Famous Bob's Java Jive, www.myspace.com/bobsjavajive in the Nalley Valley. 

Mat at the World Famous Bob's Java Jive on South Tacoma Way in Nalley Valley

Victoria and Mat pay tribute to the Java Jive coffee pot dive bar

 
Bob's java Jive wasn't open and nobody was around except for a few construction workers on South Tacoma Way but they took no notice of us fumbling  and rumbling about on the crumbly asphalt -even with Mat's purple metal flake paint shining in the sun. So sparkly!












Our next stop was at McKinley hill to get the full view of downtown Tacoma complete with the Tacoma Dome. The new LeMay auto museum is also there, to the left of Corky, shining in its full "Carmadillo" glory! The Olympic Mountains even decided to make an appearance in the background.

Corky and Mat bask in the sunshine before all of downtown Tacoma, The T-Dome and LeMay Car Museum

Does she look very "Welcoming" to you? Mat's featured raccoon painting looks a little worried!

Our third and final stop on our Farewell, Tacoma photo shoot was downtown at Tollefson Plaza where the 20 foot tall Native American Welcoming Figure totem stands "welcoming" visitors to Tacoma in her own way (though she's kinda looming and creepy in person if you ask us). For more info on her, The Olympian wrote a nice article about her debut: theolympian.com/a-20-foot-welcome.html

Mat and the Welcoming Figure at Tollefson Plaza

The Welcoming Figure sign

We topped off our successful inaugural photo shoot with a nice lunch of french onion soup and Waldorf salad sandwiches on cinnamon swirl bread at Grassi's Cafe on Pacific Avenue.  We loaded Mat back into the minivan feeling very confident about this crazy idea we have of driving his 200-some pounds around to every roadside attraction that strikes our fancy between here and North Carolina and repeating the multi-step loading process that could be treacherous on any surface other than level smooth pavement.  We've already decided that rain will be a huge deterrent -it's difficult enough in nice weather. 3 stops in one day was pretty hard work and we'll see how our muscles are feeling tomorrow before we attempt that feat again.  But for now, Thank you, Tacoma for such a lovely day to bid you farewell.  I'll bet it is gonna rain buckets on Monday when we hit the road!