Arts talk features tributes to 3 figures who rose and rise above

Every Friday, we get recommendations for things to do and see in the Puget Sound region. For today’s picks, KUOW’s Kim Malcolm spoke to former KUOW arts reporter Marcie Sillman, now a freelance journalist, and co-host of the podcast DoubleXposure.

Kenjiro Nomura, American Modernist: An Issei Artist’s Journey

If you don't live in Edmonds, or even if you do live in Edmonds, head there to the Cascadia Art Museum. Kenjiro Nomura came to the United States in the early 20th century, in between the two World Wars. He attended an atelier in Seattle. Like many Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans, after Executive Order 9066 was issued on February 19, 1942, he was interned at Minidoka.

There's a whole room in this exhibition of the paintings that Nomura made from Minidoka that are just astonishing, powerful, beautiful, poignant, and sad. It is really quite an eye-opener of a show.

Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette at Pacific Northwest Ballet

PNB has presented this version a number of times since 2008, and it's just heartbreaking. It's very cinematic and contemporary. Music by Prokofiev. Very abstract sets and costumes, but the story is there, and the drama and the passion are there.

I'll be going three times over the two weekends. Part of the reason is that these are the final performances of PNB principal ballerina Noelani Pantastico, who is ending her 25-year performing career with a role that really has come to define her.

Remembering artist and teacher Michael Spafford

On January 29, the painter and art professor Michael Spafford passed away from lung cancer at the age of 86. Mike was a UW art professor for more than 30 years. There are legions of visual artists in this city who were trained and mentored by him. One of his students I was speaking to this morning said, “He was a curmudgeon, but he told me the truth.” He was a gentle man, a wonderful artist, just a lovely human being.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.