Tacoma artist River Meschi headlines the visual art offerings at Ocean Fest, June 2-4, at Foss Waterway Seaport Museum on Tacoma’s waterfront. Ocean Fest is a FREE family-friendly, weekend festival. Schedule: Friday, June 2: Lantern Paddle for Species event at the Seaport. Free museum admission 7-11pm; bring your own light-festooned kayak for a paddle starting at 9pm. Grab dinner from Dawg Eat Dogs, and wet your whistle at the Seaport Bar. Live music from the PLU Steel Pan Ensemble, flutist Paul Chiyokten Wagner, and DJ Special K! Plus - marvel at Vuelta La Luna aerial circus, and enjoy hands-on activities and lantern making. Saturday, June 3, 10am-12pm: Beach Clean-up at Les Davis Pier (3427 Ruston Way). Join South Sound Surfrider in cleaning up our waterfront! Hunt handblown glass eggs along the shore from Fire It, and enjoy live Hawaiian ukulele music. (Museum is open with paid admission this day.) Sunday, June 4, 10am-5pm: FREE all-day arts festival at Foss Waterway Seaport! Music, dance, art, film, poetry, science, and water fun bring our community together to celebrate the ocean, and get inspired to protect it. Information and schedule @tacomaoceanfest. * * * River Meschi bedazzles with “Stillness Between Waves”, an exhibition of digital artwork in the great hall of the museum. And, she brings her own exquisite twist to the art of sandpainting in “Mother of Waters”, a major work executed in the remarkably subtle, beautiful - and ephemeral - brushed-sand technique employed by cultures including those of Tibet, Mexico and the Americas. Meschi applies it here to explore the importance of water in her own Baltic/Slavic ancestry, and its vital, living connection to the oceanic environment and indigenous traditions of the Pacific Northwest. “Mother of Waters” will be on display at Foss Waterway Seaport Museum from June 2 through July 20; at the end of the exhibition, visitors will be invited to try sandpainting on their own before the artwork is gently and mindfully swept away. You can attend a talk by this fascinating artist on June 4, 3:30 at the Speaker At top: “Into the Void” - digital painting on fabric by River Meschi “Mother of Waters” (detail) - mixed-media installation and sandpainting by River Meschi -- Lisa Sent from Gmail Mobile