VISUAL ARTS & MUSEUMS

Tacoma artist, Jeremy Gregory, brings his art to life through hand crafted poseable puppets and in a short stop motion film during his exhibition “Little Big Deal” opening Friday, August 10th from 6-10pm. Gregory will have his puppets on display along with a continuous looping of his new stop motion film “Welcome to the Neighborhood” at Bherd Studios Gallery located in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood.

Gregory’s passion for turning his edgy and gritty style of art into 3-D poseable puppets started when he began tossing the idea around to friends and peers over a year ago. After having enough detractors say it wasn’t advisable, he decided to prove them wrong. He now has over 30 hand crafted puppets in his collection which he describes as his own children with each of them having their own unique back-story. His characters range from loveable street urchins to skater kids and birds. He is already gaining recognition with his puppets locally. Last October his Zombie character puppet was featured on the cover of Tacoma’s Volcano Weekly.

Like Geppetto, he would never think of parting with any of his children. Instead he has started using them to create interesting still shots and a short stop-motion animation. His first film has taken over a year to finish with help from Brian Parker, a professor at Tacoma’s Bates Technical College in the Digital Media department. Gregory created all the puppets and sets for the film, as well as being Art Director, writer and puppeteer, while Parker was the films director, writer and co-creator. Just the filming stage of this project took 8 weeks and also included the help of 4 students from Parker’s Digital Media class. The immense amount of labor and creative planning that went into this short film has produced an oddly dark and tragic story which stays true to the realistic and gritty art that Gregory is known for. Like Geppetto and Pinnochio, his little character, Jimi, learns a tough life lesson hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Gregory’s talent has been recognized by City Arts Magazine as Tacoma’s Top Comic artist. He has had an alt-comic series in the magazine titled True Grit that started in 2008 and the magazine described Gregory as “one of our best Tacoma discoveries”. He’s also participated in many community mural projects and the Tacoma City’s Public Art: In Depth (PA : ID) program. He is a graduate of the Arts Institute of Seattle and currently teaches graphic arts in downtown Tacoma at School of the Arts High School. His artwork has been on exhibit all over the Pacific Northwest including two past exhibits at Bherd Studios Gallery.