Free Little Art Galleries are hidden in Tacoma neighborhoods. Here’s where
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Free Little Art Galleries in Tacoma offer walkable, shareable public art boxes.
- Local artists and residents contribute work reguarly, from stickers to sculptures.
- FLAGs promote neighborhood connection through creativity, art and shared space.
If you aren’t looking carefully, you might miss it.
Hidden in neighborhoods around Tacoma is a handful of Free Little Art Galleries. Mirroring the concept of Little Free Libraries filled with books, these boxes are filled with art instead. Some of the art is displayed in a locked case behind glass, while others open at their hinges, encouraging passersby to take a sticker or small piece of art, or perhaps leave something of their own.
The Free Little Art Galleries (also called FLAGs) are part of a global movement to build community, inspire joy and foster creativity. According to an online map, in Pierce County there are three FLAGs in Tacoma’s North End, one in Puyallup and two on Vashon Island.
Sarah Jane Hoppe, in the North End, has run the “Tiny Art Gallery on Cedar” since 2020. Every month she fills a small mailbox-sized case with a different artist’s work. Most of the artists are local, and after her neighbors got a kick out of the FLAG, their art was featured, too. Every October Hoppe puts on a “spooky show,” she said. She’s displayed everything from sculptures to paintings, drawings, collages, tapestries and photography.
For the month of August Hoppe showcased stickers by the Tacoma Trash Pandas, a group that offers anyone who picks up a bag of litter in town a free cute racoon sticker. Since 2019, the group has collected more than 5,000 bags of trash in Tacoma, according to a caption in the gallery. Hoppe will unveil a new artist’s work next week on the corner of North 22nd Street and North Cedar Street, which will also be debuted on her Instagram @tinyartgalleryoncedar. Artists who want to apply to be featured can fill out a form linked on her Instagram page.
The idea for the “Tiny Art Gallery on Cedar” started in the early days of the pandemic when Hoppe, herself an artist, set a goal to make something creative every month. She began displaying other artist’s work in 2021.
“You always see these little lending libraries around, and that was just the perfect size. This is such a walkable neighborhood, we’re close to the University of Puget Sound … it’s a very residential space, a lot of dog walkers and stuff,” Hoppe said. “It’s kind of changed everything.”
Since the gallery opened there has been live music played on the corner as an art display. Neighbors have met for a wine-and-cheese gathering outside the box, and members of a local Girl Scout troop earned their art badge for making and showing watercolors in the gallery. One month the box featured art made by Tacoma Art Museum staff. Another month Hoppe exchanged art with another FLAG in Scotland.
From her window, “I mostly see people with a big smile on their face,” Hoppe said, mentioning that people will often leave painted rocks or figurines by the base of the gallery.
“It’s important to share stories in this visual way,” she said, noting the FLAG movement is “huge” in Portland. “I feel like Portland and Tacoma share something special in a kind of quirky, unexpected sort of way.”
Kimberlee Gerstmann has run her “American Primitive” FLAG in Puyallup for about a year at 340 4th St. SE. Gerstmann and her daughter have filled the little box with a variety of projects, including greeting cards, collages and pottery. In the last couple of months strangers have left sketches, poems, prints, pot holders and little “wish jars” filled with flowers, herbs and shells.
“The free little libraries are just wonderful. I think the art gallery, it’s a great way for people just to show that they do something creative. You are able to get little peeks into their creative lives,” Gerstmann said. “I’m really passionate about art, and I wanted to figure out a way to do something to make art more accessible to people.”
Two roommates were admiring another FLAG in Tacoma, the Grit City Sticker House, near the corner of North 11th Street and North Verde Street on Thursday when The News Tribune stopped by. Like the FLAG in Puyallup, that FLAG is not locked, and it was filled with a variety of stickers, painted rocks and figurines. A Keith Haring-inspired ‘253’ heart painting decorated the side of the box, and a Banksy-inspired mouse wielding a paint roller decorated the other side.
Both neighbors, who declined to share their names, said they enjoyed seeing the FLAG and other little libraries in their neighborhood because the boxes have such personality and encourage people to connect with each other in real life, rather than online. Last year the duo put a recycled phone booth up in their yard, which now serves as a free little library. In a single-family zoned area, “devoid of interest points,” these spaces reflect “an instinctive desire” to engage with the greater community, they said.
This story was originally published August 30, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
