Pandemic can’t stop Tacoma art. Enjoy it in a judgment-free zone. And your PJs

We interrupt this global pandemic for a bit of good news: The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) has made its permanent collection available online for free.

Deemed “non-essential,” TAM shut its doors due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, but this 80 year-old museum, noted for being the largest retrospective collection of glass art by Tacoma native Dale Chihuly, hasn’t forgotten its patrons during the challenge of COVID-19.

TAM joins more than a thousand of the world’s finest art museums offering free online visits. Their hope is all of us can find respite from our worries and be inspired by colors, shapes and stories told by artists across time and cultures — stories that unite us all.

Thanks to a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, we can view 80 percent of TAM’s art from the comfort of our couches.

Now, we know what you might be thinking: Why would anyone want to scroll through museum pictures when there’s Netflix? And anyway, isn’t real art meant to be enjoyed in three dimensions?

Au contraire. Allow us to make an argument for a virtual TAM visit:

Think pajamas, as in you can view the museum’s rich collection while still wearing them. Or not. The point is your dwelling place is a judgment free zone where even your cat couldn’t care less if you’ve shaved or brushed your teeth.

And speaking of felines, TAM’s online animal exhibit is sure to inspire the copycat in all of us. Parents will appreciate the exhibit’s list of interactive questions that will have kids running for their Crayons.

The most important perk to an online museum visit is what people in the art business call “the role of audience participation.”

In a museum, one is typically expected to nod one’s head in approval of the art or sigh if confused. But at home we’re free to shout, “What the heck is this supposed to be?” without catching the attention of security.

But, of course, the point of a virtual museum visit is to actually enjoy the art, and we promise the diverse offerings of TAM won’t disappoint.

Click on TAM’s “Aloha Club Collection,” which comes by way of a local women’s study group that started in 1882. The Aloha Club, with an eye for traditional to avant-garde art, began purchasing original works by promising and prominent Northwest artists in 1948.

The art is varied; some of it is beautiful and some not so much. But all of it is thought provoking.

Feast your eyes on “Night Bird” by Guemes Island artist Philip McCracken, an exquisite sculpture made from a single piece of fruitwood. In these trying times, it would do us all some good to emulate the bird’s posture; firmly footed, head tilted upward, it has an expression of benign resignation to the moment. What will be, will be.

Don’t miss the exquisite quilt put together by acclaimed Northwest artist Marie Watt who uses Indigenous principles to stack color on color with textiles that weave history and biography into a story that needs no words.

In the aftermath of the Great Depression, when the U.S. government created agencies as the Works Progress Administration (WPA,) it jump-started the economy and put people to work. As part of the New Deal, the Treasury Department not only paid workers to dig ditches and build bridges, but it also paid artists to produce work as well.

Amid the economic turmoil, President Franklin Roosevelt knew that art provided an outlet both for creator and viewer. He knew that along with a social and political perspective, art offers the human perspective.

Art, when done right, provides a mirror for every human emotion: joy, grief, despair and triumph. We see it, and we know we’re not alone. There’s nothing more essential than that.

This story was originally published March 31, 2020 at 3:00 PM.