This Show is Not in Tacoma: A Facebook Discussion.

First Sea Lord: Ann Gale's extraordinary paintings at Dolby Chadwick gallery in S.F. - Review by Dewitt Cheng.

Undersecretary: I wish it were in Tacoma. Darn!

First Sea Lord: U, as you don't live anywhere near there, Tacoma seems like an oddly specific request. "If only it were in Bloomington, Illinois, or perhaps, Lincoln, Nebraska. Also, I hear Ashland, Oregon is nice. "

Undersecretary: Tacoma art scene, in my experience, is less crowded than Seattle's. 
 
First Sea Lord: As is the art scene in Topeka, Kansas, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Plano, Texas, Pierre, South Dakota, Ulan Bator, Mongolia, Darwin, Austrailia, The Principality of Lichtenstein, Lichtenstein, Luang Prabang, Laos, Nukus, Uzbekistan, (in spite of the Karakalpakstan State Museum of Art) and of course Eagle River, Alaska. Also, the show is in San Francisco, California. I fail to grasp your meaning. 

Undersecretary: Tacoma is cheaper to reach than any of those places, save Eagle River (which is a silly idea, one must admit).

First Sea Lord: So let me restate: you would be interested in seeing this superb show, even though you would have to fly 2000 miles to see it, but only, specifically, in Tacoma, even though the show is in San Francisco, which is too expensive to fly to and presumably more crowded; but you also wouldn't see it if it were in Seattle, because the art scene is also too crowded- although you rarely have seen the art scene in Seattle- but you would conceivable fly to see it in Tacoma- on the same hypothetical flight, no doubt- all because, while there is no reason implied or stated in the article for this show to be in Tacoma at all, Tacoma, like almost anywhere on earth where this show is also not, such as Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, Henley-on-Thames, Berks, UK, or Adamstown, capital of Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific, would be less crowded enough at the imaginary version of this event for you to actually go see this show, concerned as you naturally must be at the prospect of a crowd of 40 people seeing this show in Seattle or San Francisco with you as opposed to a crowd of perhaps 27 in Tacoma. 
 
As you must sure realize if you are indeed in the habit of hopping on planes for a long flight to see an art show at a gallery in another city over a thousand miles away, galleries do not usually have large crowds during most of their working hours, only at the opening events, if they are lucky. Avoiding a crowd at an art gallery is, if you ask any gallery owner, all too easy. I am as willing to personally guarantee that an airplane will be more crowded than even the most popular art galleries, as I am wholly mystified by your jealous desire to see this show only in Tacoma, Washington, which is certainly a place of untold delights, not in Seattle, Washington, 30 miles away, where the artist lives, nor in San Francisco, California, where it actually is, on the basis that it would be less crowded. And if we are going to wish it were somewhere when there is no reason of any kind for it to be there, why not, I ask, wish that it were in Anchorage, Alaska, near to you where you are, at one of the one (1) thriving contemporary art galleries in Alaska's largest city? 
 
Here is, I should say, another flaw in your reasoning. Tacoma, I should mention, not unlike Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, now has a much more thriving and admirably crowded art scene than in the past, as the result of concentrated city and private efforts to, quite the opposite of dissuading people from attending art exhbitions, encourage just that sort of thing.

I hope that, if nothing else, we have established in our discussion that Ann Gale's sterling show of paintings is located in San Francisco, California, and that in no way is it located in Tacoma, Washington, was never conceived of being in Tacoma, Washington, was not proposed to anyone in Tacoma, Washington, and these works, selling out as they often do, will never be in Tacoma, Washington. And when she does show in Washington, it is most often in Seattle, Washington, because she lives here, works here, and she hopes perhaps, somewhat against your clearly compelling personal interest, to draw a crowd.