Our Origins
y2112: a Campbellian Odyssey to a HOPE-centered Sound Learning Model
An iconic symbol of Washington State's community-arts culture, the Illuminated Star is a fundamental element of the luminaria form: once you can build a star, you can build anything.
From ORIGINS see how we helped shape Tacoma culture in the media of Light & Sound
Find the Stars 4 Peace early published work on Tacoma's first all-local, city-wide guide through these artists' eyes. Reconstructed from the WayBackMachine, find the early years of Stars 4 Peace on this all-local, Tacoma-centric guide that was converted online from a PDF in 2012 and remained online until 2019.
It began as a way to introduce my family — with all and sundry — to life in the American Pacific Northwest life through the local community Luminary arts tradition (inherited from the Olympia OG's Procession of the Species crew), with an emphasis on learning about life in our region while contributing to the organizations benefitting it.
Stars 4 Peace: y2112 was intended to bring together into one community a light-hearted celebration that emphasized the positive, life-affirming elements of our local environs. I created a learning platform out of with seasonal events that each incorporated an element of PNW life as we grew. I called the approach y2112: One hundred years from now, what kind of life do we want for our kids — and what can we do to make it reality? To answer this question, the requisite perspective and understanding is such that a rich, plentiful reservoir of learning would enrich our lives. We started on Broadway in 2012, made our way to Tacoma's Spanish Steps, through Opera Alley's Parisian-themed event and surprised Vicci Martinez for her birthday homecoming show at Tacoma's Pantages Theater after her national tour following her appearance on The Voice.
Below, the story unfolds year by year: Every significant statement links to its proof. (Originally we called the luminary Tacoma's Lumins Festivus; y2112 was developed through seasonal events; in 2016 we began calling the two together Stars 4 Peace.) That others would pick up where I would eventually leave off was not in my thoughts. But it works. And it is a lot of fun.
For the whole arc in twenty minutes, watch our ORIGINS presentation at Lynn Di Nino's TRIPOD Arts, March 20, 2026.
“A mythology is not an ideology. It is not something projected from the brain, but something experienced from the heart.”
Adam Martin, Teresa Owen and Sam Day present Stars 4 Peace and THE WALL at Tripod Arts Tacoma. Learn more in depth about the work as you scroll the history below.
On June 21, 2012 I gave the first public presentation of y2112 — Colin Scott Reynolds played music. Then, with only 22 days to plan, a collaborating team of eight local artists and craftspeople built illuminated sculpture and coordinated Tacoma's inaugural Lumins Festivus.
On September 22, 2012 — the weekend of the International Day of Peace — the procession began on Market Street, moved to Broadway via South 11th, up the Spanish Steps, down Opera Alley and returned to the Pantages Theater as part of Broadway Center's Fall Free for All. There we surprised Tacoma's own Vicci Martinez at her homecoming show for her birthday, which falls on the Day of Peace itself, September 21. Peace has been part of the stars in Tacoma ever since.
Special recognition is due to Aaron Stevens of Broadway Center for the invitation, and to Earthbound Productions of Olympia — the Procession of the Species team — who lit Tacoma's first Lumins with us and showed us the way. Later that year we were invited to install stars for the closing ceremony of the Tacoma International Film Festival.
“In a free culture, you get the best of what you celebrate. So you celebrate the mind of the people. The Lumins Festivus is an interpretation in light of that mind.”
Tacoma's Lumins Festivus, 2012 — video by Kris Crews.
Content coming soon
Colin's recording from the first Music & Heart in Wright Park (2019) is being re-uploaded here. Until then you can listen on the original page.
See it on the original page at stars4peace.org2013's theme, The Oceanic, highlighted the work of Dr. John Stark of Washington State University's Puyallup campus — a preeminent authority on marine life in the South Puget Sound whose research has led to historic legislative change in Washington State and the European Union. Historic rains and flooding that some called "Biblical" blew manhole covers off downtown streets; we sheltered at Corina Bakery, and right in time for the parade the weather lifted. We gathered at the Wright Park W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory at sundown and proceeded through the Theater District to the private library at Sanford & Son's — an orca, an octopus, a dolphin, starfish, a sea snail, Stena Troyer's sea cucumber and River Meschi's Nautilus among the luminaria.
River documented her build so we would have a tutorial for a luminaria. Stars themselves are the elemental form we officially adopted from Olympia's tradition: if you can build a star, you have the basic skills to build almost anything. Washington luminaria are more ornate than lanterns — sculpted, with detail where lanterns are basic.
That year I met the inestimable Stena Troyer (Surfrider Foundation, Harbor WildWatch), who kept things light-hearted and made everything "easy peasy." The News Tribune covered the procession in an article by Rosemary Ponnekanti — who would go on to start Ocean Fest (2017) and the Tacoma Light Trail (2020), our city's current luminary tradition; we have supported both fully. The Festivus night show celebrated the new independent voice: Wildberries' first ever live set and Santee's debut CD, Historee. Artist Jeremy Leveque crafted 54 ocarinas for the year. We also installed lumins at Le Dîner en Blanc (Sept 26) and at the Hilltop Artists' VIP event (Dec 6).
In the bigger picture, our aim was an essential learning platform for introducing ourselves and others to the basic elements of South Sound life. In 2014 we set an example of that intention with a series of events, starting on the Spring Equinox and continuing through the summer to Peace Day, each pairing learning on the year's theme with music. The subjects were Food, the Body and the Environment, presented by people at the ground level doing the work. The three foundational events are set out below — they are y2112 in a sum.
We worked with the Hilltop Artists, getting youth into the creation process. The most ambitious student made the frame and first paper of Everybody's Dragon and was disappointed not to finish it alone in class. The lesson was a good one: some visions require more than you alone to realize. Several hands completed it and it became a highlight of the year — and the 2015 poster. A Jane Goodall Peace Dove led the September 20 procession; Cheryl Rux, later of the Tacoma Light Trail, brought Sally the Serpent; Jen's baby-blue pickup rolled full of luminaria made by Hilltop Artists and others. River destroyed the Death Star.
In August we announced at Music & Art in Wright Park that the National Music Museum desired a satellite in Tacoma and started a petition; we hosted SAMI alumnus Grant Carrillo's Basic Observation Buoy at the Opera Alley block party; students created five brilliant lumins in April and we built more with Eastside Green Thumbs. On November 1 I was asked to lead the Día de los Muertos procession for the friends and families of the Northwest Detention Center Resistance — the courage of those families left an indelible impression on me. In December we held the 1st Annual Procession of Stars at Wright Park with the Dickens Festival, bringing light to the holidays.
“Artists share the calling… to cast the new images of mythology. That is, they provide the contemporary metaphors.”
Each event introduced the year's theme through the people responsible for teaching and advancing our South Sound ways of life, with music from across the community. Food at the Equinox; the Body at the midsummer new moon; the Environment in September, leading to Peace Day. Present were representatives of those at the ground level dedicated to advancing knowledge in their fields. Building on this foundation, we have continued working with others in our communities actively responsible for teaching and advancing our ways of life.
Some readers won't see the line running through the years above, so here it is laid out as a lesson plan. From the start the intention was a universally applicable community model, oriented around the naturally whole-minded learning practices of Bastyr University and others like it, and "written" in the media of Light and Sound — luminaria and music. It is an altogether new kind of expression, made to serve the community commons; in 2016 I licensed it in the Creative Commons so anyone can carry it forward.
Step one — 2013, The Oceanic: celebrate a theme, and learn it from the people who do the work. We chose the waters of the South Sound as the year's theme, celebrated it with a luminary procession, and connected with the organizations best recognized for their efforts in that field — Harbor WildWatch, Surfrider Foundation, Olympia's Procession of the Species crew — and with Dr. John Stark of WSU Puyallup, whose science is profiled just below.
Step two — 2014, The Soil of Earth: ground the model and make it practical. First we collaborated with Hilltop Artists, Tacoma's pre-eminent after-school youth arts program, teaching students the luminaria craft and the higher learning that travels with it (Everybody's Dragon began in that classroom). Then a season of gatherings, each pairing a field of knowledge with music and a shared organic potluck:
Spring! in the Kitchen (Spring Equinox, Free Range Kitchen on 6th Ave) — industry professional Alyssa Reeber of Sweet Maiden Farms spoke on the importance of the bees and the growing pollinator crisis; TR Stewart of the Victory Music community played — he wrote the original Puyallup Fair song everybody knows (today the Washington State Fair). A first-of-its-kind, inaugural event for us.
Summer at Good Karma: Center for Joy — an introduction to chair yoga with professional Angie Donovan and a meditation led by Dr. Ben Haslund. We introduced people to practices that help attain equilibrium and a natural state of inner peace.
September 5 — Dr. John Stark Presents, with music from Bach to progressive rock: a working scientist teaching life in Washington's waters, framed by musicians. (Audio from that night is below.)
Destiny Saturday (Peace Day weekend) — the luminary itself: Tacoma Lumins: A (Community) Festivus, where a year of learning became light in the streets.
December — the first Holiday Procession of Stars at the Dickens Festival in the Stadium District, continued through 2015; in 2016 we joined the Tacoma Santa Parade, and that is the Holiday Procession of Stars that continues to this day.
The pattern, then: name a theme · learn it from the practitioners · give the learning to youth through craft · gather around food, music and practices of well-being · turn it into light on Peace Day · carry it into the holidays. Repeat each year with a new element of life in our region.
Cultural impact. The very art critic of The News Tribune who covered our luminary workshop at Good Karma: Center for Joy in the lead-up to the 2013 Oceanic — Rosemary Ponnekanti — went on to found Tacoma Ocean Fest (2017) and the Tacoma Light Trail (2020), the city's current luminary tradition. We have supported both fully. That is how a model written in light and sound moves: through the people who witness it.
“Involve me and I learn.”
Who he is. Professor of Entomology and Ecotoxicology at Washington State University's Puyallup Research & Extension Center — twelve miles from THE WALL's front door — and Director of the Washington Stormwater Center. Ph.D. in entomology and pesticide toxicology, University of Hawaiʻi (1987). Author of more than 140 peer-reviewed papers and the book Demographic Toxicity: Methods in Ecological Risk Assessment. Fellow of the Entomological Society of America; member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
What he changed. For decades regulators judged a chemical "safe" by whether it killed a test animal outright. Stark asked a better question: what does it do to a population over time? His lab showed that common pesticides which are each "safe" alone can be many times more lethal in combination — and more so as waters warm (WSU News, 2009) — and that the honest measure of harm is how long a species' recovery is delayed, not how many die today. That idea, population-level risk assessment, moved from a Puyallup lab bench into the machinery of regulation.
Washington State — appointed by Governor Locke to the State Pesticide / Endangered Species Act Task Force (2000–2003); toxicologist on the Department of Agriculture's Pesticide Advisory Board since 2009; Puget Sound Partnership Science Panel since 2008; Billy Frank Jr. Salmon Coalition. United States — EPA Food Quality Protection Act Science Review Board; workshops for the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs on ecological modeling; Congressional briefings on stormwater, pollution and salmon (2014, 2016). Europe — visiting scientist to the European Union's project on mechanistic effects models for the ecological risk assessment of chemicals (2010–2016), carrying the population-level approach into EU chemical policy.
Why it matters here — and everywhere. Stark's subject is the Puget Sound salmon: the fish in our creeks, the runoff from our own streets. His method is universal — it applies to a butterfly in a Washington prairie or a river anywhere on earth. That is the global-local character of the work: look closely at one home water, learn the truth about all of them. It is the same instinct behind y2112 — a hundred-year question asked from one city.
Why THE WALL tells his story. In 2013 The Oceanic highlighted Dr. Stark's work in Tacoma's first luminary procession. On September 5, 2014, Dr. John Stark Presents taught life in Washington's waters framed by music from Bach to progressive rock (program art by Sean Alexander); the Bioaccumulation project with Eddie Harris and MaKenzie carried it further. Learning from the people who do the work, then turning it into light, sound and art the public can hold — that is what we have been doing since.
Everybody's Dragon, started by a Hilltop Artists student in 2014 and finished by many hands, became the 2015 poster — a metaphor for the whole work. Our learning landscape read: "Working directly with the local organizations, businesses and people active in their fields, we gain a fresh look at life in our environs from the perspective of those daily doing the work that betters our quality of life."
Bix was a black-sheep priest of St. Leo's Parish in Hilltop, misunderstood for more than twenty years, who took on the causes he felt strongly about and treated all people the same, rich or poor. He loved sunflowers — which always look to the light and give real sustenance. To honor him I merged the sunflower with the light of life in all of us: the STARFLOWER was born.
Our luminary sub-theme was The Chrysalis. When I met Dain Norman and told him so, he said, "My band is Dain Norman & the Chrysalis Effect!" We began working together immediately and have promoted HOPE together in many ways since. I also met Eddie Harris, a self-taught, world-famous artist with paintings of presidents in museums and early work on the original Scooby-Doo. His passion was teaching the next generation; we connected him with a student, Makenzie, who learned airbrush under him and whom we featured at Art on the Ave in 2017 and 2018 — her first subject: bioaccumulation, the first element needed to understand Dr. Stark's work.
Paris, November 13, 2015. In Paris for business, I was present the night of the attacks as the city fell into chaos. Had I heard of the show at the Bataclan I would have been there — I had searched that area for a show that night and found nothing, so went for music elsewhere. We were turned out of our venue and walked a long way through the streets while the attacks were still under way. That night changed me in ways I could not foresee; it would be years before I understood I was carrying untreated PTSD, and I did not begin therapy until after the pandemic, at Bastyr University Clinic where I had been a patient since 2008. At the time it was a more instinctive impulse that redirected my work toward the impacts of abuse culture on the personal plane. I had met Adrienne Casteele of H.O.P.E. Victims Advocacy that year; her story has inspired me since, and much of my effort turned to supporting people in hardship more challenging than most will ever encounter. "We cannot measure Time — we are the Times."
“Involve me and I learn.”
2016 was the year Tacoma's Lumins became Stars 4 Peace. The Orlando Pulse shooting reinforced that our work was broader in scope than our local community. I called Tacoma's Rainbow Center to ask if they would help with a memorial for the lives lost; they did, and with Spaceworks Tacoma providing a communal working space, we installed 49 stars at Tacoma Pride. The Tacoma Weekly helped publicize it and many participated. We incorporated the Star of Destiny into the Starflower: the Starflower of Destiny.
On the first anniversary of Paris I hosted H.O.P.E. Sunday — three generations of women musicians and two family-motivated male musicians on one bill. Star Kits were prominent all around Tacoma; Spaceworks gave us space for star builds and for donations from our test clothing drive. The emphasis on learning remained: Eddie and I held a car show with the LeMay Family Collection represented to showcase Makenzie's work. My deeper focus turned to nurturing compassion through understanding — learning what it takes to help people get out of, overcome and re-establish life after abusive situations.
We moved the parade element into Tacoma's 6th Ave Santa Parade — the 1st Annual Procession of Stars — and held a final Lumins event at the Wright Park Conservatory. Terracrux Games downtown sponsored the stars; a friend on the team created a luminary template so anyone could make one easily. Stars 4 Peace has been part of the parade every year since, adding a new element each year.
In 2017, with the help of local art professionals, I started THE WALL. First: Spring! in the Streets, a city-wide clothing drive with donation stations at community-centered businesses — Terracrux Games, Urban XChange, Ubi's, Tacoma Frame Makers, Bluebeard Coffee, the LeMay Family Collection. Within two weeks the barrels were filling steadily. What was given went directly to the people and organizations addressing need in our city, above all H.O.P.E. Victims Advocacy. Second: one block of Art on the Ave, the first physical Wall, funded by Tacoma Frame Makers — with Adrienne Casteele featured at the H.O.P.E. Classic, Mindy Barker's paint-by-number butterflies for the public (what our city is transforming into), and BES on stage. Third: Destiny Saturday was born — our Peace Day celebration at 6th Ave's North End Social with Dain Norman and several other bands. Fourth: the 6th Ave Santa Parade with the Grand Star of Destiny.
We made clay stars with SPUN Clay Arts Studio, hid them around the city and gave them to people along with clothes in winter. On 11-11-17, Veterans Day and the second anniversary of the attacks, we hosted Vietnamese-American documentary filmmaker Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant — of Oliver Stone's From Hollywood to Hanoi — for the North American debut preview of her film *The General & Me*, with the founder of 0-22 presenting his work teaching people with PTSD to train their own service dogs, and music from Richard Twice, Dain Norman, Raymond Hayden, Alex Tapia and KC & Prints of Soul.
That year I began working with Terry Lumsden, helping him with his Scotch whisky case collection — probably the largest of its kind. Terry provided workspace for us at his law office at 6th and Union for several years; I would become his legal assistant and helped him until he retired in 2024. His spirit is one of the old Washington; his heart is made of gold. Star Wars and Jedi themes feature much in our work: if film can have Star Wars, music can have Star Peace.
Artists 4 Life in the Sound — the flying man.
Content coming soon
This video lives on the original Weebly site and is being re-uploaded to THE WALL.
See it on the original page at stars4peace.orgContent coming soon
This video lives on the original Weebly site and is being re-uploaded to THE WALL.
See it on the original page at stars4peace.orgOn St. Patrick's Day Dain played with Sister Madame to celebrate what we had accomplished over the winter. The '18 Spring Drive put donation stations on 6th Ave, in the Stadium District and downtown; THE WALL returned to Art on the Ave; Destiny Saturday marked Peace Day again. At the holidays Brass Monkey Tattoo on 6th Avenue ran Tats 4 Clothes — successful and fun. On Christmas Eve, from my workspace at Terry Lumsden Law, we went to Hilltop and gave people everything for the holiday; seeing how people smiled was amazing. Ellyn Motas led star building and Peace Dove creation for the Santa Parade at the office.
**Tacoma's Outsider's Guide** — a cultural aqueduct to life in the South Sound, by category, with the story of the work as it unfolded — was online from 2011 to 2019, first published as a PDF in 2011. It is preserved on THE WALL as an archive of the 2018 web edition; the original PDF is near the top of this page.
Before planning THE WALL in a new form, one more essential thing had to be done. In 2019 my good friend Martin Thomas Reed and I collaborated to save Music & Art in Wright Park — a bedrock Northwest music festival with roots in the earliest 1990s, when it was Art in the Park; one of the smallest handful of festivals from that time. It became Music & Heart in Wright Park.
Tacoma's music history is rich with forward-thinking bands ahead of the times — from the Sonics and the Wailers to the 1990s, when Northwest music was found internationally. Nirvana and Soundgarden practiced here; Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains was born and raised here and credits Tacoma with shaping his songs, especially Rooster. Since 2022 **Tacoma Creates** — Washington's first voter-approved arts initiative — has supported Music & Heart, allowing us to focus more on creating and worry less about paying for it. Music really does save lives. We work in the media of light and sound and change how others see what is possible in their own lives.
Following Music & Heart 2019, Tacoma's First Night — the City of Destiny's New Year's celebration — adopted our theme from that year's festival, The Tree of Life, for its own 2020 celebration (see the post below).
Through the 2020 pandemic I became aware of the need for a hybrid system of contribution to people in need, and began planning THE WALL in a new form. In 2020 the Chrysalis returned to the Conservatory. In 2021 Stars 4 Peace made 50 OG Star Kits for a free workshop at the Tacoma Public Library — my mom filled our home with quality-time activities that brought our family closer, and she and her man made the kits in her kitchen. We installed at Bostwick and were in the Santa Parade again, as every year.
On March 20, 2026 we presented ORIGINS at Lynn Di Nino's TRIPOD Arts. Today the work lives at lookwashington.com — THE WALL as a web platform: a Resource Library of the 501(c)(3) organizations doing the work, area maps, the community calendar, partner windows for local businesses, safety messaging, and seasonal campaigns — International Day of Peace, the Season of HOPE and the Holiday HOPE Hop, and partners like Washington's Skoolie Foundation. Every donation, band, painting and neighborhood business adds a brick. My life changed completely because I met some of the best people I have ever known in this city, who happened to be artists. Wherever you are, I hope you are as blessed as I have been with a supportive, creative and kind of awesome community.
Purchases with Artists 4 Life in the Sound and The Giving Shop support Stars 4 Peace and THE WALL. The Official Stars 4 Peace Star Kit ($22) is a simple introduction to the Northwest luminary tradition — a five-piece star puzzle, the Red Thread of Destiny (we are all connected) and instructions; add white glue, paper and lights. Great for families and craft-loving people, perfect as a thoughtful gift, and fun to build together.
Cups of Bliss — organic cacao blends, perfect for family and fit for friends — come online June 2026, with more arriving from the studios of Artists 4 Life in the Sound in autumn 2026: handmade illuminated stars, cacao and health-oriented products, and Northwest art through the Artists' Door. We proudly support the work of H.O.P.E. Victims Advocacy Services, who help survivors of abuse in the home find the legal and other resources needed to escape abuse and establish themselves.
Star Kit
Star Kit
Star Kit
Cacao
NW Art
The Official Stars 4 Peace Star Kit is $22. Every kit helps fund the mission of Stars 4 Peace and THE WALL — and puts a lighted star in another window.
Every donation, every band, every painting, every neighborhood business adds a brick. Find a 501(c)(3) doing the work near you.