Strangercrombie is goodness. For anybody new to this, it’s
The Stranger‘s annual charity auction. Last year it
raised more than $50,000. This year the money will go to Country
Doctor, Urban Rest Stop, and Senior Services.
That is not why I am writing this column.
I am writing this column because this year we asked six artists to
make one-of-a-kind piñatas for Strangercrombie; the
piñatas have finally arrived at the office, and they are a tiny
group exhibition worth the ink. Smacking the crap out of any of these
is going to be a problem.
Coco Howard’s is a fuzzy, sweet-faced, cocooned creature with a
rolled-up note in his little white hand—and he is dangling from a
noose. The note is a suicide note. Inside, he’s full of felt
organs.
Buddy Bunting’s piñata is a cop car as big as a kitchen
table. He’s been drawing cop cars for years. But since a Seattle police
officer was assassinated this season, his car becomes particularly
loaded… and it’s full of doughnuts.
Jennifer Zwick built a “me-ñata” that looks just like her. It
wears glasses and has long hair (creepy-looking fake hair) and cute
pants, just like her (although the piñata’s pants are
extra-reflective). Inside it are 100 pins printed with her list
of 100 “what might go wrong” statements—so when you smash her
open, all her fears spill out. (Number 10: “spider gets under my
eyelid”; 14: “mass extinction”; 16: “face melts off
at a party.”)
Susanna Bluhm built a white cube wearing
girlie/funereal/festive/classically piñatan white fringe. She’s
calling it Minimalist Sacrifice (it joins great early takes on
the austere, “masculine” minimalist cube—Roni Horn’s pink glass,
Eva Hesse’s internally hairy box, Jackie Winsor’s burned
cement/wood/wire mesh). This one is full of “tokens from the world” and
“little pieces of art” waiting to be violently released.
Joey Veltkamp’s brown bear the size of a toddler is smooth
and shiny, like a hard candy. He’s big-eyed, big-bellied, and contains
gift certificates of absurdly big value: $50 each to King’s
Hardware, Smith, Linda’s Tavern, and Oddfellows Cafe; 50 free-drink
coupons from Stumptown; and 15 free-cupcake coupons from Cupcake
Royale.
Oh, and Vaughn Bell made a viaduct. Yup. For you to kill.
Before the real one kills you.
See, aesthetics and ethics can coexist. 
UPDATE: At the artist’s request (and we agree with him), due to recent events we’re not going to auction off the police-car piñata in this year’s Strangercrombie.
