Session Date: August 16, 2005
Annual Meeting Session Summary: Public Art Walking Tour
By Melinda McCrady
Communications Specialist, Washington Legislature
This summary is provided for information purposes only. NCSL does not endorse any views it contains.
SEATTLE – Legislators and legislative staff from across the nation learned that the Emerald City isn’t only about coffee, jets and software during a two-hour arts walk downtown as part of the National Conference of State Legislatures' 2005 Annual Meeting.
Jim McDonald and Kimberly Baker, from the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, led the tour, which passed through David Mahler’s Centennial Bell Garden (1989) on Pike Street. The collection of 39 bells includes one for each county in the state. The bells were contributed by local centennial committees and commemorate Washington’s centennial in 1989. Each bell is unique. Sizes range from church and school bells to small sheep bells to a little glass bell created at the Pilchuck School in Snohomish County.
Underground Art
Subway stations around the world are often used as art exhibits, but in Seattle each one of the Bus Tunnel’s stations was designed as an independent work of art. The 30 NCSL attendees on the arts walk had a chance to visit two of them. At the Westlake Station they admired three 10x35’ murals made with vitreous enamel tiles by artists Gene Gentry McMahon, Fay Jones and Roger Shimomura.
Shimomura’s work is a brightly colored combination of World War II bombers, modern images of contemporary America (including an Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe being painted by Donald Duck), and traditional and modern Japanese images (including a samurai warrior, an illustration of a woodblock print, and a Japanese rice cooker.)
Jones used bright yellow and blue as the principal colors in her mural and depicts a scene of oversized people dancing in front of the waterfront. Her work is a humorous and theatrical interpretation of Seattle as a waterfront city.
McMahon’s mural portrays men and women in unrelated endeavors all fashionably dressed in designs from past decades, including a couple walking near the Smith Tower, a woman at a perfume counter, a beach scene and a fashion show.
At the University Street Station the crowd was intrigued by Robert Teeple’s mixed media electronically operated boxes that have light-emitting diodes flashing schematics and diagrams of 20th century technology, as well as words –in both English and Spanish- and human faces.
Central Library
The tour’s main attraction, as gathered from the crowd’s “ahs” and “ohs” was Seattle’s new Central Library, opened to the public in May 2005.
William Dietrich, of Pacific Northwest Magazine, wrote: “the new library is arguably the most striking and imaginative piece of Seattle architecture since the Space Needle.” The dramatic glass and steel structure was chosen to make the building open and translucent, according to Rem Koolhaas of OMA, the Dutch architectural firm that designed the building in a joint venture with LMN Architects of Seattle. Passersby on the street can look in and see activity on every floor of the library.
Among the many art pieces in the library, one stands out because it’s for people to stand on. Designed by internationally recognized conceptual artist Ann Hamilton, are 7,200 square feet of hardwood floor in the Evelyn W. Foster Learning Center, which encompasses the Literacy and World Languages Collection. The project evokes a tactile experience of book production and reading in this digital age. The floor includes words created in raised letters in 11 languages. These words spell out, backward, the first sentences from books written in those languages.
City Hall
The tour’s last stop was Seattle’s new spacious and modern City Hall, which houses the mayor's office, City Council and its chamber, city attorney's offices and other departmental offices.
Worth noting is James Carpenter’s Blue Glass Passage (2003), in the lobby. It is a 60 feet suspended walkway that connects the office tower to the Council chamber. The bridge deck is formed with blue laminated glass panels, and the east wall and the guard rails are transparent laminated glass.
In 2005 the city of Seattle allocated $3.7 million to Arts and Cultural Affairs.
NCSL is a bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staffs of the states, commonwealths and territories. It provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on the most pressing state issues and is an effective and respected advocate for the interests of the states in the American federal system.
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