Belltown Bent

A Saturday Double-Header

Double-headers don't come around every weekend. And if you've going to see one, you pretty much know what you're in store for.

But Saturday, about 2 miles north of trackside Safeco Field, and several hours before the Mariners hit the field, visitors to Belltown's Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park were treated to a double-header of another sort. Most of us were caught by surprise.

Sporting bigger numerals than you'll ever fine on a baseball jersey, numbers 844 and 4449  double-headed right past Calder's Eagle and through the park, whistling away in a cloud of steam. Union Pacific 844, the last steam engine delivered to Union Pacific, in 1944, pulled lead on the northbound leg of the Puget Sound Steam Special from Tacoma to Everett, a benefit for the Barriger Library of the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation. After decades of pulling passengers and freight, the 844 now serves as Union Pacific's goodwill ambassador, and remains the only Class 1 railroad steam locomotive never to be retired.

A few hours later, on the southbound leg of the excursion, the 4-8-4 configured locomotive Southern Pacific 4449 had the honors of pulling lead back to Tacoma. Built by Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio, 4449 began its interesting history pulling SP's premier passenger runs in California, including the Coast Daylight, and was one of two locomotives to pull the American Freedom Train during the United States Bicentennial.

More: video (6:05) | recollections of a railroader - Bill Virgin's P.I. column | 4449 and 844 pix on flickr

A plane runs through it

It's been over thirty years since an admiring audience watched Alexander Calder complete the painting of his abstract design on a Braniff jet at the 1975 Paris Air Show. But almost every week you can see a Boeing jet fuselage (from the French fuselé, spindle- shaped, no less) roll by Calder's Eagle, on a train, right through the middle of a museum.  Good seats are usually available.

Earlier this week, Harvard University Graduate School of Design announced the Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban design was awarded to Weiss/Manfredi Architects in recognition Belltown's (OK, and Seattle's) Olympic Sculpture Park - in large part because their design makes such seemingly incongruous events commonplace. As the judges put it, "The park becomes a piece of sculpture itself, reframing its urban condition."

As the Bent sees it, thanks to Weiss/Manfredi's design, the cars, trains, boats, and yes, planes do a fascinating job of re-framing the art.

Paternity TBD

Monday morning brought with it the joyous arrival of three little eaglets, nestled comfortably in their cozy nest, under the watchful gaze of their Eagle foster mother or father (Calder never really made that clear) in Belltown's Olympic Sculpture Park.

The eaglets' birth parent(s) - we'll assume father(s) - were nowhere to be found, leaving behind only a small sign which read Eaglets - Mixed Media - 2007 and the initials pdl, accompanied by the ASL symbols for each letter.  This stylized attribution leads the Bent to believe local performance art trio Jason Puccinelli, Jed Dunkerley, and Greg Lundgren, also known collectively as Vital 5 Productions, are responsible for this gift of life.

But one can't be sure. Just last week, the trio, decked out in berets, were in Tacoma impersonating collaborative artists SuttonBeresCuller as they anonymously installed their own Ship in A Bottle at TAM. But that's a different story.

Maybe.

It's entirely possible that SBC sired the Eaglets and are impersonating-in-absentia (is that possible?) the apparently attributed acronymic parents. DNA sampling doesn't quite work in this really-mixed-media world. Maybe we could check for paint chips under fingernails to find out who's parenting, or performing, whom.

UPDATE: PDL acknowledges paternity in Seattle PI

UPDATE: 02/20 - after being buffeted about and knocked from their nest by recent wind and rain, the eaglets have been moved indoors and are under the foster care of SAM conservators.

Add people and stir

Tony Smith's Stinger (1967-68 1999) was installed in Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park last summer, five months before next weekend's public opening. I wrote, back then, about all the elements which came into alignment to create the park, and the circumstances which contributed to Smith's becoming a great sculptor.

Stinger was named after the refreshing (and intoxicating) cocktail - a Bent second-set favorite. As is the case with many great cocktails, the last ingredient added can make all the difference. In the case of the Olympic Sculpture Park, the last, important element to be added is people. Art lovers, outdoors lovers, dog walkers, joggers, school groups, tourists, neighbors, or just folks trying to get across the tracks before an endless freight train clears the intersection at Broad and Alaskan.

The official opening is January 20th, but many pre-opening events are underway, including today's press preview, even as the amazing construction team battles storm after storm to finish the park. These folks, viewing Stinger from the inside out, were a small part of a large group which came through last weekend. From the Bent perspective, it was a transforming event. No hardhats and fluorescent vests, no all-black outfits, no camera crews. Just people following the paths, children running on the grass, pausing to take in the expansive views and consider the installed art. It's finally time to add the people and stir up this wonderful place, as the new banners proclaim, "where earth meets art".

More: pictures of this week's progress | SAM's latest update

A glimpse of the future

On this blue-sky autumn evening, graced with high cirrus clouds and the likelihood of a colorful sunset, most of Seattle Cloud Cover, by Teresita Fernandez, is still obscured by safety nets and other construction materials, offering just a glimpse of what her vibrant vision will add to Belltown's shoreline skyline.

When fully revealed, some 3,000 square feet of multi-hued, photographically treated laminated glass, spanning 200 feet, will bridge railroad tracks, connect precincts of the Olympic Sculpture Park, and alter the perception of space of those who approach and through her work.

As a sculptor, Teresita pushes the boundaries of installation art into the realm of architecture and landscape, incorporating optical effects to alter color and light in the spaces she fills. In September of 2005 she received a call, out of the blue, informing her she had been named a MacArthur Fellow, affording her the "unfettered opportunity to explore, create, and contribute," through the rest of this decade.

In the not-too-distant future, we will have the opportunity to walk through this space created by her imagination, reconsider our perceptions of the surroundings, and contemplate what might come next.

Works and exhibits: Bamboo Cinema | Fire | Immersion | Borrowed Landscape

The Eagle has assembled

Sure, the headline is not likely to live on in memory like Neil Armstrong's famous line when the Apollo 11 Eagle landed on the moon in 1969 (listen to him - it still sends chills), but seeing the final section of Alexander Calder's Eagle lowered into place recently was a memorable sight, nonetheless.

Real eagles, as well as the afore mentioned lunar module, really fly and land (check these wonderful shots by photographer Doug Lloyd if you haven't seen any bald eagles do either lately). But monumental sculpture, like the Olympic Sculpture Park's iconic Eagle, are very carefully "flown" into place.

While the "beak" (or tail, I'm still not sure) seen dangling from a crane is reminiscent of Calder's well-known mobiles, Eagle is one of his best-know stabile pieces. Created in 1971, during the latter part of Calder's career, it was one of several works that helped define a whole new period of public sculpture. Weighing in at around 6 tons and standing over 38' tall, it was never meant to leave the ground.

But in 1972, not long after Calder created Eagle, he was approached to apply the colorful abstract ideas displayed in his mobiles in an entirely new way - by painting a DC-8. He replied, "It would be a flying mobile. I like that." The idea, and the bird, flew.

Learn more: the Braniff story | the installation | Seattle Times images by Erika Schultz

Reaching closure

Sometimes you need to close one thing to open another. You have to take something away, temporarily, to provide something better, for the future.

The walking, skating and biking path connecting Broad Street at Alaskan to Myrtle Edwards Park will close from Monday, October 2, through Friday, October 20. The closure will allow Seattle Art Museum project and construction teams to improve, and fully integrate the path into the forthcoming Olympic Sculpture Park, to provide a richer, more seamless thoroughfare along the city's northwestern edge.

The Olympic Sculpture Park will merge the Belltown/Uptown area with with over eight contiguous acres of free, landscaped, waterfront space, providing Seattle residents and visitors with vistas, and room to roam and relax. And it will be filled with world-class art.

A Seattle Department of Transportation map identifies downtown bike and pedestrian route options, although the site doesn't announce, or provide recommendations specific to, this temporary closure. There will be a one-day reopening of access on October 7th for the Seattle Hospitality Oncology Fun Run. 

Aesthetic engineering

Roxy Paine is concerned with beauty and the appreciation of beauty, in things which are often not necessarily considered beautiful. The principles underlying and guiding his work are expressed through the use of robotics, computers, and inorganic materials simulating and masquerading as nature.

Erosion Machine (2005), for instance, uses weather, shoe-size, and stock market data-sets to control the movement of a robotic arm as it sandblasts a slab of sandstone to create a miniature Southwestern landscape.

Weed Choked Garden (2005) uses stainless steel, thermoset plastic, and more to immortalize both natural process and neglect, as 13 species of weeds take over an untended vegetable garden in 88 sq ft of meticulously created chaos.

Split (2003), seen here being reconstructed on its new site, The Olympic Sculpture Park, is a hyper-real artificial tree manufactured from steel pipes and tubes of many diameters. It germinated from Paine's detailed analysis of the structure of trees, and grew from computer diagrams architectural renderings. Transplanted, along with Aspen, Ash, and Dogwood trees, Split will share carefully engineered space in a realm of art and nature, creating tension between, and testing our perception of each.

More on Roxy: AI interview |  SourceCode interview (video) | More trees: Breach | Bluff

Alignment

Creating a world-class sculpture park is a monumental (no pun intended) undertaking. Begun with vision, enabled by wherewithal, and realized through the alignment of many teams of specialists. Designers, architects, contractors, engineers (environmental, civic and structural, aquatic, geotechnical, mechanical & electrical), landscapers, and more.

They all work together to create a space for people to encounter art of a grand scale. A space like Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park, and remarkable works like Tony Smith's Stinger.

Stinger, itself, is the result of the alignment of many aspects of Smith's life. Stricken with tuberculosis as a child, he was quarantined in a cottage apart from his family home. He often occupied himself building models from small medicine boxes. As a young man he worked in the family's tool-making business and took up paintings and drawing. He went on to study architecture, work for Frank Lloyd Wright, design private homes and teach at NYU.

In New York, he befriended avant-garde painters like Pollock and Rothko and began to paint in his own abstract style. Frustrated with architecture (clients changed designs) Smith began to sculpt. By the time he reached fifty-five, the cover of Time proclaimed him the "Master of Monumentalists." This was 1967, the year he started Stinger.

“My initials are A.P.S. (Anthony P. Smith). I used to kid about their meaning Architecture, Painting and Sculpture. But I wasn’t kidding too much; it really felt that way.” -- Tony Smith, 1966

On Saturday morning, under the watchful eye of Mike Hascall, owner of Belltown's own Artech Fine Art Services, two of Stinger's four sections were carefully aligned at the base of an artfully landscaped aspen grove.

View the installation | Learn more about Tony Smith at artnet | National Gallery of Art

Leaving a Wake in his path

Richard Serra is thought by many to be the world's foremost living sculptor. His work has been exhibited and installed (with occasional controversy) throughout the world since he began showing in museums and galleries in New York in the late 60s.

A recent piece, "Wake" arrived in Belltown's Olympic Sculpture Park last weekend. It is not a site-specific sculpture, but the chosen setting, the OSP's Valley precinct, was partially designed to accommodate Serra's vision for the installation.

While many observers apply nautical metaphors to the piece, and Serra acknowledges an affinity for the sea, "Wake" was named to reference the death of his friend, J. Kirk Varnedoe, rugby player, rower, educator, and one of the world's most influential art curators.

Learn more: the installation | PBS | ArtCritical | Gagosian Gallery |