Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year filled with peace, joy and prosperity!

Brrr! The last month of 2008 was very cold in beautiful Seattle, Washington, with a record low of 14˚ on the 20th. Seattle and surrounding areas got hit hard with snow for two weeks starting on the 13th. Photos above were taken on December 23rd on Queen Anne right out side our front door, facing South and North. Downtown buildings are visible in the background in the top image. We were snowed in for 7 days – very surreal and unusual for Seattle.

…Seattle had record snowfall on December 14, 20, 21, and 24. Total snowfall for the month was 13.9 inches at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – other areas around Seattle received much more snowfall, up to two feet in some areas.

This quote is from ‘Seattle Climate Data’ for December on Beautiful Seattle. Click the link to read more.

Inside view of PACCAR Pavilion from main entrance

Yesterday morning, when I walked through the door to the PACCAR Pavilion, the main entrance to Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park, it appeared to be almost devoid of people.

My favorite seating area in Pavilion for spectacular and ever changing views of park sculptures and shipping activity on Elliott Bay

As I sat down at my favorite table near the glass wall facing Elliott Bay, happily anticipating several relaxed hours spent reading and sketching, I noticed a beehive of activity in the Alvord Art Lab. Intrigued, I quietly entered the room. Ms. Victoria Clayton’s 35 6th grade students, on a field trip from the Annie Wright school in Tacoma, were in that room making sculptures from found materials, including wire and pieces of wood. These students were focused and totally oblivious to me as I stood at the doorway watching them create.

Ms. Victoria Clayton outside the Pavilion classroom with part of Geoff McFetridge installation 'In the Mind' visible to left

Part of Geoff McFetridge 'In the Mind' site-specific installation

Annie Wright 6th graders heading to PACCAR Pavilion entrance with sculptures in tow

Out in the main space, Victoria explained that her 11-year-old students had completed an earlier docent-led tour of two sections of the park. When the kids were on the Seattle Cloud Cover bridge, which connects the West Meadow and Grove to the Shore, the noise from traffic and the loud voices of the children made it difficult to hear the docent. At the highest section of the park, the North Meadow area, the kids wanted to stand under Calder’s massive 40 foot tall stabile, EAGLE. They were excited to view such a huge sculpture at close range.

One of the students, Daniel, a budding photographer, looked up and started framing parts of the sculpture with his fingers. He asked Victoria to shoot those images and she did. The kids had a fine time viewing the Space Needle and Elliott Bay through various sections of Calder’s sculpture.

When they left the Eagle and walked down a narrow path into the Valley and came upon Richard Serra’s monumental sculpture WAKE, they got quieter and quieter, and when they started walking around and through the five parts of the 300-ton sculpture they stopped talking completely. TOTAL SILENCE. Victoria was amazed. Such is the power of art.

Sixth grade artists with sculptures, collecting backpacks and jackets at entrance to PACCAR Pavilion, as they prepare for drive back to Annie Wright School in Tacoma

ONE MUSEUM – THREE LOCATIONS

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) sponsors a dizzying array of lectures, events, Cell Phone Audio Tours, Guided Tours, film viewings and other educational programs for adults and students. Check here to find out more.

•SAM Downtown, 1st Avenue & Union Street (Free admission on First Thursdays)

•Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 Prospect St. Volunteer Park (Free admission on First Saturdays)

•Olympic Sculpture Park, 2901 Western Avenue, Downtown Waterfront (Admission always free)

Here are descriptions of two guided tours at the Olympic Sculpture Park, quoted from the official Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park Map & Guide:

A Walk in the Park
Explore the Environment of the Olympic Sculpture Park with Local Experts

These monthly walks will be led by organizations that specialize in the environment and ecology of the Puget Sound area. Meet your guide and group in the PACCAR Pavilion every second Saturday at 1 p.m.

Site, Sculpture, Shoreline
Discovering the Olympic Sculpture Park
Saturdays, 11 a.m. and Sundays, 2 p.m.

Experience the Olympic Sculpture Park’s dynamic spaces and learn about the design and layout of the park, site history, selected sculptures, and more. Bring your walking shoes and meet a SAM docent in the PACCAR Pavilion.

EAGLE (and crow) stabile by Alexander Calder, created in 1971, stands 40 feet tall

Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park officially opened on January 20, 2007, and has quickly become a popular destination not only for locals, but for visitors from around the world. It is truly unique, as far as sculptural parks go. The location is fabulous – right on Elliott Bay – with unobstructed views north toward Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains and south toward the city of Seattle and the Port of Seattle.

And you can get up close and personal with over 20 works of art!!

Calder's EAGLE frames one of Seattle's ubiquitous ferrries on Elliott Bay

The Olympic Sculpture Park is quite remarkable in that it is built on three separate land parcels – a very unusual undertaking indeed – literally separated by railroad tracks with frequent train traffic and a very busy Elliott Avenue. For years, when Judy and I drove past the bottom section of this fenced-in land mass, overgrown with weeds and harboring the foundations of several brick buildings, we’d speculate about the ultimate use of this land, never even dreaming of its ultimate transformation.

In the 1990s the Washington Department of Ecology, in partnership with Union Oil of California (who developed the land in 1910 as a fuel storage and transit facility and phased out operations in the 1980s) removed 120,000 tons of petroleum-contaminated soil and installed a groundwater recovery system, paving the way for its eventual reincarnation as Olympic Sculpture Park.

View from lookout on Alaskan Way - train tracks are beneath the railing, Tony Smith's WANDERING ROCKS can be seen at center, and Mark Dion's NEUKOM VIVARIUM and PACCAR Pavilion are visible at top right

It is nothing short of amazing that New York architects Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi transformed this awkward nine-acre parcel of land into a strikingly beautiful sculpture park and managed to incorporate four distinct Northwest landscapes:
1. The Valley, with fir and cedar trees, ferns, groundcovers and an outdoor amphitheater
2. The Grove, with native aspen, birch and maple trees
3. The Meadow, with bridges and gently sloped open paths that to lead you throughout the park
4. The Shore, right at the water’s edge, with pines and a small beach area, designed for salmon habitat recovery in Elliott Bay.

It’s a wonderful experience to walk through these four completely different ‘zones’, look down on moving trains and heavy traffic, and see small and very large scale art at the same time! Very unique, indeed.

PACCAR Pavilion as seen from street - note Dennis Oppenheim's huge SAFETY CONE at center and Roxy Pine's stainless steel tree, titled SPLIT, at far left

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The main entrance to the park is located in the sleek glass and steel PACCAR Pavilion, at Western and Broad, in the upper NW corner. This building, with a parking lot underneath, houses a gift shop, cafe/coffee shop, a classroom/meeting room, and, on the second floor, park headquarters.

In addition to the permanant outdoor sculptures, Olympic Sculpture Park will exhibit temporary installations as well.

View from just outside the entrance to PACCAR Pavilion

Photo of Richard Serra's WAKE framed by Anthony Caro's sculpture RIVIERA, taken outside PACCAR Pavilion

Richard Serra's massive 300-ton sculpture 'Wake', consists of five pieces, each 14 feet high and 50 feet long

Currently you’ll find five huge orange Safety Cones by installation artist Dennis Oppenheim sited throughout the park, and a site-specific installation in the  PACCAR pavilion by artist and graphic designer Geoff McFetridge, titled In The Mind.

When I recently Googled ‘Olympic Sculpture Park’ there were allegedly 479,000 websites that referenced the park! Here are three that I highly recommend.

This Wikipedia link is excellent. You’ll find a history of the park and dozens of links, including links with information on the sculptures and biographies of the artists. You can spend many enlightening hours here.

Click Olympic Sculpture Park/Seattle Times Newspaper for videos and slide shows. You can watch the park’s entire construction process in the photo sequence ‘park built in a minute’, take a ‘Virtual Tour’ of the park, view ‘Eagle in flight to park’ and see Alexander Calder’s 40 ft tall sculpture take shape in its new surroundings, watch ‘Art Alfresco’ and view photos of each art work, explore the park with an interactive map, view information on the art and the artists, and much more.

Click Unplanned ‘offspring’ at Olympic Sculpture Park get SAM’s blessing to see a nest of recently hatched ‘eaglets’ next to Alexander Calder’s “Eagle” sculpture.

TYPEWRITER ERASURE, SCALE X, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, sited on hillside above Western Avenue, on loan through 2009 from the Paul Allen family

PERRE'S VENTAGLIO by Beverly Pepper with PACCAR Pavilion in background

BUNYON'S CHESS by Mark di Suvero

SCHUBERT SONATA by Mark di Suvero with Elliott Bay in Background

Glass bridge titled SEATTLE CLOUD COVER, by Teresita Fernandez on left, and one of Dennis Oppenheim's SAFETY CONES on right

Fountain titled FATHER AND SON by Louise Bourgeois, and another one of Dennis Oppenheim's SAFETY CONES, as viewed from Uptown Espresso (best coffee in Seattle) located in Pier 70 on Alaska Way. SEATTLE CLOUD COVER Bridge at top right crosses over train tracks

In this photo you're looking at the same SAFETY CONE visible in the previous photo through the space between the last two cars of a fast moving train. Note the real traffic safety cone lying on its side at bottom right

'The Shore', on Elliott Bay, features a tidal garden with kelp, algae and other plants that are revealed and concealed with the changing tides

I covered the September 6th unveiling of the Statue of Liberty in West Seattle in an earlier post. Judy and I drove over today, three weeks later, to hang at the Tulley’s Coffee Shop on Alki Ave and take in the Statue minus the huge crowd present at the unveiling. I shot the photos below about 11 am.

Click on photo for a larger image, look straight up from Judy's head and you'll see the Statue of Liberty sticking out of the roof a parked car - it's closer than it appears

View of Statue facing West, taken from steps leading to the plaza/bench area - people in photo are reading names of donors engraved on bricks

Northwest view - click photo for larger image and you'll see the Space Needle at center right

Southwest view

Just one of many photos I took of the Seattle skyline as I walked to the Statue of Liberty dedication site

The Tully’s Coffee Shop in West Seattle is located on Alki Avenue across the street from a sandy beach bordering Puget Sound. Judy and I like hanging out there in any kind of weather – rainy, cloudy, sunny, foggy, clear skies or snow – it’s like being on vacation even though we’re just a few miles from home. Today the weather brought back memories of my home town of Santa Monica in the summer -  the sky was it’s legendary blue and the sun was shining brightly.

My main goal for heading over to West Seattle this afternoon, however, was not to sip an extra hot double tall latte and amble along the beach soaking up vitamin D. I wanted to witness a special event – the unveiling of the new STATUE OF LIBERTY, scheduled to take place at 1:30 pm and, coincidentally, also right across the street from Tully’s.

Television crews making last-minute adjustments before the unveiling

Alki’s original Statue of Liberty was made of copper sheating. It was one of over 200 similar ‘Little Sisters of Liberty’ placed by the Boy Scouts of America in 39 states and 4 US Territories in 1952, to celebrate scouting’s 40th anniversary theme, ‘Strengthen the Arm of Liberty.’

Twelve of the boy scouts present at the dedication of the original statue, wearing name tags saying ‘I was there’, plus the four sea scouts who unveiled the statue, seated in red folding chairs along the edge of the plaza, were guests of honor at the unveiling of the new statue.

Judy and I walked past the original statue countless times since we first met 22 years ago, but those days are history. The statue stood proudly facing Puget Sound for over 50+ years, but, ultimately, acts of vandalism, sand and the salt air took their toll. You can view the statue in the 1904 Log House Museum just blocks from it’s original site.

Statue of Liberty moments after unveiling

I parked my car near the boat ramp on Alki. I wanted to get a little exercise and savor the 2-mile walk to the site where the festivities were to take place. And what a day for a leisurely stroll! Seattle on a sunny day is one incredibly beautiful city. Puget Sound, Seattle’s ubiquitous ferries, container ships, two huge cruise ships, the space needle and skyscrapers presented a constantly changing visual feast from my vantage point along Alki Avenue. It was a ‘picture postcard’ kinda day, and I savored every minute of it!

Patrick Donahue, Senior Project Manager, Paul and Libby Carr, Statue of Liberty Plaza Project Co-chairs, and Adam Sheridan, former Executive Director of North West Programs for the Arts, were just a few of the people I met, before and after the dedication ceremony. Adam, through NWPA helped raise $100,000 and was instrumental in bringing architects Matt Hutchins and Chris Ezzell together to design the new Statue of Liberty site.

I was touched when Adam told me the following story. One day in 2006, right after the official paper work was completed so that fundraising for the new statue could begin, he was at the Pike Place Market buying fruit for dessert that evening. He started talking with one of the vendors, and the conversation eventually turned to the Statue of Liberty project.

Adam explained how the old statue was falling apart and that he was part of a group whose goal was to replace it with a new cast bronze statue. The vendor asked if donations were being accepted and Adam explained that they were, but none had been collected yet. The man wanted to know if his donation would actually go to the building of the statue and Adam promised him it would. The vendor, a man about 30 years old, told Adam he was an immigrant, explained how much his new country meant to him, then proudly handed Adam four one dollar bills. He said he wanted to walk by the statue with his grandchildren and tell them he played a part in creating the new statue.

New Statue viewed from the dedication area shortly after the unveiling

Seattle fireboat Leschi honors statue with full water spray

Spectators listening to dedication ceremony speakers

Base of new pedestal

Back side view of vendors' booths lined up on seawall along Puget Sound

Paul Quinn, 'Evil Genius' at Jet City Cakes, serving slices of his amazing (and delicious) cake baked to commemorate dedication of Statue of Liberty

Artist Noelle Ferwerda signed 300 prints and generously gave one to each family attending the dedication ceremony

View of the Statue of Liberty and the Plaza area as I left the scene about 4:30 pm

Before I left to drive home, I watched children happily creating art at a big table outdoors, strolled the vendors’ booths, watched the ribbon cutting ceremony and ate the piece of liberty cake mentioned above. I missed the Ken Burns ‘Statue of Liberty’ documentary, the lighting of 200 luminaria at 6:30 pm and the sunset concert at 7:30 pm. For more information and photos of the Statue of Liberty dedication click on the sites below – the West Seattle Blog has lots of photos showing construction of the plaza site from start to finish.

WEST SEATTLE BLOG

WEST SEATTLE HERALD

On my walk back to my car, I chanced upon this wedding celebration. I liked the scene, with the West Seattle Bridge and Seattle's huge orange waterfront cranes in the background. I snapped several shots.

A group of nude bicyclists happened by and stopped to congratulate the Bride and Groom, who happily posed for photographs. These will undoubtedly add a bit of interest to the wedding album. I shot several photos, too, and figured the whole scenario played beautifully into the (Statue of) Liberty celebration.