Olympic Sculpture Park

Well, gang, we've received a lot of gifts during our travels; most of them of the intangible kind and others real treats like those we received from the Travis bunch on our visit to Pike Place!!  Seattle has given us many of them over the years and this trip was certainly no exception.  To mention only a couple of them - the "SAM" (Seattle Art Museum) surprised us with "Senior Friday" - free admission for 'ancient ones' when we were there.  And then they "one-upped" that with the fact that there was no admission fee for the Olympic Sculpture Park.  Talk about a deal!!!!  We've mentioned the park several times on this trip and we wanted to make sure you got there even if it is for a brief visit.  Located at 1400 East Prospect Street in Volunteer

Curve XXIV - Ellsworth Kelly

Park, the Sculpture Park is really a treasure.  We'll come back to talk about
the layout in a bit but let's get started on our tour.  Even before you leave the 'welcome center'  you encounter a startling creation.  "Encontro das Aguas" (Encounter of Waters) by Brazilian artist, Sandra Cinto.  The work incorporates absolutely enormous wall

Encontro das Aguas

drawings done exclusively with blue paint and a silver drawing pen and a beautiful wooden boat with an intriguingly
patterned deck to round out the impression that you are standing before a churning body of water.  It is really beautiful -

Boat at "Encontra das Agua

but - it is only temporary!!!  Get down there and see it before October!!!  Exiting the building you walk across an attractive plaza (with lots of tables and chairs for relaxing during your visit) and come out at the top of Gates Amphitheater courtesy of the Microsoft giant.  At the lower end of the

Gates Amphitheater and "Wake"

amphitheater is, to me, one of the most intriguing pieces in the park.  It is "Wake" by Richard Serra and from the top of the amphitheater it appears to be five open-ended columns with a 'waving' design.  It is an enormous piece composed of five huge structures each of which is made up of two "S" shaped pieces of steel fabricated using a machine that was once used by the French to manufacture submarines!!  When you arrive at the bottom of the slope, "Wake"  seemingly dissolves into its separate pieces and from that perspective it is impossible to imagine what it looks

Typewriter Eraser, Scale X - Coosje van Bruggen

like from above.  From that point, you enter a veritable wonderland of art, engineering and ecology.  Olympic Sculpture Park is built on a former industrial site and the grounds literally weave over, under and through city streets, an interstate highway and a railroad - all without losing an ounce of beauty and often depending on those features to enhance the art!!!!!  As we arrived a gentle rain started to fall but, y'know what?  As has happened so often before, when Linda and I have a chance to do a little "walking in the rain", we have a ball and don't mind the moisture one bit!!!  The park  is a masterpiece of planning and vision.  The spacious main building contains several temporary exhibitions and a wonderful gift shop.  The staff are delightful

Bunyon's Chess

and helpful and can give you some great tips on how best to view the pieces - particularly if you are inching up on the category of "ancient."  Best of all - the pathways through the park are all wide and spacious and where they go uphill or downhill they follow gently sloping ramps.  The staff are very

Eye Benches - Louise Bourgeois

focused on making sure you have a good experience here and provide detailed information about the exhibits.  You will find that the artwork here is almost universally huge and most often blends into the landscape in subtle, almost invisible ways.  At first glance, some of the pieces appear to be something

Love & Loss - view 1

absolutely "normal" (like a piece of plastic patio furniture or a park bench) until you look more closely and find that it is a hand-made piece of art crafted from amazing materials!!  Some incorporate functionality and art together like

Love & Loss - view 2

the three sets of whimsical and delightful "Eye Benches." Others are more complex, incorporating both organic and inorganic features and multi-part elements like the thought provoking "Love & Loss" by Roy McMakin.  A piece like this makes you wish you had the opportunity to talk to the artist to find out a

Love & Loss - view 3

bit more about his thinking as he was putting the work together.  I also wished our son were with us when we looked at works like Schubert Sonata.  To me it definitely evoked a sense

Schubert Sonata - Mark di Suvero

of music, rhythm and meter but I would have enjoyed discussing it with Rick.  He is a much more accomplished musician and it would have been neat to hear his thoughts.  Of course, I guess I had similar feelings about most of the exhibits.  As we talked about above, some were whimsical

Stinger - Tony Smith

and some appeared to have deep meanings.  Some were light and cheerful while others were somewhat dark and foreboding.  One of the pieces in the latter category (for me, at least) was Tony Smith's "Stinger".  This was actually one part of a two-part exhibit and the other part, "Wandering Rocks" was certainly a lot lighter.  In the

Eagle - Alexander Calder

former category was the brilliantly colored - and executed - "Eagle" where I got Linda to do her Vanna White impersonation.  (By the way, ya'll know that Vanna is from South Carolina, right???)  Anyway, Eagle was one of the brightest exhibits in the park.  And then, as so often happens when I edge slightly out of my cultural depths, there were pieces that I really struggled with.  I mean, I could

Sky Landscape I - Louise Nevelson

appreciate their artfulness but I suppose my depth of knowledge is a bit limited in understanding the background and intent of some of the pieces.  One of those was the excellent but (to me) somewhat bewildering Sky Landscape I by Louise Nevelson.  I've got to confess, I actually did some research on the piece, trying to figure out why it was so puzzling to me.  I didn't really get the answers I was looking for but I got even more questions.  The piece located in the Olympic Sculpture Park was apparently completed in 1983 but there is another sculpture entitled simply "Sky Landscape" by Ms. Nevelson that was commissioned by the A.M.A. and which is now on permanent display in Washington D.C.  It is quite similar to this one but was dedicated on March 10, 1988, one month and one week prior to her death.  Hmmmmmmm...  Oh well, that's the world of art.  Anyway - the Olympic Sculpture Park is one fantastic opportunity if you love art and you happen to be in Seattle.  We hope you enjoyed a little "cultural outing" in the rain.  We'll be back soon with a couple of final posts from Seattle but, until then, support your local artist!!!  See ya.