Evans Pool is one of the most heavily used public swimming pools in the city. Built in the 1930s, Seattle Parks and Recreation restored the community center in the ’80s and commissioned Troutner and Marioni to create the artwork. Seven Figures is a five‑by‑26‑foot glass window wall that depicts seven life‑size human figures swimming through water, with details such as fish, seashells, coins and buried treasure. Soft light filters through the translucent underwater scene, made of approximately 300 unique sand‑cast glass tiles. The “sky” in the window scene is made from special, tempered gray plate glass.

The public response to the window was so favorable that a second glass artwork was commissioned by the community to surround the front doorway of the community center building. Marioni and Troutner’s Portal artwork frames the main entrance and is made of rippled cast glass with an underlay of dichroic glass, which appears brilliant blue from a distance, then turns gold as the viewer approaches.

You can watch Seattle Channel’s video about artist Paul Marioni here.

Seven Figures was funded by Seattle Parks and Recreation 1% for Art funds.

-Tamara Gill, Community Development & Outreach

IMAGES: Paul Marioni and Ann Troutner; 1989; Seven Figures, Portal; cast‑glass blocks in aluminum frame; dichroic and cast glass in brass frame; 5′ x 26′ (Seven Figures); 8′ x 8 1/2′ (Portal). Located at Green Lake Community Center.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.

In the ’80s, when the City Light Canal Substation was added to the list of city substation renovations, the Seattle Arts Commission selected Noah to work on the project’s design team with landscape architect Peggy Gaynor and the architectural firm of Streeter/Dermanis. Noah participated in all aspects of the renovation, including the color selection for the substation transformers, the overall landscaping of the site, and the design of an artwork for the building.

For Forms of Power, Noah painted images of allegories of power on windows made of sandblasted, multi-colored translucent Plexiglas. The hand signs of the game rock-paper-scissors, representing physical power, are painted on three orange windows. A pink window shows a couple about to kiss, symbolizing the power of love. A scientist conducting experiments represents the power of the mind. And in a green window, a blindfolded figure with outstretched arms, evoking traditional representations of justice, stands for the power of the law. This visual play subtly alludes to the factors that impact the daily lives in the homes and businesses that depend on the Canal Street site for power.

Noah is a Seattle mixed-media artist with experience in painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, public art, installations and digital imaging. She has exhibited in various art venues, both nationally and internationally, and is represented in a wide variety of public and private collections. The city of Seattle’s collection includes over 15 portable and permanently sited works by Noah.

The artwork was funded by Seattle City Light 1% for Art funds.

IMAGES: Forms of Power, 1985, Plexiglas and paint, various dimensions. Located at Seattle City Light’s Canal Substation, Northwest 45^th Street and Sixth Avenue Northwest.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.

The striking monumental sculpture stands in the shadow of the Space Needle, its simple z-shape outlining the iconic form of lightning. Sharp edges formed from the juncture of acute angles animate the black steel bolt with alternating planes of light and shadow. Two polygonal bases reminiscent of blacksmith’s anvils support the sculpture.

Bladen began as an abstract painter. He later dedicated himself to sculpture and began exhibiting monumental sculptures in the early ‘60s.  His sculptures are represented in a number of public and private collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the State Office Building in Albany, N.Y.

The artwork was funded by Seattle Center Bond Issue 1% for Art funds and the National Endowment for the Arts.

-Joan Peterson, Public Art

IMAGES:  Ronald Bladen, Black Lightning,1981, painted steel, 20′H x 56′Wx 36.75″D. Located at Seattle Center. Photos (top) courtesy of Seattle Center; (below) by Amy Louise Herndon.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.

The artist writes, “The fountain’s concept is that of huge polished stainless steel pipes in a sculptural form extended by the shape of water projected out of two intricately designed orifices. These increase the illusion of tremendous volumes of water.”

The next time you’re in the SoDo district, stop at the Operations Control Center to check out this dramatic sculpture.

Ted Jonsson’s commissioned artworks can be found throughout the state of Washington and in other states including California, Maryland and Alaska.

Watch a video of Jonssson talking about the artwork here.

The artwork was funded by Seattle Water Department construction funds (now Seattle Public Utilities).

-Joan Peterson, Public Art

IMAGES: Ted Jonsson, Chimera, 1975, stainless-steel pipe, 10’H x 24’W x 5.5’D. Located at Seattle Public Utilities’ Operations Control Center, 2700 Airport Way South.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.

In the early 1900s, during the first stage of the Denny Hill Regrade, the city street improvement budget included funds for the city’s first commission for a statue. In 1907, the committee awarded the commission to Wehn, a local 24-year-old sculptor who proposed a full-length portrait of Chief Seattle.  He based his original plaster cast on the only surviving photographic portrait of the chief, taken in 1864.  Wehn became upset and threw his model into Elliott Bay after he discovered that the city planned to hire an inexperienced local firm to cast his statue.  He only agreed to create a second model after the city decided to hire a New York firm to cast the bronze sculpture.  The artwork was finally unveiled by Chief Seattle’s great-great-granddaughter in an impressive ceremony on Founders’ Day, Nov. 13, 1912.

The sculpture stands atop a roughly hewn stone pedestal inset with bear heads that spout water from their mouths into a pool below. The chief of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes raises his hand in a gesture of greeting, recalling the amicable relationship he established with early pioneers and explorers.  In 1975, the fountain pool was enlarged and two 12-ton granite boulders were shaped by Seattle sculptor Richard Beyer to fit into the rim of the pool.

James Wehn was Seattle’s first resident classical sculptor and the first chairman of the University of Washington’s sculpture department. He also created the portrait bust of Chief Seattle in Pioneer Park and a profile medallion of Chief Seattle, adopted as the official city seal, which was enlarged in bronze and installed at the former Public Safety Building in 1950.

Chief Seattle was originally funded in 1907 by Seattle Street Improvement Budget. The boulder artworks created as part of the expansion in 1975 were funded by Engineering Department 1% for Art funds.

- Joan Peterson, Public Art

IMAGE:  James When; Chief Seattle; 1912; cast, gilded bronze and granite. Located at Tilikum Place Park, Fifth Avenue and Denny Way. Photo by Spike Mafford Photography.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.

Charles Brown directed the work, with William H. Brown, James Starrish, Robert Harris, William Andrews, and James Andrews on the carving crew.  The replica pole left Alaska on a ship headed to Seattle in April 1940 and was dedicated on July 25 with great celebration.

The original totem pole was acquired from Tongass Island, Alaska by an expedition committee chosen by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It was erected where the current one stands now but was irreparably damaged by an arsonist in 1938. The pole symbolizes three Tlingit Indian legends with figures representative of the Raven Clan. The hero of the legends is located at the top of the totem, while Grandfather Raven, a mythological being known as both a creator and a trickster, forms the pole’s base.

The totem pole was a gift to the city from the United States Forest Service.

IMAGES: Seattle Totem Pole, 1940, Charles Brown and other native carvers of the Kyan and Kinninook families, replica pole made of polychromed Alaskan red cedar, 50′H x4’6″ diameter. Photos by Spike Mafford Photography.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.

The Fountain of Creation is one of the major artworks originally created for the 1962 World’s Fair.  The bronze and stone water garden incorporates three organic forms subtitled the “Evolution of Man,” the “Flight of Gulls” and “Seaweed,” surrounded by rugged rocks rising from the bottom of a large square basin. The fountain references the evolution of life and water’s critical role in that process. It also acts as a celebration of humans, plants and animals on land, sea and in the air. Jets of water, which highlight the bronzes but never eclipse them, playfully add to this sense of vitality.

 With the artist’s permission, the city completed a remodel of the fountain in the early 1990s, adding some 45 stones and boulders to the piece and installing equipment to improve water quality.  Dupen’s water garden complements the idea of Seattle Center as an urban gathering place and preserves a piece of visual culture from a significant time in Seattle’s history.  The artist’s sculptures can be found in public parks and buildings as well as in museums and private collections.

The artwork was a gift of the 1962 World’s Fair to the city of Seattle.

–Joan Peterson, Public Art

Image:  Everett Dupen with Paul Thiry; Fountain of Creation; 1962; bronze, colored concrete. Located between Key Arena and the Northwest Rooms at Seattle Center. Photo by Spike Mafford Photography.

Weekly Art Hit is featuring artworks every week from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s. to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the city’s public art program.

The city established its 1% for Art program in 1973 through a municipal ordinance that required the city’s capital improvement projects to set aside one percent of construction funds for the commission, purchase and installation of artworks, stating: “The City accepts a responsibility for expanding public experience with visual art.” Today the city’s public art collection includes nearly 380 permanently sited indoor and outdoor artworks and 2,800 portable artworks in all media. The program integrates artworks and the ideas of artists into public settings—weaving art into our buildings, streetscapes, open space and infrastructure to create a sense of place.

‘Black Sun’ by Isamu Noguchi

To kick off Weekly Art Hit’s 40^th anniversary segment, we’re featuring Isamu Noguchi’s Black Sun (1968), located at Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park near the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Black Sun is a ring‑shaped sculpture, nine feet in diameter, carved in Japan from a single piece of Brazilian black granite that originally weighed 30 tons. The finished work is 12 tons, with a basic form that contains irregular curved and polished indentations. Black Sun is a reflection of Noguchi’s interest in circular shapes and in outdoor environments for sculpture, which was stimulated by forms found in traditional Japanese gardens. The aperture created by the inner circle of the artwork focuses on a panoramic view of downtown Seattle, Puget Sound, and the Olympic Mountains beyond.

In 1967, Noguchi was selected by the Seattle Art Museum and the Municipal Art Commission – the precursor to the Seattle Arts Commission – to create a major sculpture at Volunteer Park in front of the museum building. The work was donated as a gift to the city through the Seattle Foundation, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Noguchi’s sculptures and gardens are known and respected internationally.

IMAGES: Isamu Noguchi, Black Sun, 1968, Brazilian black granite, 9′ diameter, 3’ thick. Located at Volunteer Park in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Photos by Spike Mafford Photography.

Ruffner’s principal contribution centered on the entry sequence to the building and the tile in the locker rooms. The artist-designed entry portal is a 26-foot‑high painted steel structure that serves as a landmark and identification sign for the center. Ruffner designed cast-bronze inlays for the sidewalk leading to the main entrance. The inlays depict each day of the year, with special holidays highlighted. Also included in the sidewalk is the alphabet, with each letter and its symbol in Braille, Morse code and hand signs. All of the artwork has been incorporated into a game devised by the artist that children of all ages can play. The sidewalk patterns continue through the entrance and into the lobby, where more bronze symbols representing the solar system are set in colored concrete surrounded by symbols in sets of five: Washington mountains, local animal species, sports played at the center and the human senses.

Inside the locker rooms Ruffner created a ceramic mural featuring the handprints of well‑known local athletes, such as Debbie Armstrong, Chris Gobrecht, Fred Brown and Jim Zorn. Handprints of neighborhood youngsters are intermingled with those of the athletes.

Constructed in 1913, South Park Community Center was one of the first in Seattle, known then as a “field house.” Unique among centers nationally, South Park introduced the concept of consolidated facilities, which required fewer operating staff and provided a “homey” atmosphere. A new facility was completed in 1989.

The Unified Playing Field Theory was funded with Seattle Parks and Recreation 1% for Art funds. South Park Vortex was commissioned with Seattle Public Utilities 1% for Art funds and made possible with additional assistance from South Park Arts, South Park Library, South Park Community Center, students of Concord Elementary School and Seattle Parks and Recreation.

IMAGES: Ginny Ruffner; Unified Playing Field Theory; 1989; painted steel, masonry, bronze tiles, concrete, ceramic. Located at South Park Community Center.

- Tamara Gill, Community Development & Outreach

Inside depicts a streetcar scene on Jackson Street circa 1940 and pays tribute to the diverse populations that have lived in the Central District throughout its history.

Straight Out the CD pays homage to the history of the civil rights movement and local landmarks in the Central District, including images of William Grose, one of the first African Americans to settle in the Central District; local civil rights activist Edwin Pratt; and neighborhood cultural arts institution Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.

Jackson Street Jazz includes images and names of local musicians and references the roots of Seattle’s jazz scene in the nightclubs and restaurants along Jackson Street in the ‘30s to ‘50s, as well as jazz greats heralding from Seattle.

Check out the neighborhood and see if you can spot one!

The project is part of the Seattle Department of Transportation Art Plan and was funded by SDOT 1% for Art dollars.

IMAGE: Troy Miles; Inside, Straight Out the CD and Jackson Street Jazz; 2010; decals mounted on signal boxes in Seattle’s Central District neighborhood. Photos by Vaughn Bell.