Tag Archives: sculpture

Union Art Installation

This art installation is in the Arboretum in Seattle, and we happened across it while out walking.  I didn’t want to take up too much time trying to photograph it. Nancy is patient enough with me as it is when it comes to taking pictures on our days out and knowing that I have blog posts in mind.  Stretching that patience would be too selfish.  The light under the trees was a little hard to work with and the shapes of the sculpture were not so conspicuous when trying to take the shots.

The elements hang over the path.  At first I thought it was something that wasn’t supposed to be there and then, as we got closer, realized it was an art work.  The shapes suspended from cables between the trees was rather interesting to look at.  Whether any of these shots convey it well, I am not so sure.

St Pancras Sculptures

While walking through the station at St Pancras, I realized that there are more sculptures than I had thought.  The one of Sir John Betjeman I knew of from previous visits, but the others were new to me.  I rather like the stark nature of their textures and imagery.  They have a rather aggressive feel to me which got my attention.  It’s nice that public spaces make the effort to add art to the functional areas.

Excel Entrance Sculpture

I made a detour to the Excel exhibition centre to visit a friend from high school.  He works there and was able to meet up and chat for a while.  As I walked up the steps, I came to a sculpture that they have commemorating the workers that had made the docks the vibrant place they were for hundreds of years.  I thought it was a pretty cool sculpture so here it is!

Baseball Mitt Sculpture

I went down into the middle of Woodinville to try and get pictures of the smoke from the wildfires.  I ended up walking alongside the playing fields that are usually so busy with various sports.  At this time, they were empty.  What I had never noticed when driving by is that they have a sculpture by the fields of a baseball mitt.  This bronze sculpture has the mitt and a bunch of rabbits.  I am not sure what the meaning of the rabbits is but maybe it is designed to appeal to kids that are at the park to play their sports.

Marymoor Dragons

A sunny afternoon was a good time for a ride since such nice days are likely to be in short supply before too long.  I didn’t feel like pushing myself up nasty climbs on such a lovely day so went for miles rather than climbing feet and took the trail down the Sammammish River and on down through Marymoor Park and alongside Lake Sammammish.  As I went through Marymoor park on my outbound leg, I noticed what initially appeared to be a couple of plows alongside the trail. I decided to check them out on the return leg.

When I came back, I realized that, far from being farming implements (albeit on a small scale), they were actually sculptures of dragons.  A pair of them, presumably taking flight?  I was glad I waited until the return journey because the sun was that bit lower and the light a bit warmer.  That did make it a bit more tricky to keep my shadow out of the shots but I just about managed.

Renton Municipal Airport

I have visited Renton Municipal Airport on plenty of occasions but I had not previously stopped to check out the sculpture at the entrance to the airport.  It is sited by the main gate and there is a parking area to make it easy to visit.  The formal name of the airport is Clayton Scott Field and the sculpture is of Clayton Scott himself next to a sign showing the direction and distance to multiple locations.  The top of the sculpture even includes space as one destination!  The locations are chosen and organized to provide a nice spiral pattern to the markers.  It is a nicely executed piece of artwork.

Aldeburgh Beach Sculpture

Head up the shoreline from the center of Aldeburgh and there is a beach area with an interesting sculpture.  Called the Aldeburgh Scallop, it is a stainless steel sculpture, funded by public donations.  It is two scallop shells that interlock.  It is nearly four metres across and dramatic, sitting as it does on the open shingle beach.  Very cool.

South Park Sculpture

I parked up in the South Park area south of Seattle when I was off to get some shots of the large stored 737 Max population.  I walked across the bridge to see the planes but I was also rather taken with a sculpture that was sitting on the sidewalk.  It was a multi layered creation with an angler fish style design with many more intricate elements built in to the structure of the fish shape.  It was striking.  There were lots of distracting background elements near the sculpture which I didn’t want in the shot so I decided to shoot close up to it with lots of shots and then combine them into a pano when I got home.

The Hot Shop at Work

The hot shop at the Tacoma Glass Museum proved to be a lot of fun.  We went in there as soon as we arrived because we had been watching them at work on a monitor while we were in line to buy our tickets.  We also knew they would have a break later in our visit so wanted to make sure we saw the work underway.  The shop is laid out to provide a lot of options for the visitors.

There is a seating gallery area built up at the back of the studio so people can sit and watch what is going on.  A camera operator moves around the shop providing close up shots of the work which are shown on monitors to give a more detailed view of the work.  Meanwhile, a guy was providing commentary on what was happening and answering questions from the crowd.  There was also a walkway that went above and behind the work space so it was possible to look down on exactly what they were doing from quite close in.

The team were working on a candelabra in glass which appeared to be a new idea that they had.  They got quite well through the work when it shattered.  They went back to the beginning and edited the design the second time around.  The simplified some elements and reinforced others and this time everything worked out well.  We were fascinated by the whole thing and watched them all the way to completion of the work.  Even if the rest of the museum hadn’t been there, this would have been worthwhile for a visit on its own.

Chihuly At Night

This previous post included many shots from a visit to the Chihuly Museum in Seattle.  In that post I mentioned how it closed around the time it was getting dark and that a return trip during the winter would be in order.  With my mum visiting at Christmas, that’s exactly what we did.  We timed our visit to be later in the day so we would be there once the sun set.

The transition from light to dark brought a lot of options in the gardens.  Not everything was illuminated so some elements were okay while there was some light remaining but then were gone while others were only gently illuminated and only really showed the effects well once dark was fully upon us.  The view back to the museum was also interesting as it changed and I did go back inside often to see how the move from external to internal lighting affected the glass works on display in there.  Hopefully these shots give you a sense of how things look as darkness descends.