March 25, 2011 - Secret Sail

The sail of the USS Parche (pronounced PAR-chee) stands outside of the Puget Sound Navy Museum located next door to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Washington State Ferry dock in Bremerton, Washington.  The USS Parche (SSN-683), was one of 37 of the Sturgeon-class fast-attack submarines built and the last to be decommissioned.  It was commissioned in 1974 and retired in 2004, spending the last 10 years of service in Bangor, WA, not far from where its sail stands now.  The 292 foot Sturgeon-class submarines were mostly phased out in the 1990s, replaced by the Los Angeles and Seawolf classes of submarines. 

While it was designed to silently stalk Soviet ballistic missile submarines, it spent most of its operational career carrying out clandestine missions that to this day are largely classified.  Rumored operations included retreiving Soviet bombs and missiles from the ocean floor, 'tapping' into undersea Soviet communications lines and deploying unmanned drones in espionage missions.

The USS Parche, is the most decorated ship in US Navy history.  The denotations on the side of the 31 foot long, 18 foot high sail include awards for Battle Efficiency, Navigation Excellence, etc.  Of special note are the 9 Presidential Unit Citations, the highest award a ship can receive.

Just up the street from the USS Parche sail the bow of the USS South Carolina, a California-Class nuclear powered guided missile frigate, stands out of the sidewalk.  The nearly 600 foot ship was commissioned in 1972 and deactivated in 1998.  It took nearly 2 1/2 years to recycle the 9,500 ton ship. 

March 19, 2011 - Lake Langlois' Last Winter Morning

At Lake Langlois, near Carnation, Washington, canoes sit idle at the boathouse on the last morning of this winter.  The canoes and the lake won't be still for long, however.  Lake Langlois is an integral part of Camp River Ranch, a Girl Scout camp operated by Girl Scouts of Western Washington.   Each year thousands of girls learn canoeing, go swimming, enjoy campfire songs and appreciate the beauty of the lake.

Lake Langlois covers nearly 100 acres and the clear, cool waters are nearly 100 feet deep.  In addition to the activities of the Girl Scouts the lake has a strong fishery.  Each year the lake is stocked with several thousand legal rainbow trout and kokanee.  No gasoline engines are permitted and public access is limited to a boat launch.

March 19, 2011 - Winter's Last Morning

The sun rising over the Cascades breaking through the last winter's morning fog at Green Slough near the Carnation Golf Course east of Seattle.  Green Slough is one of many similar small bodies of water, mini-oxbow lakes, left as the Snoqualmie River channel changes course.

March 13, 2011 - Post Alley UnSelf Edit

Tucked below Pike Place Market, almost underneath the commonly seen "Public Market Center" sign, on Post Alley is the Market Theatre, currently the home of Seattle TheatreSports - the first US theatresports company.  TheatreSports involves improvisation, comedy and theatre with active audience involvement.  While waiting in line, feel free to add your favorite flavor to the gum wall.  The 230 seat theatre was previously a movie theatre and has been home to Unexpected Productions since 1991.  Self-editing is good for regular life, but stifles the creative juices. Improvisation is one way in which playwrights can end their prediliction for self-editing.

March 11, 2011 - Slip Still

The boats moored at Elliot Bay Marina couldn't be much more still on this late winter night.  The marina north of Seattle's downtown waterfront was opened in 1991 and has 900 slips available for pump out usage and a total capacity of nearly 1300 boats.  The slips range from 32 to 63 feet and are used pretty evenly by both power and sailboats.  There are 40 slips designated for liveaboards and 60 slips held open for transient boaters.   

May 1, 2009 - Changing Form as Frame

(A slight departure from previous blog posts.  This was pulled from the vault.)

The Seattle skyline, including Mt. Rainier, is framed in Doris Chase's "Changing Form", located at Kerry Park.  One of her earliest commissioned sculptures, the 15 foot high steel sculpture  was installed in 1971 and represents an evolution in her artwork.  She began painting on flat mediums, and moved to painting on larger and larger laminated wood nesting hoops and arches that people could walk through. 

March 5, 2011 - Moon Gates

Doris Totten Chase's 17 foot high "Moon Gates" is a bronze sculpture installed at the base of Seattle's Space Needle in 1999.  Doris Chase (1923-2008) was a Seattle native whose work in art began with painting and sculpture.  In the early 1970s she was a pioneer in the area of video art.  Ms. Chase's sculpture "Changing Form", was installed at Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill in 1971. (See December 6, 2010 - "Needle Topper" for a view of Kerry Park and May 1, 2009 - "Changing Form as Frame" for the lines of that sculpture.)

March 5, 2011 - Black Lightning

Ronald Bladen's (1918-1988) minimalist Black Lightning, a 60 foot long 24 foot high painted metal sculpture installed at the base of the Space Needle in 1981, contrasts sharply to the fusion of colors, shapes and textures present in the Frank Gehry designed Experience Music Project in the background.

Mr. Bladen is viewed as one of the cool fathers of "Minimalism".  He wanted his signature works to have presence and his signature was massive black forms that had an air of light, speed and weightlessness.  Mr. Bladen was born in Vancouver, BC, and lived, for part of his childhood in Hoquiam and Aberdeen, Washington.  During WWII he worked in the dockyards as a toolmaker, which helped to support his painting.  It wasn't until the 1960s that he began working as a sculpture, utilizing the skills he learned at the dockyards.

March 5, 2011 - Merry No More

A section of one of the panels on a merry-go-round in the kiddieland section of Seattle Center's dismantled Fun Forest sits idle at the base of the Space Needle.  A Chihuly exhibit was selected to occupy this acre of Seattle Center.  The exhibit will be opened in time for the 50th anniversary of the 1962 World's Fair.  The Space Needle and many of the structures at Seattle Center were built for the 1962 World's Fair.

The 44,00 square foot structure - a glass house - will exhibit some $50 million of Chihuly art and is expected to draw a thousand visitors a day.  The public-private venture was proposed by the owners of a nearby privately owned venue, the Space Needle. The Chihuly museum, is to be built with private funds and the land leased by Seattle Center for 20 years.

UPDATE: The museum opens May 21, 2012.

March 5, 2011 - Parallax Totem

This totem pole carved by Duane Pasco, Victor Mowatt and Earl Muldoon was installed at Seattle Center in 1970.  The animals represented on the pole include a hawk, a bear with a salmon, a raven and a killer whale.  The totem pole can be seen in Alan Pakula's opening sequence of the 1970 film "The Parallax View" staring Warren Beatty.  The film was the second in director Pakula's political paranoia trilogy; "Klute" (1971) and "All the President's Men" (1976) being the other two.  The opening scene takes place at a Fourth of July parade for a prominent Senator who in short order is assassinated at the top of the Space Needle.  However, the foilage clearly visible in the trees indicates the film was made on an early spring day, such as this one.  The movie is a classic and if you have ever been to the Space Needle you should see the film for no other reason than to see what Seattle and the observation deck looked like forty years ago.