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.