Gazebo

Description: Situated in a natural divide between the Maple Leaf Park playground and ballfields, the twelve-foot gazebo contains images of plant and animal forms indigenous to the Pacific Northwest.  Forged steel components of the gazebo include ten-foot steel crescents holding a big leaf maple branch and giant perennial kelp.  Other forms include the great shell (chocolate whelk), a cormorant, giant pods, and leaves. The Parks and Recreation Department has donated the granite pavers placed under and around the gazebo.

Artist Statement: The Gazebo for Maple Leaf Park is a light-hearted yet formal architectural framework.  It is an expression of the park itself, parks being semi-formal fragments of nature framed by a highly organized cityscape.  Plant and animal forms native to the Pacific Northwest are integrated within the four arches.  They are a reminder of the web of life within and beyond the city.  The seating faces both in and out, reflecting the park’s role as a gathering place and as a place from which to took outward.  The Gazebo is a quiet place to read or think, a place for parents to chat while their kids play, and potentially a meeting place for larger gatherings (such as poetry readings).

The plant forms that tie our sculpture together are not strictly representational.  They reveal geometrical forms which are archetypal elements of the process of forging steel, physical forces, biological growth and human culture everywhere.  Rather than aiming to imitate nature, our work attempts to speak the language of living things through the medium of steel.

Location: Maple Leaf Park, 1020 NE 82nd Street, Seattle WA  98115