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The Absurdity of Seattle’s Most Maddening Intersections in One Brilliant Piece of Viral Art

Our frustrating intersections are actually quite beautiful.

sea-intersections-crop

Whether you’re a native or recent transplant, at some point you’ve likely pulled up to a Seattle intersection and wondered if the city’s earliest engineers are trolling us from the grave.

Sure, our hilly terrain and abundant waterways present unique challenges. But why must some intersections look like a “jacked up” yoga pose called the “downward facing arachnid,” as a couple Twitter jokers put it?

Fortunately, a local man’s art might help us laugh off the dashboard-pounding rage we feel whenever Siri tells us to go “straight” at an intersection shaped like a Chinese character.

Since at least 2015, Seattle-based artist Peter Gorman has found beauty in maps, turning them into cool regionally focused prints he peddles through his Etsy shop, BarelyMaps. This week one of his prints lit up social media after Gorman posted it on Reddit.

As befuddling as they may be, Gorman shows how cool our pretzeling roadways look from above. His print highlights 20 of Seattle’s most twisted, splintering intersections, from the Denny-Stewart-Yale tie-up to the crisscrossing Rainier Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. (Check out a zoomed in version at BarelyMaps’ Etsy page.)

With a little imagination, Gorman’s print is a modern Seattle Rorschach test. Maybe you see the Chelan-Delridge-Spokane-Marginal Way layout as a pterodactyl sea turtle, cloud swimming above South Lake Union’s cranes. Or perhaps the Queen Anne Drive-Raye Street/4th Avenue exchange is the logo of Capitol Hill’s next failed sustainable microplate restaurant, Fork & Twig.

Or maybe you just like staring at neat squiggly lines.

Either way, peep Gorman’s Etsy shop and if you like what you see, toss him a few bucks for a print.

 

Rearview Mirror: Crocodile Guardians, Late-Summer Potato Salad, and a Halloween Costume Hunt

Rearview Mirror: Crocodile Guardians, Late-Summer Potato Salad, and a Halloween Costume Hunt

Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).

COOKING WITH ASTER PANTRY A few leaves turn, my inbox fills with fall festival pitches and cozy brunch menus, and suddenly I want to stay home with a glass of wine and cook. I love this nesting season, though I’m not ready to give up summer produce. Earlier this year, I wrote about Seattle chefs…

WALKDONTRUN Returns This Saturday, Turning Downtown Seattle Into a Sprawling Art Show

WALKDONTRUN Returns This Saturday, Turning Downtown Seattle Into a Sprawling Art Show

In its second year, the free festival brings 200-plus artists to a 20-block route September 19, with a secret garden and a former 7-Eleven stocked with art.

Most walks through downtown Seattle involve trying to get somewhere. On September 19, the crosswalk itself might be the reason to stop. Heap Troupe will turn a four-way crossing into a performance, one of dozens of encounters planned for this year’s WALKDONTRUN. The free, all-ages art walk stretches across more than 20 blocks. From 11…

At Two Dot Schoolhouse, Ruth Marie Tomlinson Builds an Artistic Community

At Two Dot Schoolhouse, Ruth Marie Tomlinson Builds an Artistic Community

For nearly 20 years, the Seattle artist and her husband have welcomed artists, writers, and musicians to a historic Montana schoolhouse. Now they’re searching for its next stewards. 

At her solo exhibition last year at The Vestibule, Seattle artist Ruth Marie Tomlinson presented a new series of work inspired by her close readings of British nature writer J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine and Icelandic author Sjón’s The Blue Fox. As if on sheets torn from a sketchbook, her pages included excerpts and outtakes of…

Rearview Mirror: Seahawks Off the Field, Seattle on the Board, and Smoked Oysters

Rearview Mirror: Seahawks Off the Field, Seattle on the Board, and Smoked Oysters

Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).

HOOKED ON KNOCKS Admittedly, I am late to this one. The Seahawks’ first season of Hard Knocks, the HBO series that follows NFL teams through training camp, premiered in August, but until last week, I had never heard of it. To be honest, my football knowledge starts with knowing what a touchdown is and doesn’t…