Say Goodbye to SAM’s Flying Cars, Hello to a Floating Tree
By D. Scully January 13, 2017
This article originally appeared in the January 2017 issue of Seattle magazine.
Say good-bye to Cai Guo-Qiang’s “Inopportune: Stage One” neon car crash—the commentary on 9/11 and terrorism that has greeted visitors to the Seattle Art Museum lobby since 2007—and hello to Seattle artist John Grade’s 105-foot-long “Middle Fork,” which will be suspended from the entire length of SAM’s lobby ceiling on January 17 and officially open on February 3.
In 2014, Grade (pronounced “GRAH-day”) spent two weeks 85 feet off the ground in a 140-year-old western hemlock near North Bend, creating casts of its bark to make “Middle Fork” for the 2015 reopening of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art’s 140-year-old Renwick Gallery. The sculpture, comprising half a million bits of cedar, will eventually wind up back in North Bend, where Grade will let it rot into the mossy forest floor at the foot of the tree from which it was modeled. But not right away.
“It might be here two years, or three years,” says SAM spokesperson Rachel Eggers, “but people are clamoring to show it, so it might go somewhere else after SAM. Someday, it will return to the forest.”
Follow Us
Ferry Tales: Eight Indie Bookstores Worth the Ride
Plan a summer day around these bookshops in Seattle, Bremerton, Bainbridge Island, Kingston, and Poulsbo.
Independent bookstores tend to be cornerstones of the communities in which they reside, and Seattle is no exception. In addition to helping customers discover their next read, these neighborhood hubs host weekly gatherings and events, like publication release parties, author talks, and book clubs. Many of them have cafés and reading tables that encourage lingering…
Rearview Mirror: Seattle Art Fair is Back, Nordstrom Throws a Block Party, and a Must-Try Ice Cream Sundae
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
SEATTLE ART FAIR RETURNS The buzziest event of the summer (well, aside from the World Cup), is returning next week. Now in its 10th edition, the Seattle Art Fair will once again take over the Lumen Field Event Center, packing it to the gills with art from 101 local, national, and international galleries. This year,…
Studio Sessions: Jennifer Leigh Harrison
Seattle artist Jennifer Leigh Harrison uses layers of paint and abstraction to explore what we carry beneath the surface.
Jennifer Leigh Harrison’s paintings are dense with movement. Color and texture gather into mosaic-like fields, as if they have been fractured and reformed. There are places in the work where a frenetic buzz seems trapped between the canvas and the first layer of paint. That energy runs through Patterns of Belonging, her current exhibition at…
ENHYPEN’s Jay Has K-Pop Stardom and a Seattle Heart
The Federal Way-raised singer talks hometown memories, Ivar’s clam chowder, and how it feels to perform in the place he grew up.
Long before he was performing in sold-out arenas around the world and representing brands like Prada, ENHYPEN’s Jay called the Puget Sound region home. Born Jay Park (not to be confused with the other famous K-pop star of the same name, who is also from Seattle) in Seattle and raised in nearby Federal Way before…