Sunday
No doubt you're tired of our trip by now so I'll try and make this final batch as brief as possible. I loved Olympia- flat out loved it. It's great to be 3000 miles from home and be with friends in a town that is progressive (when it comes to some things) and within walking distance of a rain forest. K is standing in front of Bryce's Barber Shop where Laura Sharp Wilson and elin o'hara slavick have curated a show of works on paper about Heroes. Judy, Martin, myself and many more illustrious artists are in the show. Martin has a good post about it here and Judy has images from the show here.
K in aforementioned rain forest. We went walking with Laura and Owen, making our way to the beach where Owen and I lifted big rocks and chunks of concrete and looked at the crabs. Sunday night Robert and Laura made dinner and Judy came over and we had a great time- lots of excellent conversation, fatty salmon, local asparagus and greens, and I learned about Manarchy, defined through my BS cursory search as:
"Aggressive, competitive behavior within the anarchist movement that is frighteningly reminiscent of historically oppressive male gender roles. Such behavior includes acting macho, holier than thou, and elitist. Manarchy often results in exclusivity."Sounds familiar to me.
Monday
Monday we left Olympia and drove to Seattle where we saw everything tourists go to see. The first stop was the Seattle Public Library. Designed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA, the library was amazing- it lived up to all the hype it received in the press two years ago when it opened. If you visit Seattle be sure to go there. Every inch of the space is well considered and the ceiling is lined with a puffy white cloud/comforter type of material that makes you think that the bathrooms and comfortable chairs aren't the only reasons why the homeless want to be there at all hours.
No rain while we were in Seattle. Bizarrely clear and warm.
K in the shadow of a cheesy Richard Serra sculpture at the new Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park (SAM's OSP) sculpture garden. The free park, in terms of a public space, seemed well designed if a bit too nautical in its themes (it is right on the Puget Sound) and Serra's sculpture was much too wave and ship like. Regardless, it was perfect for a photo and we dodged in and out of other people's photos to take our own.
As you can see behind K the sculpture garden is full of work by the usual suspects- the big boys and the two women (Louise Bourgeous and Louise Nevelson in this case) who get to hang out with them. My favorite piece was Roxy Paine's sculpture Split. It's a tree made out of shiny stainless steel. Seattle is kind of like being at an amusement park- everywhere you look there's another shiny or pointy thing to take a picture of. The people are nice nice nice and while we waited for the Louise Bourgeois sculpture to do its thing, we were chatted up by two locals who welcomed us and asked whether we were looking to move to the area and seemed disappointed when we said we weren't.
Look at K's face. It says "How can anyone even entertain the idea of taking Frank Gehry seriously when Rem and Co.'s library is just down the street kicking major ass?" It was good to see a Gehry building in person so I could dismiss what I thought looked like crap from the oodles of press he gets every month in the NYTimes.
Pike Street Fish Market. Spike Lee wasn't there, but there were guys yelling about fish and being very manly.
In Chicago's Midway airport- before we realized that we'd be waiting for 10 hours before we'd finally fly back to DC.
That's it!
