Discovering Outdoor Art in Seattle Southside
Exploring Seattle Southside’s public art is perfect free-form fun for all seasons.
It’s an adventure that reveals history, natural beauty, flying saucers, even a bit of lust. Don’t worry, you can bring the kids. You’ll need a car to see a lot. Or a bike if you want a workout with your culture. The route can be between you and your GPS but an art-drive that begins at Redondo Beach and wraps up near Georgetown will take a couple of hours, longer if you’re a plaque reader and sculpture toucher. Be sure to add time for a couple of unofficial masterpieces that you might want to stop and savor. And be sure to sign up for the Scenes trail before your tour - many of these pieces are stops on the Scenes trail, so you could earn free prizes just for checking them out!
Seattle Southside Art Tour
The Redondo Arch
Marinascope
Highline Botanical Garden
Museum of Flight Sculptures
Cecil Moses Park
Angle Lake Station Light Rail Art
Big Catch
Maury Island Incident Mural
Robert Morris Earthwork
Duwamish Hill Preserve
*note: the Starbucks location shown in the video above is no longer open.
Highline Botanical Garden & SeaTac Community Center
Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden features 10 acres of some of Mother Nature’s best creative work: a forest of giant bamboo, burbling brooks, and a peaceful Japanese garden are just a few of the discoveries you’ll find beyond the iron maple leaf gate, which itself is a work of art. Right across the street from the garden entrance, at the SeaTac Community Center stands The Gathering Place (Artist: Ray Jensen, location 13735 24th Ave S, SeaTac, WA) - a red frame shaped like a schoolhouse, complete with ABC’s on the wall and real bell in the steeple.
Museum of Flight Sculptures
Outside of Tukwila's Museum of Flight stand multiple statues commemorating great moments in the history of flight, from a sculpture capturing the essence of human curiosity about flight to sculptures depicting great figures in flight. While none of these sculptures outside require museum admission to view, you'll find even more art and exhibits inside of the museum if you should choose to venture inside!
Cecil Moses Park
Cecil Moses Park is home to an important site in Native legends about the region, and this fact is commemorated with a story stone engraved with images that depict the tale. When water levels of the river are low, note the rocks off the north side of the bridge near the eastern shore. This is a Native American cultural site known as North Wind’s Weir. According to Southern Puget Sound Salish tradition, there once was a war between the North Wind people and the Chinook Wind people who lived further up the Duwamish. North Wind covered the land with ice and snow, and stretched a dam of ice across the river to keep the salmon from running upstream, thus starving the Chinook Wind people. Eventually, the ice weir was shattered, its remnants were turned to stone, and the ice and snow retreated.
Light Rail Art
You may not think of a train station as a great place to see art, but the Link Light Rail Stations are all endowed with incredible pieces of art in a variety of different mediums.
At Angle Lake Station, a massive array of reflective discs, aptly named Cloud, float above your head as you stand at the platform, catching the light as the wind twists and turns the sculpture. Another sculpture called Immerse hangs above the staircase as if weightless.
At the Airport Light Rail Station, a multimedia sculpture adorns the plaza called Celestial Navigation. This 18-foot-high glass and metal sculpture, inspired by a navigational quadrant, serves after dark as a projection screen for an artist-created video about the many cultures residing in the SeaTac area and studies of flight. The plaza is enhanced with terrazzo and bronze inlay circles. If you look up while crossing the pedestrian walkway, you'll notice an unusual sculpture called Restless. This piece consists of long metal poles which rotate, keeping birds off of the rafters while adding an interesting sculptural element. And as you ride the escalators up to the platform, you'll notice Flying Sails - a pair of sylized sails made of stainless steelpanels that spin hanging from the ceiling. Panels on the northern sail contain the names of Northwest native tribes, while the southern sail names cities on the same latitude or longitude as Seattle.
And at Tukwila/International Blvd. Station, many sculptures beautify the station and amplify the history and voices of the region. Soundings, an abstracted hazelnut form, was inspired by the Duwamish name for Tukwila, k’ap’uxac, which means “place of hazelnuts.” A blue ribbon of light along the neck of the sculpture traces the pattern of the Duwamish River as it passes through the City of Tukwila. A Molecule of the Region - a sculpture hanging from the ceiling that brings to mind high school chemistry classes - is meant to reflect a water molecule and is engraved with quotes from Tukwila residents about the area.
Big Catch
Another unlikely art location – a grocery store parking lot – is home to The Big Catch (Artist: Richard Beyer, location: just south of S. 218th St. Des Moines, WA) This exuberant sculpture portrays a happy fisherman hugging a fish. The fish has human breasts, and that’s where the fisherman’s hands are firmly planted. A plaque tells a story of true love turned fish tale, and the local rumor is that the legend was spun by the late Richard Beyer to placate the scandalized. Don’t worry, it’s barely PG.
Maury Island Incident Mural
Flying saucer fans must make a stop at the Maury Island Incident Mural (Artist: Zach Paul, location: 605 South 223rd Street, Des Moines WA.) It’s in an unlikely place, tacked to the side of a shipping container, but the location makes this weirdly glorious mashup even cooler: Hovering UFOs, a PNW beach, a boat, and a ‘Man in Black’ standing mysteriously on a dock. It’s based on an alleged sighting over Puget Sound back in 1947, and it makes you want to believe. Another nearby out-of-this-world sculpture entitled "Raven Discovers Spaceship" located outside of George C. Scott Studios carries on the theme of UFOs will help keep you in an alien state of mind.
Hop on Des Moines Memorial Drive S. to head to your next stop. If you’re lucky, you’ll hear a roar behind, then see a jet eclipse the sun above, since this road briefly parallels Sea-Tac Airport's south runways. Keep your hands at 10 and 2 and feel the rumble as a flying aluminum tube packed full of humans safely ends a journey of thousands of miles. Art is where you find it.
Marinascope and Marina Sculptures
North of Des Moines find a pocket park near the marina with a walk-in kaleidoscope. Marinascope (Artist: George C. Scott, location: South 227th St. entrance to Des Moines Marina) is an old shipping lane buoy with colored glass portholes. Step inside and find yourself surrounded by psychedelic sea life. At the Marina nearby, you can find a variety of other sculptures, from the realistic (an adorable baby seal) to the abstract and indescribable. The Des Moines Art Commission supports a rotating array of sculptures, some only on display for a few years at a time while others are more permanent, and they offer a downloadable walking map to help with your art treasure hunt. CLICK HERE for the map and get started with your exploration.
A view from inside of the Marinascope
Detail from inside of Marinascope
Detail from inside of Marinascope
Detail from inside of Marinascope
The Redondo Arch
The Redondo Arch pictured above (Artist: John T. Young, Location: Redondo Beach Dr. S. and Redondo Way S. Des Moines, WA), meant to embody a gateway between land and sea, is made of granite boulders tensioned together with steel cables. Good art interacts with its environment: in 1991, the Puget Sound waves framed by this arch washed out the pier beneath it. The 8-ton sculpture was rescued by cranes, and still contains whitecapped waters and the Olympic Mountains in its stony embrace.
Robert Morris Earthwork
Untitled Earthwork (Johnson Pit #30), designed by Robert Morris, is located at the former Johnson gravel pit and is number 30 out of 100 surplus county gravel pits. Morris's design reclaims the space for the sake of art, carving terraces into the triangular-shaped landscape and honoring the forest that existed before the site was developed as a gravel pit.
Duwamish Hill Preserve
Wrap up your art adventure at Duwamish Hill Preserve. This rocky knob along the Duwamish river was saved from industrial development in 2000 and is now a natural area and a learning space. Head to the northwest corner of the park and sit on a log bench and let Journey through the Seasonal Rounds teach you what was here before cars and jets. This etched granite calendar combines a western 12-month year with the natural cycles followed by indigenous people to mark seasons. A close look reveals the best time to harvest clams, and when to pick ripe salmon berries.
Climb to the top of the knob for more art – benches along the trail tell stories of the natural, native and industrial history of the spot. At the top, take in views of Seattle’s sculptural skyline to the north, and Mt. Rainier’s mass to the south. A perfect way to wrap up a Seattle Southside art ramble celebrating the creative energy of both humans and nature.
Even More Public Art
Still wanting more art after that tour? There's even more public art available around Seattle Southside.
- As mentioned above, the Art on Poverty Bay commission put together the Des Moines Outdoor Sculpture Map of all the wonderful pieces around Des Moines.
- Tukwila's Arts in the Parks program has many murals visible throughout the city of Tukwila.
- Beyond just the stations listed above, Sound Transit has funded incredible art installations of varying types up and down the Link Light Rail system. From murals to mosaics, sculpture to video, you can find lots of art through STArt (Sound Transit Art)!
Seattle Southside Scenes
Find more art, culture, and history along the Seattle Southside Scenes Trail.
