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-It's time now for NARF: Neighborhood Adventure
Ramble with Friends with your host, Jed Dunkerley.
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-Hi there.
This is Jed Dunkerley.
Welcome back to NARF
and we're here at the Frye
Art Museum on First Hill for perhaps the artiest
NARF possible in the city of Seattle.
We're going to walk from the Frye
down to the SAM, Seattle Art Museum,
through the commercial core
and in the process we're going to hop on some POPS.
Now, POPS are, of course, privately owned public spaces.
You can learn more about them in the Seattle.gov’s
Department of Construction and Inspection website.
But today, we're going to learn about some history,
some art, have some fun. All right.
Let's go get NARFing.
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Here we are
at Saint James Cathedral, opened in 1907,
featuring a delightful little courtyard
that'll take you right back to old Europe.
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Then, in
1999, the addition of these massive bronze doors
sculpted by Ulrich Henn, who also did the doors
at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
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Here we are
at Freeway Park, built in 1976.
This is 5.2-acres of brutalism and nature.
What's not to love?
Plus, rated as one of the seven
best parkour locations in the world by the World
Free Running and Parkour Federation.
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I'm really good at Parkour.
[ piano music ]
Here we are at one of the POPS.
This is built into Seattle's building code
for large urban construction projects.
They are required or encouraged
to have privately-owned public space,
often with nice places to sit and public art.
Enjoy.
This is yours.
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Here we are at the Washington State Convention Center,
next to one of what I think is the most poignant
sculptural installations in all of Seattle.
A work by Buster Simpson known as the George Monument.
What you've got is a Boeing nose cone from which grows
ivy around a trellis in the shape of Chief Seattle,
then cut back by a negative profile wind
vane in the shape of George Washington's face.
Cultural assimilation, public art.
Seattle.
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Now the commercial core
has an abundance of public sculptures.
For instance, “Urban Garden” by Jenny Ruffner.
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Here we are in the plaza of the IBM Building.
This is the site of the former Seattle Ice Arena,
home of the Stanley Cup
champion Seattle Metropolitans.
And what we've got here is a bronze fountain
by a guy named James Herbert FitzGerald, who in his era
in the 1960s was the Dale Chihuley of his time.
He worked in bronze.
Here it sits.
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Here we are in front of the Downtown Library. Behind me,
I've got a fountain by George Tsutakawa
in 1960 called “The Fountain of Wisdom,” which,
as you can see, is flowing mightily here in 2024.
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No American urban center would be complete
without a sculpture by Henry Moore.
This one's called “Three Piece
Sculpture Number 3 Vertebrae.”
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Here we are at 2nd and Madison.
Seminal work by a Colombian sculptor,
Fernando Botero, installed here
by a real estate developer, Martin Selig.
He owns Eve, too, but her location is undisclosed.
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Okay, well, our NARF fans here at the Seattle Art Museum
on First Avenue, home of the iconic
Jonathan Barofsky sculpture, the “Hammering Man.”
But you're NARF doesn't have to.
We here at NARF Industries invite you to continue to go
out and find explore adventure in your neighborhood.
See the art, the history, the culture
and the communities that make Seattle great.
Happy NARFing.
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Catch Art Zone Friday nights at eight
and any time online at SeattleChannel.org/ArtZone.
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