we need more green park space in Seattle!

I'm just tired of Seattle's inability to establish and maintain high-quality public spaces. No public waterfront, no great urban park, neglect of Seattle Center. Just abominations like South Lake Union and the sterile emptiness of downtown. Bleah.

The original plans for this area included green space and a fountain zone for people to enjoy when summer comes - Thie glass museum idea is horrible - what a bore and misuse of the space...

@2: Exactly. The emporer has no clothes.

Goldy's idea of a super-playground is the best I've heard so far; there's not enough of those, and certainly not enough close to downtown.

C'mon, Norie Sato, the more I read about this idea, the worse it sounds. We really do not need a giant vanity warehouse for the Chihuly Glass Factory. Maybe this Liberace Museum will attract a few curious tourists, but no local will go near the place. What an absolute waste.

who will pay $$ to see his work, you can see it free all over town!

worst idea ever!

if they made a huge outdoor park filled with his work that was free to all visitors than i think people would go for it

@6-- good link. When our 12 year old was younger we'd go there twice a month at least. The Science Center, the Children's museum, the Children's theatre, and the Int'l fountain. More play space for everyone (including grownups) is what's needed. But if a building must go there, why not move the Children's museum out of that basement it occupies. On the other hand, cruise passengers from Missouri who shell out $150 for their shore excursions will love the Chihuly crap, I'm sure.

Anything to add color to Seattle sounds spectacular, and yes I would pay to see it, and yes I would bring visitors. Awesome.

This idea sucks big ass donkey balls. Don't blow it again with the Center. Leave the EMP, Space Needle, ACT, McCaw, PNB and the fountain. Kill the rest, give us something locals can use. Please. Shit, put a road throught the middle of it to ease East-West travel. But surrounding the road should be grass and trees and benches for dirty old men to leer at the ladies from.

Real artists want to work. I propose making a structurally sound skeletal grid of rooms that we could turn into an endless ant maze of corridors/chambers/installations. For my whole life, before I knew it existed, I wanted to create my own version of Dead House. For the cost of materials, thousands of artists would add to a project like this. A living, breathing organism ... always under construction, unsettling, exciting. Like the Motel piece, pushed forward into Borges' Library of Babel. I'd do the whole thing myself for free.

Alex Ruhe.

Oh but it's tho artsy. (sarcasm)

Why didn't you idiots vote for the commons if you wanted more green space? A little late to rant and wet your pants over this. Sounds like this project would bring some revenue to the City of Seattle and all the other Seattle Center plans have no funding.

gillettebret is an idiot.

how vain of chihuly to want in on this jack-offery.

and how preposterous of the powers that be to even consider building what basically amounts to a freaking shrine to a living and exceptionally mediocre (at best) craftsman. that's right, craftsman.

please, a show of hands from everybody who is sick to death of chihuly's old-hat, emotionally void, snob-baubles.

Why aren't you whining about the SONICS? Whiney-whiney dimwits.

Hey 44, where's YOUR museum?

I like Goldy's kick-ass playground idea too. With LOTS of restrooms (fuck you Pike Place Market; I should've dumped my shitty Depends in your courtyard).

Except for the ACT and McCaw, Seattle Center is for the kids and the tourists. It's always been that way - it was built for the world's fair!

Tourists are annoying but they bring in money. All the more reason to focus their attention in one area that's removed from the locals.

But the kids are important. As long as this Chihuly building brings in money or jobs or both and doesn't take away from the kid's enjoyment of the Seattle Center, then it's fine with me.

I don't know what city you all are living in, but Seattle has incredible parks and more green space then I could ever go to. Try living in Boston or Philly or Baltimore etc...

And whoa... Wanda Fooka, if you aren't joking, what the hell are you talking about!

Most people go to the Seattle Center for scheduled events. If you live nearby, I suppose you'd enjoy more green space, but just head over to the Discovery Park.

Every city has a Chihuly, too bad we're stuck with The Chihuly

Every city has haters and whiners, but Seattle seems to have a large population of them. In Seattle, we're supposed frown on success and hate successful people. Oh my, oh my!

Seattle already has plenty of green spaces. What it needs is either more parking at them (only 75 spaces at Carkeek per its site info) or more bus routes that go to them.

Unfortunately, many of Seattle's existing parks are treated as though they are the private front yards of the wealthy homeowners who are their immediate neighbors not public spaces that belong to all Seattlites.

I support the idea of gradually transforming Seattle Center to more of a cultural mecca rather than a place for Belltown dogs to chase frisbees. A new museam there is a good idea. Whether or not it should be devoted to Chihuly is another conversation altogether.

If they keep it next to the EMP, then we can at least have the creative diarrhea section of the Seattle Center in one area. As long as it's not too contagious. It "goes" with the giant exhibition kitch already there for decades. I honestly believe that when Gehry got the gig to design the EMP, he quickly realized how fucking spineless Seattlelites are and what little design sense they have, and then like any egomaniac exhibition-style architect quickly deduced "Hey, I can do *ANYTHING I WANT* and they will have no sense nor the balls to stop me." GD exhibition architecture! (My pop worked for Ghery as an intern, so I my data for him being an egomaniac is completely infallible.)

Now, you fucking spineless whiners, if you want a park there, if you'd prefer a Chihuly head shop instead, or anything other than a pay-to-enter museum for a (not even dead yet?!?) white guy, get off your GD computers and go out and actually *DO* something.

Please just give us a nice lawn. And keep the crappy glass somewhere else. Having visited the Tacoma sites, they were nice, but I wouldn't pay to see them again.

Oh yeah, you're right, the ACT is downtown, I spoke too soon. I've never been to any of the big theatre houses.

I was talking about that area facing queen anne hill. There's a one-screen cinema and the theatre... I saw some old movies at that cinema and I always liked the walkways around that part of the Seattle Center.

Of course, I forgot about Bumbershoot, Folk Life, Bite of Seattle etc.. I don't see how the Chihuly building will interfere with those events so again, I'm fine with it.

Anyway, I grew up in Seattle and I never expected Seattle Center to be a cultural mecca. That would be cool if it was, I just think it's unrealistic to expect that.

When I lived in Seattle I never had a car and I made it to all kinds of park when the weather was nice. I spent time at Gasworks, Cal Anderson, Volunteer, Seward, Discovery, Greenlake, Carkeek, Victor Steinbrueck, Madison...

As for parks being the private front yards of wealthy landowners, yeah, some of the parks on lake washington are like that, but I was never told to leave when I hung out there!

What's all this talk about losers and people being penniless? There are people out there looking for jobs and hurting for money.

Just went to Tacoma to see The Chihuly Bridge of Glass and his installation in Union Station again. The Union Station installation has been the same since 1996 (or before) and is looking tired. The Bridge hasn't changed since its opening in 2001/02. Unless there are some dynamic and changing installations this proposed venue will also become tired. On top of all of this, I question the process.

To claim that Chihuly is an artist or a craftsman is to talk about the Dale Chihuly that lived twenty years ago. Since then he has realized he is on to a formula that millionaires who know nothing about art will pay massive bucks for. He has not touched any glass that bears his name in ages, he has staff for all those messy details. These "designs" are lame variations on a concept that has been boring for years now. This is corporate design. This is a big Exxon sign in the middle of the Seattle Center. If it has to come to pass, I would prefer that all the the Chihuly stuff be installed inside the EMP so I would never have to look at it.

Bertstad wins the jealous sourpuss award for today! Let's gripe and be as negative as possible because that accomplishes so much.

I happen to hate Chilhuly's work, the colors, the shapes, but am evidently very much in the minority. I think his appeal is a case of the weird and different, the ultra odd cute, becoming the beloved of the body democratic whose bad taste, as far as I can tell, is boundless. Thus Chihuly really belongs into a kind of "Believe it or not" Museum for items of that kind. At the heart of the taste for this sort of thing, are the Nordic dwarfs that used to adorn the lawns in Norway and Germany, Garten Zwerge, artsy craftsy... Best as I can tell, what is proposed at Seattle Center is a commercial venture to enhance the value of the manufacturer's product. My guess is that the fickle public will soon tire of its gimmicky nature.

Chihuly needs to fashion himself a glass eye, and see his way to the door.

It’s dismaying to see council member Bagshaw actually considering giving up two acres of public open space for another building of any sort at Seattle Center. It also strains credulity to think that a pavilion dedicated to Chihuly glass at Seattle Center is appropriate, aesthetically or programmatically. As to the sponsor, the Space Needle already is one cash cow in the park; isn’t there a limit on these?

Funding for operations at the Seattle Center has come to this?!!

If the city council can’t find a way to avoid this scratch-the-devil’s-back deal, at least it could mitigate the impact. Erickson’s Museum of Glass in Tacoma went underground to great effect, providing public open space on top with dramatically lighted viewing spaces inside, and a similar solution could be found here. A green lid would provide the open space the Century 21 master plan actually calls for while the for-pay operation could generate a generous stream of revenue to split eighty–twenty with the Center.

If money and vanity weren’t the motivating concerns here, a better idea would be just more public open space. A kiosk under a tree could give directions to regional must-sees: Mt. Rainier, the Puyallup fairgrounds, the Chihuly Bridge of Glass in Tacoma.

Jen Graves, you’re wrong! The most disturbing thing about the proposed Chihuly shrine at Seattle Center IS the idea itself.

Chihuly blows. I liked it at first, as a teenager, newly exposed, who had just moved to Seattle from a farm in the midwest. But it all looks exactly the same and it's as common as stop signs around here. Blergh. Totally lame waste of Seattle Center real estate.

it makes sense. give Seattle Center to the tourists. they can ride the monorail and feel egalitarian....

it makes sense. give Seattle Center to the tourists. they can ride the monorail and feel egalitarian....

Great Idea, Alex. #19

And, put it up on Stilts.

Leave it Open under -- for a Dry whatever.

Anything that veers from the approved masterplan MUST go through public hearing process as extensive as the one for the masterplan. Futher, it should be put to a vote, and that vote should include the option of a revitalized Fun Forest. If you are going to ignore the recommendations adopted in the masterplan, then the entire issue needs to be reopened for debate.

Below are some direct concepts lifted verbatim from the masterplan which further proves the point that this proposal does not fit.

"Open space at Seattle is the green canvas; the free, public space that is the connective
tissue of Seattle Center. The Century 21 Master Plan adds 10 acres of public open
space, connecting the people and activities that were once isolated at its edges."

"Five acres of valuable real estate returns to the public realm in January 2010. A
significant space on the campus that is now most frequently an empty asphalt
lot for carnival rides becomes an active, fun destination for children and families
throughout the hours of the day and the days of the year."

"Surrounding the Space Needle will be a landscape expressing the abundance
and sustainability of the earth, a naturally forested area, a structured urban
forest, sustainable gardens and botanical terraces."

I also disagree with the proposal for the following reasons:

1) This isn't family or locals oriented, thus moving the Seattle Center further away from its mission. (See the second concept from the masterplan above.)
2) Chihuly's art can be found in numerous sites around the city already.
3) The market is limited, and there is already a glass museum in Tacoma. I believe it is impossible to prove the market feasibility of this project. Publish the business plan! If Chihuly wants a museum, perhaps he should consider working with SAM. Do I need to remind the council that the EMP did not meet projections and continues to struggle?
4) The project is not active. This aspect of any operation was something very important to the council and Mayor at the time and shows up in the masterplan concepts above.
5) A "museum" dedicated to the art of one man on public property is ridiculous in a region where other, more critically acclaimed, artists reside. This is not a museum, rather it is nothing more than a showroom for a private enterprise. If you want a museum, it MUST showcase all artists.
6) Any comments from Century 21 should be considered invalid since Jeff Wright is the Co-Chair of the committee. There is an obvious conflict of interest which I will ensure becomes public.

I agree that public-private partnerships are a valid way to generate revenue to sustain the Seattle Center budget. I also continue to believe that a revitalized Fun Forest would serve a larger and local demographic that could include open space, interactive elements, and generate far more revenue than a one-man museum.

The Council should also take note that or the 257 comments posted to The Seattle Times article (9:50am - Wednesday), 233 clearly oppose the idea. That's over 90%! Further, many mention they would rather keep the existing or revitalize the Fun Forest.

First of all you haven't seen the museum yet it might be super cool. And if your bitchen about green space we live in the Northwest hello? Quit being lazy and take a hike

I have a non whiny comment to make.Lets inundate Sally Bagshaw chair of the Parks and Seattle Center Committee with phone and email messages about this usurping of public space.

And what has seattlekos done for the Northwest? Please let us know!
Obviously, you don't know what your blabbing about. The center is a gathering place for ballet, opera, sports, theatre, concerts and all kinds of events that require buildings. It's not one of the 101 hikes with the Mountaineers and the stud Ron Judd.

Glass art is tacky, but Dale takes it to a whole new level. His big globs of glass with tentacles coming out of them look like a 3D model of a virus. Taxpayers will pay for the monstrosity, and the public will wind up paying 20 bucks to get in to look at this nonsense. Maybe they will close it when one of the virus models falls from the ceiling and kills someone. I will go have a look and I'm bringing a hammer. Somewhere someone must draw the line.

Sure, we could leave it open, #51...

Or we could have a Subterranean Greenspace....

Seattle's version of A Boy and His Dog.

Maybe Seattle Center is actually the perfect place for a Chihuly museum, as it is the city's dumping ground for all things tacky, overpriced and touristy. At least it would all be contained in one place. Poor Tacoma, with Chihuly turds spread all around.

Damn, Alex, two for two.

And I'll bring my Dog (he CAN think out loud -- but only to me!). If he ain't peein' on it, he's real busy humpin' on it.

The Rich are smart. They have an innate sense of where to put the neat things for us.

Okay, a massive Children's Playground (thanks Knute!) located on ground level, yet under the Chihuly Memorial. Which we've allready decided should be up on Stilts. (Thanks, 2!)

PreOrg, you must work in the Stranger basement mail room because your stupidity is showing on the wide screen.

Maybe a trailer park exclusively for singlewide trailers and a 24 hour beer garden? Would that satisfy your Larry Reid lowbrow aesthetic? The Seattle Center is not Georgetown you clowns.

Light and color at the Center, what a concept. The Center has never been high culture anyway - why not? The glass art thing is based in Seattle, all the cool glass art artists are in Seattle, it makes sense for a touristy place to begin with (er, The Center) to have something like this, why not the Glass King? Let's not stoop to dog-lick-balls nimbyism here - so Chihuly ain't Rembrandt, at least he's a genuine co-founder of the NW glass thing - you can't turn everything into an empty field bereft of imagination - besides, only one acre of the five would be used for this - leaving the other four to be as dull as the unimaginative nimbyists want - you can have your thought vacuum and eat it too, woo hoo.

A Grave Error

Jen Graves’ “art writings” have been saying so little for so long, that any lack of critical depth has come to be expected. However, her article entitled , “The New Guard”, published in volume 19, number 22 of The Stranger, was such an inane piece of shit, that it must be called out for what it is: at best, lazy uncritical writing, and at worst, nothing more than a regurgitation of what four mediocre artists think of themselves and their art.

First and foremost, let’s look at the title of the article: “The New Guard”.
What does that mean?
Who was “The Old Guard”?
What makes “The New Guard” new?
And most importantly, what are they guarding?

Or maybe, “The New Guard” is just a cool looking title at the top of a page…and important sounding to boot!

Regardless, calling these four artists Seattle’s “New Guard” is a pretty serious declaration. A declaration that demands some pretty serious critical attention. Critical attention that leads to some pretty serious justification. However, Jen Graves’ article contains none of this…so why don’t I go ahead and critically review this “New Guard” to see just how far ahead of the rest of Seattle’s up and coming art community they really are.

New Guard #1

Jason “Self-Indulgent” Hirata

According to Jen’s article, Jason Hirata wanted to remove himself from his art because he found art about himself boring. He decided to create “random” personal objectives that he somehow believed removed him from his process. How these objectives removed him is unexplained.
However, even this bored him, so he blamed it on picking objectives based on what he knew he could already do.
Once again, no explanation.
Why didn’t he simply pick objectives based on what he knew he couldn’t already do?
Or better yet, why pick objectives in the first place?
Utilizing these inflexible objectives led to predictability. This actually surprised him…and once again bored him.
So what did he do?
He continued writing objectives, but now had other people execute them. EUREKA! Finally he wasn’t bored. Having other people do the boring work was the trick.
Why this change in his process doesn’t fall into the same “truistic trap” that previously killed his curiosity isn’t mentioned. Perhaps Jason isn’t really interested in making anything. Perhaps Jason shouldn’t make anything.
One thing is for certain, he is completely absorbed by his own interest in his own art. The viewer is superfluous. If Jason only “makes art he wants to look at over time”, why does he show it to anyone else?
As far as “repurposing” old boring photos…nothing but a lazy cop-out. Boring shit by any other name, hung in any other way, is still boring shit.
But wait…what’s this I read? In his upcoming show he plans to employ bodily excretions (sweat) to make drawings with? WOW! You’re supposed to draw with ink, silly . SWEAT? That’s so weird, so “New Guard”.
Perhaps we’d all be better off if Jason removed himself from any art making process even further…like entirely. Please, for the sake of the viewer, have mercy. We’re all as bored with you as you are.

New Guard #2

Amanda “Cheap Shock” Manitach

As I read Jen Graves trumpet the virtues of Amanda’s syphilitic vagina drawings I couldn’t help but think back to her article on the Calder exhibit at the SAM , and her dismissal of his overall impact.

Let’s see here…
Invention of the Mobile
vs.
Syphilitic Vagina Drawings

Now, which overall has had more impact on the art world?

Syphilitic vaginas?! OOOH, now I get it! They’re gross and shocking! WOW! Who’s ever heard of employing such devices in a fine art context? Completely original. I’ll bet no one’s even thought of doing that before. BRAVO! The Seattle art community will never be the same again!
To quote Amanda herself, “I would love to be Alfred Jarry”… that statement sums it all up. Even Amanda Manitach isn’t interested in Amanda Manitach. Why should anyone else be?

New Guard #3

Gala “One Trick Pony” Bent

I’m not even going to comment on the ridiculousness of a formulaic device like cool lookin’ hair being “New Guard”.
“Hairnimals”?
You’ve gotta fuckin’ be kidding me.

New Guard #4

Troy “Pop Art Is Played Out” Gua

Employing a movement that is nearly fifty years old is “New Guard”? Lampooning pop culture is so obvious that it’s redundant. Honestly, is there anyone left on the planet that views politics and consumerism juxtaposed with popular culture as fresh?
It’s as archaic and obvious as arguing that the world is round.

NO DUH, TROY GUA.

Now, my critical examination of these four artists may seem a bit abrasive, but the moniker “New Guard” implies a pioneering vision and the breaking of new ground. This description applied to any of these artists is patently absurd.
What’s more, it is irresponsible to cast such unsubstantiated claims in any light of relevance, let alone publish the shit. The article might as well be a press release of four individual artist’s statements. There is no critique whatsoever.
No one that I’ve spoken to in the Seattle art community believes that these artists represent a “New Guard”. Apparently Jen Graves does, but she either doesn’t really know why, or is too lazy and unconcerned with critical thinking to bother expressing it.
Either way, I guess Seattle is just expected to take her word for it.

So…VIVA LA NEW GUARD! Jen…VIVA LA NEW GUARD!

Finally, as a publication, if The Stranger takes its art column seriously, please consider printing some thoughtful criticism for a change.

Y'know what, Seattle? Y'all are a bunch of spoiled, whiney, jaded poseurs. Sure, maybe Chihuly sculptures litter your landscape like cigarette butts. Maybe you use'em for target practice or spitoons. Maybe he no longer makes them himself. But nothing, NOTHING prepares a young person for their first sight of one, and the world of amazing artistic vision that it can open up to them. You grow up thinking sculpture is Rodin, or the clay crap you make in school. Then you see one of his creations and your mind is blown. Admit it, coolio, your MIND WAS BLOWN the first time you saw one.

Someone wants to buy a great big new art installation for your city?? LET THEM. Negotiate on size and on some green space, but let it happen. Chihuly certainly won't be the first artist to get a monumental vanity installaton (ever hear of I.M. Pei and the addition to the Louvre? Michaelangelo and the Sistine Chapel?) and he won't be the last either. And 500 years from now, if we're fortunate enough, humans will enjoy your Chihuly building and the art it contains, and marvel at the age that endowed it.

Shut up with the * * moaning * * already! ! !

Comparing Chihuly to Michaelangelo is like comparing the sun to a turd floating in a rest-stop toilet.

There's a Chihuly in the McDonald's in downtown Tacoma.

That says a lot.

Please join the facebook page --
"Stop the Chihuly at the Needle Museum"
Every square inch of space at the Seattle Center is precious.

A group of civic leaders is being assembled to submit a response to the Seattle Center RFP to be free public green space at Seattle Center rather than the proposed Chihuly private commercial exhibit. We urge you to sign the following petition by June 3, 11:55 p.m. to add your voice of support to this green effort:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Cntury21/
petition.html