The Olympic Sculpture Park

Looking east from the pedestrian bridge at the Olympic Sculpture Park

Happy Labor Day! It's been absolutely gorgeous here in Seattle this weekend, and I've been floating around in a little it's-80-degrees-and-not-humid haze of happiness. Did you know that it only rained once here in the month of August? I bet you didn't! And you thought Seattle was all dreary and grey...check out that sky, my friends.

Anyways, to celebrate the holiday weekend, my parents and I went down to the Olympic Sculpture Park to walk around, view all the weird modern art, and get some vitamin D. There are many post-quasi-deconstructionist-WTFist pieces in the park, but I'm only posting pictures of a few I actually liked.

"Split" by Roxy Paine

This is one of my favorites! Just down the hill, there is a whole installation/exhibit featuring a giant "nurse log" that was brought in from a forest and that's growing all kinds of new plants and trees. I tried to take pictures, but the roof of the exhibit is green, and so are the plants, and with the sunlight behind it all it was like St. Patrick puked in there, so I had to leave those ones out.

"Perre's Ventaglio III" by Beverly Pepper

This one had something to do with filling voids. I don't remember but I liked it.

Sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

Does anybody know what this sculpture is of? Hint: it's a real-life object!

No idea? I didn't know either. It's a typewriter eraser! My parents laughed at me for not knowing this.

"The Eagle" by Alexander Calder

This one is sort of the keystone piece for the park. In my mind it's like the hybrid child of Native American art and a sports team logo.

The Alaskan Way

Here's the view down the Alaskan Way (the main waterfront drag) from one end of the sculpture park. The city rolls up to the left/east and Puget Sound is on the right, though you can't see it in this shot because of the pier buildings. We walked down to the Pike Place Market, which is about a mile away, so I'll post those pictures next!

Olympic Sculpture Park Beach

And finally, here's a real Pacific Northwest beach! That means lots of rocks and driftwood, and very little sand (I wouldn't be surprised if the sand you see here was brought in especially for the park). Seattle trivia note #1: That's NOT the Pacific Ocean, it's Puget Sound. For some reason people always think that Seattle is on the ocean, but there's a whole peninsula complete with mountain range in between Seattle and the Pacific. Seriously. Check it out:

See? Seattle, not on the ocean. Know what is though? Forks.

Aaand with a Twilight reference...I'm done for the day.