Comments

1
Wait, this was vandalized by the very people Slog tells us to respect: street scumbags. So you know what? Enjoy what you sow.
2
It's not the park that's devastating their lives. It's the park that attracts the devastated. Bad Urban Planning does not deserve to survive.

1. Open up Occidental from Jackson St. to Washington St. to vehicles again. Yes, move the Firefighter's Memorial and cut down the trees. If you want it closed for Art Walk 1x/month, fine, do it.
2. Develop the East Side of Occidental with retail, office, and/or housing. It's coming. Soon.
3. Fill in the NE corner of Washington and Occidental with something, anything. Just not more transient services.

Until you do this, it's bandaids on a chest wound.

3
How is developing Occidental Park going to help the homeless? Other than using police or private security to chase them away from the area so shoppers will feel safe? Out of sight means they no longer exist & homeless?
4
"Trying to get to the bottom of it,"...the bottom of it was that it may have been her art, and her vision, and she may live opposite the park, but she didn't consider that no one might really want to look at that installation. She chose to live down there, but the other people didn't, and I, at least, can see that maybe they thought she was shining them on.
5
Occidental Park is beautiful, but if your head is up your phone and you've spent more time staring at selfies than at trees, you're too crippled to recognize it.
6
I feel for her.
But one of the first things most "public artists" learn is that its cruel world out there for art, and it has to be tough to survive.

Anything left on the street will have a swing taken at it, an attempt to destroy it made.
This is not because people "dont want to look at it" or even because street scumbags live there- usually its mostly middle class teenagers that do the most damage.
Its not directed destruction, dont flatter yourself- its random destruction, and its pretty common all over america.

I would also disagree that most "public artists" dont shit where they eat- of course they do- there is a long history, particularly in the Northwest, of artists doing pieces in their neighborhoods, going back for decades.
Buster Simpson in Belltown is one of the most well known examples, but in virtually every neighborhood in Seattle, there are works by artists who have lived there for many years, ranging from Georgetown to White Center to Fremont to Capitol Hill.
Which is a good thing.
Just as Ms.Waters making art for her neighborhood is a good thing.
She just has to make it tougher.
7
Seems like someone appreciated natural trees more than colored, mirror-finish petroleum products caging them in.
8
I live in the neighborhood. I saw them the morning after they were vandalized. I was pissed, but not surprised. Her comments are thoughtful, aware and cogent. It brings to mind a quote from one of my favorite artists:

"The promise of any artwork is that it can hold us—viewer and maker—in a conflicted or contestable space, without real world injury or loss." -Kara Walker

In this case, there was real injury and loss. In a strange way, it is a very successful piece, though not in any way I would have expected.

Well done Tariqa.

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