Ginny Ruffners painted glass sculpture of a water cycle on display inside Traver Gallery, with the rainy bars of Doug Aitkens video installation MIRROR running on the northern facade of Seattle Art Museum across the street.
  • Ginny Ruffner's painted glass sculpture of a water cycle on display inside Traver Gallery, with the rainy bars of Doug Aitken's video installation MIRROR running on the northern facade of Seattle Art Museum across the street.

I've been vocally unmoved by Doug Aitken's big new video installation on the facade of Seattle Art Museum, called MIRROR.

But yesterday the rain was coming down outside, and I was visiting the new exhibition at Traver Gallery by Ginny Ruffner, the most exuberant and kindly artist who ever graced the grounds of this rainy city, and what you see above appeared before my eyes, and I was glad. I had forgotten that MIRROR is not limited to its more narrative/decorative/flashy displays on the western facade of SAM—it also turns the corner and extends into these skinny little rain bars best seen up inside Traver Gallery. It was a good moment.