“Paragon,” the massive wooden and metal sculpture on the Duwamish River in West Seattle, is slated for demolition by Seattle’s arts company. A Could 13 assembly of the Seattle Arts Commission will seal its destiny.
I created “Paragon” within the early 2000s.
The historical past of the Duwamish web site and the destiny of those that lived and constructed boats there may be handled in narrative panels beneath the wood “Paragon” body, 30 toes up within the air. The boat type was taken (at 3/5 scale) from plans for the unique SS Paragon wood halibut schooner constructed 100 years in the past in Seattle. A number of of her class of wood boats are nonetheless fishing in Alaska. It was inbuilt collaboration with the Port of Seattle, KPPF Engineers, Seattle Arts Fee and boatbuilders at Bates Technical Faculty.
The usage of fir for the sculpture’s boat body was neither quixotic nor capricious. Wooden was intertwined with the positioning the place the Duwamish Individuals had lengthy lived in wood longhouses and fished in wood canoes. Pushed out by industrialization and air pollution of the river, they have been adopted by immigrants who lived and constructed their very own wood dwellings and fishing boats there. (They in flip have been despatched packing by the Port, which reclaimed the positioning.)
As soon as put in, “Paragon” entered Seattle’s public artwork assortment. I submitted an authorised upkeep plan, stating that the wood part must be periodically inspected, and when wanted, power-washed and resealed. The Seattle Workplace of Arts & Tradition, or ARTS, accomplished this upkeep as soon as in twenty years. Regardless of my entreaties and people of its conservator, the “Paragon” was by no means once more cleaned or resealed. After I insisted final Could that the sculpture be tended to, carpenter ants have been found consuming away at it, and elements of the wood body have been rotten.
ARTS declared that your complete sculpture must be disposed of. I countered that within the Pacific Northwest, we all know very nicely wooden will be repaired, and that working with the group, we might carry the sculpture again to glory.
With magnificent generosity, Nucor Metal stepped ahead to supply monetary, logistic and materials assist. I secured the donation of pristine but seasoned old-growth fir to restore and/or change the wood construction. Nucor organized for Barnhart Crane to carry the wood construction and transport it to the close by Nucor Duwamish web site for evaluation and work. This by no means got here to move; they have been forbidden by ARTS from touching the sculpture.
As a substitute of working with me and my collaborators in an revolutionary public/personal partnership, ARTS rebuffed my each initiative, hiding behind faceless metropolis attorneys whom I used to be by no means allowed to satisfy. Throughout a yr of “dialogue” punctuated by months of silence from ARTS, the ants have been left to feast. Lately, I used to be despatched a contract to rebuild the “Paragon.” Although I supplied to work with out cost, I might be audited, want to rent engineers, and each and all legal responsibility and duty for the challenge was to be mine alone. Within the contract, ARTS supplied completely no assist of any sort. A number of folks suggested me to not signal it. I didn’t.
Now admitting publicly that they failed to keep up it, ARTS has declared the sculpture not secure. They attribute their neglect to inadequate upkeep funds. If the town can not keep artworks in its assortment, they shouldn’t be commissioned. Letting beloved artworks rot away underneath their “care” is prison, a pernicious insult to the place they’re sited, and to all who labored at nice lengths to create them.
They’re throwing away the “Paragon.” It’s a really mindless loss — the historical past it shares, its treasured place within the metropolis deserted. They’re additionally strolling away from an enormous and heartening potential funding of cash, experience, vitality and group assist. As a substitute, they are going to spend a considerable amount of public funds to eliminate it. ARTS might have collaborated with me and plenty of companions to resume “Paragon” and have fun its rebirth, regenerating the spirit of civic cooperation that created it within the first place.
