Saturday morning, August 21, pack your chalks, don your beret and head out for a public artwork dedication at 160 21st Avenue in the Squire Park Neighborhood. As part of the neighborhood’s Art in the Park festival, the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs will dedicate Salon, by Seattle based artist team SuttonBeresCuller, at 10:30 a.m. The project is titled Salon because it serves as a gallery to exhibit art, but this gallery is the concrete sidewalk along 21st Avenue between East Spruce and East Fir streets adjacent to the Spruce Street Mini Park. Following the dedication, the artist team will be on hand to answer questions.
The exhibition features a series of museum-style picture frames that are stained in rich tones, antiqued, and stamped into the sidewalk’s surface. Devoid of any pictures, the interior of the picture frames have been etched to resemble blank chalk boards to activate and enhance the pedestrian experience. The interactive sidewalk artwork invites residents, community members and visitors to create works of art, write poetry or utilize these spaces as a community bulletin board. The community-created artworks will be ever-changing and add to the vibrancy and character of the neighborhood and its park.
The public artwork project is managed by the Seattle Office of Art and Cultural Affairs in coordination with Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and is commissioned with SDOT 1% for Art funds, SDOT’s Emerging Funds and SDOT’s voter-approved Bridging the Gap transportation initiative.