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Community Youth Services The non-profit Community Youth Services serves Olympia youth in many capacities, from providing shelter for homeless kids to providing recreation. In 2001 the agency was able to buy a building in downtown Olympia after outgrowing a series of rented spaces. An artist was sought to improve the feeling of the entrance lobby, which was broken up by many doors, empty and without much character. With the collaboration of my friend Louise Williams, I designed a "population" for the lobby, filling it with young people made out of painted wood and steel, mounted in the windows and on the walls. The staff and users of the building tell me that even after living with these figures for a couple of years, they still feel that "someone is there" when they walk into the space. That's what I wanted: to let kids coming into the building to feel immediately that they are not alone. |
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Friendly Grove Park Project In 2003 the City of Olympia ran a competition to find an artist to design and fabricate outdoor seating for Friendly Grove Park. In 2004 the work was dedicated. It involves three separate installations of colored, cast, and carved concrete trees. At the end of each cut round of tree there is a bronze medallion with words cast into it. The single seat, three feet in diameter, has the words: "heart rings"cast into the bronze. The eleven-foot-long "Fallen Logs" installation by the jogging trail has medallions which suggest things we experience in the park: "color and light", "rain and air", "breath and feeling", "memory and touch". The four-part installation called "Sentinel Grove" has one word installed in the top of each separate seat, and if you read them in order they say, "what" "if" "we" "spoke". This question applies both to the trees themselves, the "grove" that was cut down in order to make room for the park, and to neighbors who might find themselves meeting here for the first time.  |
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