No. 170 The Fin Project

THE FIN PROJECT: FROM SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES
by Artist John T. Young 1998

Magnuson Park
Seattle, WA

This work is an environmentally scaled sculpture created using the actual diving-plane fins from decommissioned United States Navy attack submarines built in the 1960s. The fins are arranged to simulate the dorsal fins of a large Orca whale pod or a school of salmon. This artwork represents the ultimate in recycling...."From Swords into Plowshares".
The fins are composed of high tensile steel and are used intact. Since they are virtually indestructible (they were designed to withstand depth charge attacks!), they are maintenance free. They are completely safe and inert; in other words, they are completely devoid of radioactivity or toxic substances. All the fins are structurally supported by hidden, reinforced concrete footings buried below grade. These footings were designed by the late John Skilling, Seattle's most renowned structural engineer, to ensure the safety of the work and the public.  


 


Gear Used:
 

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No. 128 Fremont Troll

Fremont Troll
Troll Ave N
 Seattle, WA

MAP IT

The Troll is a mixed media colossal statue, located on N. 36th Street at Troll Avenue N., under the north end of the George Washington Memorial Bridge (also known as the Aurora Bridge). It is clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle, as if it had just swiped it from the roadway above. The vehicle has a California license plate. The Troll was sculpted by four local artists: Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter, and Ross Whitehead. He is interactive—visitors are encouraged to clamber on him or try to poke out his one good eye (a hubcap). The Troll is 5.5 m (18 ft) high, weighs 6,000 kg (13,000 lb), and is made of steel rebar, wire, and concrete.

Aurora Avenue North was renamed "Troll Avenue" in its honor in 2005 and The Troll was entered in the soapbox derby in 2007.

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No. 64 Museum of Glass, MOG Tacoma, WA

Distance from Seattle, WA = 34 miles

Museum of Glass

1801 Dock Street

Tacoma, WA 98402

http://www.museumofglass.org/

Reason to go: See the Dome Districts modern improvements. Lots of money is going into remodeling of this waterfront area. New apartment buildings, restaurants and growing artistic neighborhood. Parking is easy. There is a garage with a great deal of space under the museum, and the cost is reasonable. Taking the elevator up to the museum is easy in case someone is disabled. 

You can plan on spending 1 1/2 - 2hrs visiting the museum. The gallery portion isn't the largest I have seen about blown glass, but the quality and difficulty of the collection makes enjoyable. I would start off with the "Hot Shop." Inside the landmark Hot Shop dome is an amphitheater where you can sit and watch resident and visiting art glass blowers performing their craft live with narration. At the MOG they are making glass blown art, not 4 glass bottles a second, so depending on what the current piece will be the process from start to finish can take 30min to over an hour. I started off in the amphitheater for about 30 min then went to the gallery and came back to see the last phase of making the art piece. 

The gift shop features all sorts of  glass items from all over the world, and some smaller versions of pieces you can see in the collection. Large section of books on the history of glass art, coffee table sized books of different artists, ornaments, paper weights  etc. 

Click to here to view more images

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No. 29 2012 Arlington Airport Appreciation Day

This past Saturday started off my 2012 Air Show season. I read online that a local vintage aircraft museum was bringing in some aircraft to Arlington Airport KAWO for static display. I called the airport manager to find out a schedule of activities and to get some security questions answered. After narrowing the day down to what I wanted to see I call the museum to find out there "wheels up time." The pilots planned on a VFR departure at 7am. So my next step was to pack my ThinkTankPhoto Speed Freak V2 with gear I wanted on hand for the arrival of the aircraft. Made sure my camera and scanner batteries were charged, memory cards formatted and placed in camera. So I don't have to run  around in the morning looking for batteries or lost memory cards making the 6:30am departure more easy. I got to the airport just after 7am and stayed close to the taxi way incase I heard the flight of 2 warbirds coming in to the patterns for landing. I had about 45min to shoot other aircraft parked on the ramp. I kept an eye on the wind indicator mid field to know which direction they would be landing and about 8am I heard the flight of two calling out their position on Unicom, since this is non towered airport. Made my way to the north end of the ramp and set up my 300mm f4 on a tripod and waited for them to breakout of formation and sequence for landing. Prints are available. Contact me if interested. Here are my shots





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