Public art pieces in Seattle are akin to clever rhymes in Soulja Boy songs. There’s a staggering abundance of them, and all are of formidable quality. In 1973, our fine city passed one of the first so-called “percent for art” ordinances in the country, reserving one percent of the City of Seattle’s annual income for public art. The truth is, I tend to blow by these pockets of creativity and sculptural prowess, rarely stopping to “crank that public art,” if you will. And chances are, many share the same unappreciative attitude as I. So after doing some meticulous sifting, a few art installations which truly deserve tasteful props have risen to the top of the “must-see” list.

The Crespinel Mural

Garfield students roaming on foot during our luxurious, 35-minute lunch rarely set foot past Catfish Corner. But there’s more to be found over there than delicious bagels and feline sea creatures. Those who peak around the corner to the Martin Luther King Jr. Way side will find themselves face to face with the civil rights activist himself. Well, not quite.

This impressive mural of Dr. King was completed in the summer of 1995, and has watched over his namesake corridor ever since. The likeness, painted by volunteer professional muralist James Crespinel, measures a dwarfing 17 feet tall, adding the ability to dunk on Glenn Brooks to King’s impressive list of skills.

The SoDo Free Wall

When I first heard about this unique phenomenon, I immediately thought, “a whole wall for free? Is there, like, a roof and stuff?” Those more hip than I soon corrected me, informing me that the truth was in fact even better than I had imagined. The SoDo Free Wall, which also goes by the SoDo “Graffiti Wall,” “Legal Wall,” and “Art Wall,” is a side of a privately owned warehouse that has been dedicated by the owners as a place where graffiti artists can come and do pieces legally.

The warehouse is the property of FC Bloxom, a company that distributes organic produce, and is located not far from the intersection of Fourth Ave and Lander St. The wall is, at the moment, the only one of its kind in the city. The Free Wall sees occasional problems from its neighbors, though, as it takes the blame for any hint of a tag that shows itself on nearby buildings. New pieces appear on top of older ones on a regular basis, so even if this spot is old news, give it another glance or two.

Parable

Continue south on MLK Way for about as far as is reasonable, and the newly finished Rainier Sound Transit Station comes into view. As any Seattlite with transportation needs knows, the city recently completed a segment of the Link Light Rail line. Not far from the tracks, you’ll find Seattle-based artist Buster Simpson’s Parable sculpture. Built from cast iron, steel cable, iron trolley rails and traffic lights, it was installed in 2008.

The installation consists of about a half-dozen pear-shaped pieces of iron, positioned inside a bowl-shaped arrangement made out of trolley-tracks and lit from below by traffic lights. Connected by a steel cable, the “pears” have a likeness to wrecking balls, allowing the piece to be appreciated by both those who search for deeper meaning, and those of us who just think it looks cool. Yes, some thought light rail was already fruity, but the sculpture, built in honor of the 100th anniversary of the first automobile and much larger than I am, adds an interesting touch to the mass-transit station.

23rd and Union Installation

Only a few blocks from school, this cluster of wooden structures and enlarged photographs was put in place on an abandoned lot in June 2009 as part of a project to chronicle the change that the intersection has undergone. The photographs, taken by Inye Wokoma, are portraits of members of the community and are the visual portion of the installation.

One of the wooden structures has a phone number with the words “call” and “this is a powerful corner” scrawled in colorful lettering. From June to August 2009, the phone number connected to an answering machine that played back two short stories that people have told about the corner. It then asked a random question about the caller’s opinion on the corner, from “What do you think of when you think: 23rd and Union?” to “Whose corner is this?” It also sometimes asked the caller to rap, sing or pray regarding the corner. The recordings became part of an NPR radio documentary titled The Corner, and are now all stored on the installation’s website, 23rdandunion​.com.