Art at the Arboretum: John Grade @ Washington Park Arboretum

📅 Ongoing
⏰ Open every day from dawn to 8 pm
📍 Washington Park Arboretum: 2300 Arboretum Dr E, Seattle
📍 Sculpture location here

UNION by Seattle-based artist John Grade is now on view in the Washington Park Arboretum. A collaboration between UW Botanical Gardens, The Arboretum Foundation, and John Grade, the piece consists of over 6,000 individual resin casts suspended between eight trees. (Grade took inspiration for the sculpture from a fallen tree in Discovery Park.) The resin parts will collect and release rainwater, and he designed each one to visually “mimic the cell structure of the trees from which it’s suspended.” See it below:

@theticketsea 🍃 NEW PUBLIC ART IN SEATTLE 💧   UNION by John Grade is now on view in the Washington Park Arboretum. A collaboration between @UWBotanicGardens, The Arboretum Foundation, and John Grade, the piece consists of over 6000 individual resin casts suspended between eight trees. Grade took inspiration for the sculpture from a fallen tree in Discovery Park. The resin parts will collect and release rainwater, and he designed each one to visually “mimic the cell structure of the trees from which it’s suspended.”   📍2300 Arboretum Dr E, Seattle, WA (Follow Arboretum Drive E past the Japanese Maples) #publicartseattle #thingstodoinseattle #theticket ♬ original sound – TheTicketSeattle

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Here’s more from the Washington Park Arboretum’s blog:

Union, is a stunning largescale outdoor sculpture created by one of the world’s leading contemporary artists, Seattle-based John Grade.  The sculpture, comprised of over 6,000 individual cast resin parts framed in laminated ceiba wood, will be suspended dynamically from two large nets spanning more than 100 feet between eight trees in the middle of Washington Park Arboretum. Grade inspiration for Union was a fallen western red cedar in Seattle’s Discovery Park.  The top of the trunk of the fallen tree was divided into two slender leaders. Broken by the fall, both leaders revealed their concentric growth rings. Grade focused on the differences between each of these cross sections and divided Union into two magnified representations of each leader. Moving in tune with the elements, the beautiful sculpture is comprised of cupped forms that collect and release rainwater, cast in shades of blue and green, with patterns that mimic the cell structure of the trees from which it is suspended. Grade worked with his Seattle studio team of 15 artisans over six months to create the sculpture.  It will take a crew of six to install, supported by thin, stainless-steel cables and rings and the surrounding tree trunks. Grade’s perennial focus is on environmentally-related works, often inspired and extracted from microscopic points of view, and ranging from monumental (interior and exterior) installations to a more intimate scale. His projects are designed to change over time and often involve large groups of people to collaboratively build and install. Union will be open to the public, dawn to dusk, after the installation.  A map will be available in the Graham Visitors Center.