At the winter solstice, when the darkness settles mid-afternoon, any bit of light is welcome. So it’s an appropriate time to unveil two new public artworks, both along Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma and each using light to convey two very different moods.
“FOREST OF SOULS”
Monika Proffitt’s light installation in Tollefson Plaza certainly doesn’t jump out at you. At the back of each of the terraced reflecting pools ascending the plaza, clusters of fiber-optic cables rise out of the water a few feet into the overhang of the concrete ramp. Light green and pink, the strands of light cast tiny reflections in the water which, when driving or even walking by, are hard to distinguish from the blazing lights of the Convention Center and light rail behind.
But, in a way, that’s okay. In making this piece, Proffitt – a Seattle artist whose other light installations range from glowing river rock stories at the Pilchuck School to the “Garden of Light” made of fiber optics and blown glass in Capitol Hill’s temporary window art project – was inspired by the original inhabitants of Tollefson Plaza. As a Puyallup water source and medicine house site, the Plaza would have seen many “souls,” and Proffitt says she “wanted to give them voice in some silent, yet understood, way.”
Small and fragile-looking, with tiny round “heads” at the top of the cable clusters, the strands of light do haunt the back of the pools like silent memories: an understated echo of the glamour of the 21st-century lights behind them. They’ll be up from this winter solstice through the spring equinox, acknowledging a more universal rhythm than the rest of us.
“PROJECTING DROP”
Jill Anholt’s enormous vertical water droplet, sculpted from steel and tile on the 12th Street hill climb steps further along Pacific Avenue, has been up for some time now. But the final part of the piece was only unveiled last week, and is at its best during darkness – a light projection of the optimistic quote from an 1891 Tacoma Ledger article that was part of Anholt’s whole inspiration for this piece.
The “Drop” itself is a stunningly tactile and dimensional piece during the day. Undulating blue and green hexagonal tiles flow up from the sidewalk into a vertical sheet that transforms from turquoise to green, eventually melding into a giant droplet that plinks outwards to the street in a joyful defiance of gravity. Anholt’s a Canadian artist known for interactive public installations that explore time, materiality and ephemerality, and this is her first completed work in this country. Tacoma’s lucky to have it. With grace and presence it links both the site’s history (the ruined Turkish bathhouse beneath) and future (the LEED-certified Pacific Plaza building next door) – sculpted water visually flowing up from the converted reservoir to feed the building’s green roof.
The whole piece is fun to walk on and around, the tiles smooth and sticky, the undulations playing with your balance and the droplet with your sense of 3D orientation. But at night your motion will also trigger a projected light illuminating the inlaid steel words taken from the Ledger, sweeping over the tile like a Christmas card: “Let Energy! Ambition! And Enterprise! Continue to give luster to the City of Destiny!” (The rest of the quote, about Tacoma being a new Venice, is inscribed on the sidewalk.)
Irony? Definitely, especially in this post-Russell era. The font is Hallmark, the wording slightly ridiculous, despite the swish building whose construction, and Tacoma’s one percent for art program, enabled the $179,000 that the City of Tacoma and Pacific Plaza Development paid for the work.
But despite the irony, there’s something kind of reassuring about the light element to “Projecting Drop.” It recognizes that, while our city has plenty of fine public art during the day, nighttime can get a little bleak. It reminds us that those optimistic Tacomans in the 1890s dealt with some harsh blows, and survived. And if nothing else, it lights up dull winter afternoons, a kind of residual glow of heat from those long-gone steam baths.
Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568 rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com “Forest of Souls” light installation
Who: Monika Proffitt
When: 24/7 through March 21
Where: Tollefson Plaza, 1700 Pacific Ave., Tacoma (behind reflecting pools)
Information: spaceworkstacoma.wordpress.com, monikaproffitt.com
“Projecting Drop” sculpture
Who: Jill Anholt
When: permanent
Where: South 12th Street hill climb steps, next to 1250 Pacific Ave., Tacoma
Information: www. tacomaculture.org, jillanholt.ca
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