freeflyflowflume

Last night I had a bad dream involving a grumpy giant.  Perhaps a holdover from yesterday's Presidential press conference.  The words on my lips upon waking this morning were 'fee fie foe fum...' which sort of creates a subtext to all the musing I've been doing over the past couple months trying to shape the conceptual framework for this project.

So this cross between a political nightmare and fairytale about a fantastic beanstalk and a terrible giant (originally printed as Jack the Giant-Killer circa 1711), may provide a little 'a-ha' moment in terms of unifying metaphor for our project.  Perhaps three centuries later, the anthropocenic version of this myth translates as free-fly-flow-flume...

free - Shorthand for 'blue tree'.  The freedom of those craggy Garry Oak branches blowing in the breeze, the seeds that scatter, germinate and grow.  A free-flowing cycle of life.

fly - A tag for 'bluebird boxes'.  A meditation on the wonders of flight, migration and ideas of home in nature.  The flight of imagination as children engage with ideas and materials as part of a learning community.

flow - Moniker for pump house images.  A celebration of the purity of clean drinking water and the infrastructure that provides it to Tacoma.  Also the mercurial nature of our hydrophilic world.

flume - An iconic moment for Oak Tree Park.  Commemorates the historic flume through an overlay of culture and nature carved as fossils in stone.  Perhaps a perch for for a crowning bird bath too.