Concerns surrounding safety, vandalism, maintenance, visibility and overall 'heavy lift' of the flume piece linger. Let's go through them one-by-one...
Safety. While intricate patterns incised in metal can create some lovely visual effects providing additional depth of meaning, I'm concerned that the proximity of the proposed artwork could offer what is known as an 'attractive nuisance'. My worry is that a piece of this scale could invite unintended interactive play and resultant injury (falls, cut fingers, etc). This is something that requires lots of careful thought in an unmonitored site such as this.
Vandalism. Aside from its naturally rustic quality, the beauty of weathering steel is that it requires little to no maintenance once installed. There is no need for coatings, patinas or resurfacing...in fact, if weathering steel is coated or treated with any surfacing material it actually undermines its ability to naturally form a corrosion-resistant barrier. Unfortunately, this feature can make it a temperamental material to deal with if attacked by graffiti. Given the number of public artworks I've seen in Tacoma that are tagged certainly gives pause to working with such a vulnerable material.
Maintenance. Building on the concern about potential vandalism is the repair process required to restore areas impacted by removed graffiti. Usually a combined process of solvents and abrasion is needed to remove graffiti—a process that strips away whatever patina has built up in that particular area, leaving a sort of ‘ghost’ that may or may not eventually blend with the rest of the piece.
Visibility. While weathering steel has a naturally-brown palette, this could work against its potential visibility as an iconic landmark. Also questioning the visibility of any intricate metalwork against existing foliage. To be able to read any imagery requires a fairly neutral background (a blank wall, the sky, etc).
The Heavy Lift. I think I need to really spell out what this means in practical terms. To be clear: I’m not talking literally about weight here. What I’m really concerned about is the number of potential issues and processes necessary to create a successful piece given this initial approach. I’ve mentioned several concerns above.
Others that I’m navigating involve placement of the artwork and its relationship to the ground plane. Does it require a footing? If not, should it be partially-buried? What is the landscaping situation? Should we bring in additional plantings or work with a simple ‘sculpture-on-lawn’ approach? Is lighting desired? If so, what type or approach (landscape uplighting vs. internal illumination)?
What is flume’s relationship to other elements? Does it relate to the bluebird boxes in terms of form, color, material, etc.? Same question for blue tree and/or murals, etc. There needs to be some esthetic/metaphoric cohesion between elements. Do we achieve that by simply painting everything blue? How does this work in terms of working with a more ‘natural palette’?
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