Lobby, Seattle East Police Precinct,1986

In 1986, I was the lead artist on the design team that created the lobby for the then new precinct building. "Neighbors" was funded by Seattle Police Precincts Bond Issue 1% for Art funds.

It is a mixed media environment referencing the diverse Capitol Hill neighborhood where the station is located. I lived and had my studio in the Capitol Hill area. I wanted to create a ‘poem’ about the neighborhood.

I invited artists Margi Beyer and Maggie Smith to partner on the project. At that time, Police Chief Ed Sharples, emphasized that the police were a stabilizing, peaceful force in the neighborhood. This was a cue to designing the lobby.

As a team, we worked with local students from University Heights Elementary School and Sharples Alternative High School who helped create a myriad of ceramic figures, glazing them with the primary colors (red, yellow and blue). This is known in art as a stabilizing palette.

The spirit of collaboration emphasized the themes of cooperation and relationship inherent in the lobby environment. The idea was to create a schematic visual metaphor of the neighborhood and make it feel comforting, particularly as the people who were going into the lobby were not the purveyors, but the victims, of crime. I wanted it to be like the patterned wallpaper in my grandmother’s bedroom, calming.

The floor inlay is composed of hundreds of ceramic "people" that fill a flowing water design cutting through the basic grid pattern of the precinct's tile floor. Framing the large front window are two walls. The west wall has a "front stoop", a characteristic of so many houses in the Capitol Hill area. Red ceramic figures fill the risers of the steps. The south wall has a generic outline of a house. Blue ceramic figures fill the house. Below the window is a curved bench backed by colorfully edged wooden cutouts of buildings and houses taken from a study of the architectural forms of Capitol Hill. They form a Capitol Hill skyline. Below the skyline a progression of ceramic people create a pedestrian walkway. Each component is intended to evoke a sense of community.

Outside on the sidewalk, between the corner column and the glass window, are two bronze plaques with the names of many of the individuals who worked on the lobby. A subtext “ FOR ALL SEATTLE” is formed by the capital letters.

I lived in Seattle from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s. In 1985, I accepted a faculty position in art at the University of Minnesota and moved to Minneapolis. Ironically, my apartment in Minneapolis is not that far from where George Floyd was murdered. Since retiring, I spend part of the year in Greece.

I last visited the precinct about 15 years ago. When I read about the Seattle protest and the formation of CHOP/CHAZ, I wondered whom to contact.

Feliks Banel of KIRO radio contacted me in Greece. His article can be can be read at https://mynorthwest.com/1956320/seattle-police-east-precinct-art-protesters/

I support the goals of Black Lives Matter, of CHOP/CHAZ and of all peaceful protesters. In some ways, “Neighbors,” has potential to be more relevant now – in this particular moment and in that particular spot – than ever before in its 34 years of existence.

My hope is that the lobby can serve as place to meet and focus on constructive discussion and/or as a location for people to sit and just breathe. I wanted it to be a place that people could come together in times of distress, and I didn’t expect it to be this kind of distress.

But I understand that if people feel that they need to destroy it, that’s just fine, too.