Friday, 1 February 2019
A Giant Octopus Has Surfaced in Downtown Tacoma
It’s a g-g-g-g-ghost! Photo Source
Okay, so it’s not an actual octopus; it’s a massive, badass sculpture at the corner of Pacific Ave and South Tacoma Way (map) called “Gertie’s Ghost.” It was created by artists Sean Orlando and David Shulman, who were inspired by the ill-fated Galloping Gertie bridge.
“We were enamored with the story of the giant octopus that lives in the wreckage of the bridge,” Shulman told the Tribune. “We kind of fused all of those things together to try and build something that was evocative of an old railroad trestle but had the tapering lines and organic curves of an octopus’s tentacles.” Source
You can watch a timelapse video of its installation here!
You can read more about its creation and installation in this great Tacoma News Tribune article and on Sound Transit’s website.
I personally love this. I (almost) always love massive installation sculptures. Tacoma actually has a lot of great public sculptures! I’ve always thought it would be kind of cool to have a feature on this website where I take pictures of every single public sculpture within the city limits (but who has the time for that?). There’s another massive installation sculpture going into the in-progress Dune Peninsula park, called “Alluvion” that’s made of deconstructed pipes that reference the old Asarco smelter smokestack that used to be on that site:
By the way, Dune Peninsula is so named in honor of Frank Herbert (author of Dune), who grew up in Tacoma! Neat!
Categories: Art & Artists, Featured Posts, Tacoma, Videos.
