Described as ‘a love letter to the Salish Sea’, cascadia draws attention to our collective relationship to the local
environment. Entering the park under the expansive shade structure, visitors are greeted by a suspended
lifeboat sculpture and a super-graphic seawall mural. As a duet in form, pattern and color, lifeboat and
seawall bring viewers into a dialog between the esthetic of light and shadow, biota and habitat, civilization and
wilderness, which speaks to a deep sense of place.
Striking a balance between iconic universality and locational uniqueness, the artwork alludes to Edmonds’
vibrant downtown Creative District and extensive green infrastructure within a larger context. Close
examination of lifeboat reveals various flora, fauna and microbes woven into the hull’s patterns, while seawall
surveys the terrain it inhabits. Highlighting riparian settlement overlays as they relate to a web of life, the
installation encourages viewers to contemplate a sense of belonging to a larger bio-region and caring for our
shared environs.
Clark Wiegman is a Pacific Northwest artist whose work explores ways we may experience nature through
cultural frames. Each project responds to situational variables with anomalous beauty that maps the challenges
of transformation. Over the past three decades, he’s created projects for a variety of civic contexts throughout
North America.
To see the development and progress of the fabrication of the artwork, go to: lifeboatseawall.blogspot.com