It's not really news anymore, but it is still a very sharp thorn in my side that nobody is supposed (theoretically, ‘allowed’) to touch any of the art at the Olympic Sculpture Park. Really, don’t touch it, don’t walk on the grass, stay on the path and leave no trace but your Starbucks cup. The only experience of this vast and expensive sculpture park you get to have, is one dictated by the managerial oversight committee, the many thuggish security guards roaming the place, and please read the signs again. We said, DON’T Touch The Art!

Long ago and far away, some people in this great city of Seattle thought, ‘hey- let’s turn this open space into a usable civic place, and fill it with art!’ What a great idea- an incubator for community, a gathering place. It’s amazing, really- that nine acres of formerly nothing has been transformed into so much look but don’t touch.

So they spent countless millions of dollars to borrow, purchase or rent art from high-falutin' artists, install it outside for all the seagulls to gather on, and then tell me that MY FINGERPRINTS might harm the rusted metal???? Curator, please.

I'm a Seattle native. Interactivity and curiosity run in my bloodstream like so much caffeine and jazz. I ride merry-go-rounds, swing on sets, climb trees and ride bikes. Kinetic is our region’s middle name. I also attend the Burning Man festival (insert your jaded bitching here), and one of the tenets of installing a piece out there in the harsh desert environment is that it’s got to be interactive in some way. Which is to say that full-grown adults can *play* with the art! Turn this crank, smell this flower, climb up on this, kiss it, taste it, ride it, spin, burn or otherwise alter this THING with your presence. DO it. Now. Enjoy. I’m used to art being something I get to have a dialogue with, not a dictated, paper-thin, visual-only experience.

Am I a little peeved? You betcha I am. In the case of Wake- what part of 300 tons of steel says FRAGILE? I mean, I’m sure Richard Serra doesn’t want people to carve their initials in to the patina, any more than any great old oak tree wants teenagers in the throes of puppy love to pull out a pen knife and immortalize a moment in bark. However, out in the world, people carve on things, and touch them. Perhaps, if it weren’t for the PLEASE DON”T TOUCH THE ART signs everywhere, petulant graffitos might leave well enough alone.

Does creator’s intent figure into the equation at all? Evidently it doesn’t. Serra himself says that it’s not about the piece, nor about the environment it’s in, it’s about your experience of walking through Wake, of being with the installation, seeing how the shapes of the air change as you move within its massive walls. He’s not quoted anywhere that I can find, asking people not to touch the piece. It’s publicized as being weatherproof steel. So whose decision was it? I wish I had the answer.

I demand justice. I want to talk to the artists about their opinions of their art being placed outside, and I want to talk about touching sculptures. Am I going to actually contact Richard Serra (or his people)? Nope, as is my Seattleite birthright, I’m going to play the passive-aggressive card, and let this blog entry serve as my proverbial nasty note to the roommate, hope that if he happens across it, he’ll write me a permission slip to touch his art. Until then, I will continue to touch it when the guards aren’t looking.