Seattle’s new waterfront is taking shape

Photo headshot of artist Norie Sato

Norie Sato’s artwork Unfurling a Gesture (The Nature of Persistence) at the Union Street Pedestrian Bridge was installed in October 2022. Her artwork includes a steel sculpture - whose initial inspiration was a fern that she saw growing out of a building along the waterfront - framing the passageway, and a screen on the bridge that layers abstracted imagery of seagull wings over that of ferns.

Norie Sato's artwork at the Union Street Pedestrian Bridge was installed in October 2022. Image courtesy of Norie Sato.

The artist encourages viewers to interpret for themselves the 37-foot-tall steel sculpture. Image courtesy of Norie Sato.

The screen wall along the pedestrian bridge at Union Street features the image of a fern overlaid with the wing span of a seagull rendered in cut stainless steel. Image courtesy of Norie Sato.

Project background

Norie Sato was chosen to collaborate with the project design team to create original artwork on the new Union Street Pedestrian Bridge between Western Avenue and Alaskan Way. Her artwork takes its inspiration from the natural environment that manages to make its presence felt on the working waterfront. This project has a personal connection for the artist: in 1991, Sato created a temporary artwork on the waterfront that marked the location of her arrival to this country by ship. Watch Sato talk about her personal connection to the Seattle waterfront and discuss the varied influences for her work.

Image 1 and 2: The screenwall combines the image of a fern frond and outstretched wings of a seagull, abstracted and layered in cut metal to remind us of these two intrepid natural inhabitants of the waterfront.

The screenwall combines the image of a fern frond and outstretched wings of a seagull, abstracted and layered in
cut metal to remind us of these two intrepid natural inhabitants of the waterfront. — Image 2 | Click to enlarge

"One of my hopes for the Waterfront is that it creates moments of magic and wonder for people who live here, and may feel very familiar with Seattle, and yet when they come down to the Waterfront, there will be moments where they feel, 'Wow, this is a fantastic place.'"

image that portrays the future screen wall artwork. There are bird wings in the center that overlap a field of ferns. The ferns continue past the wings on the left and on the right. There is a label on the far left that says Western Avenue: Single Layer, a label in the middle that says Bridge: two layers plus lighting and labels on the far right that say East wall elevator: single layer, and South wall elevator: single layer. — The artist-designed screen wall along the new pedestrian bridge at Union Street features the image of a fern overlaid with the wing span of a seagull rendered in cut stainless steel | Click to enlarge

ARTIST STATEMENT

Nature’s patterns, shapes and systems relate to each other in unpredictable ways. We interpret the world depending on our own experiences. This artwork looks at the different associations that could be made where nature bumps up against the man-made. But often, nature has a way of “breaking through” despite how we try to shape and control our environment.

This artwork was inspired by looking at the waterfront and how nature and the built environment interacts there. I spent 35 plus years in studios in the Waterfront and Pioneer Square areas, most of them on Western Street and Yesler where I overlooked the now removed viaduct. This allowed me to really get to know the waterfront, to appreciate its edges, light and the various things that inhabit it. The artwork incorporates many of these memories as well as allowing the elements such as the light interact with it in different and surprising ways.

This artwork, Unfurling a Gesture (The Persistence of Nature), is a celebration of the nature that perseveres along the waterfront, and an encouragement to pay attention. The title is a verb, rather than a noun, because I believe the interaction with this artwork should be active, not just a looking at an object, but actively thinking about what it is, how it is, how it interacts and changes the environment and how we perceive it. It does not assume to be a single idea, but it could be how one perceives it. It works with the memories and experiences of the viewer to become something of their interpretation, their way of seeing, not mine. I learned something as we were installing it and folks were commenting about it. Each had a slightly different impression of what it was. I had started with the idea of a fern, because I had seen a fern growing out of a crack in the concrete wall on the site as I was thinking about the concept for this artwork. That was my initial inspiration. However, other folks had different and very interesting interpretations about what they were looking at and that made me see the breadth of what is possible…and that I could not predict what that interpretation might be.

The artwork along the bridge is also an unfurling, a revealing as one walks along it. It is a combination of the fern and a bird wing, perhaps a gull wing, perhaps another type of bird, also an important presence on the waterfront. The two layers visually shift as one walks, revealing and hiding, sometimes showing a visual relationship, sometimes becoming abstract. During the day and at night, depending upon the light, the angle of the sun, the lack of sun, we can see different relationships between the layers.

We all look at things differently, depending upon our experiences, culture, world view, importance and priorities of various events and happenings in our lives. Art illuminates all of these, and, as a verb, is an active and important experience for each of us. We are persistent, nature is persistent and our experience of art is active, changing and helps us to view the world in a broader context.

LEARN MORE ABOUT NORIE SATO

Norie Sato is an artist whose artwork for public places over the past 25 plus years has incorporated individual, collaborative, design team and planning of public art projects. She works from site and context-driven ideas first, and then finds the appropriate form and materials. She strives to add meaning and human touch to the built environment and to consider edges, transitions, culture and connections to the environment. Norie‘s current and past work encompasses transit/transportation facilities, airports, libraries, universities, infrastructure, parks, and other civic structures. She works in sculpture, glass, terrazzo floors, integrated design work, landscape, video and light. In her studio work, she includes large works on paper and printmaking to the list of media. She has been active in the Seattle art scene since the 70s, when she was involved with and/or, an artist-run space, and as a commissioner on the Seattle Arts Commission in the nascent days of Seattle’s public art program. In addition, her own work in video, glass and on paper has been exhibited at galleries and museums around the country.

Recently, she produced a mosaic outside of Climate Pledge Arena, a 300 ft. long glass façade for the San Francisco International Airport, artwork for Iowa State University and the University of Washington. She has made work for the Arabian Library and McDowell Mountain Ranch Aquatic Center, both in Scottsdale AZ, and Miami International Airport. She was lead artist for Sound Transit’s Seattle Central Link Light Rail and has worked on transit systems in Portland, Salt Lake City and Tempe, Arizona. She was a member of the Seattle Design Commission which reviews city capital projects within the city of Seattle and is a former council member of the Public Art Network, a national organization focused on public art, as well as involvement on other boards and commissions. Norie Sato was born in Japan, and arrived in the US in Seattle when she was 5 years old. She landed via ship at Pier 50, at the foot of Yesler, where she coincidentally had a studio for 30 years, looking out at that landing location. She was unaware of this until she had been in that studio for 10 years and created a temporary artwork for the In Public 1991 exhibition series about that experience.

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