The Federal Way City Council voted unanimously Nov. 4 at the request of Mayor Jim Ferrell to oppose a piece of artwork that is planned for the new Sound Transit Federal Way Link Extension light rail station.<\/p>\n
The sculpture concept features a strong tree as a base, drawing inspiration from Federal Way’s logging town heritage. A sprightly elephant balances on top of the tree on two front legs as a native great blue heron bird sits atop the elephant’s trunk, looking at one another.<\/p>\n
This sculpture would be three-and-a-half stories tall (approximately 30 feet), about the height of passengers on the future light rail platform.<\/p>\n
“We collectively feel that this image does not represent our community. In essence, the artist’s vision of a dead tree, elephant, and bird will make our city the subject of ridicule and derision,” the Nov. 5 letter to the Sound Transit Board of Directors states.<\/p>\n
The letter continues to say the Federal Way City Council feels a different piece of artwork would represent Federal Way in a more positive light.<\/p>\n
“We are excited to welcome light rail to our downtown. It will be transformative, and a key piece of infrastructure that will help shape the future of our city,” Ferrell said. “We need a piece of artwork that appropriately reflects and uplifts our community. We ask that Peter Rogoff and the Sound Transit Board promptly address this matter and choose a more appropriate piece of art for this site.”<\/p>\n
Federal Way is known in the region for encouraging and celebrating visual, literary and performing arts, the letter says.<\/p>\n
“This includes giving artists the latitude to be creative, within reason.”<\/p>\n
The council is asking Sound Transit for a reimagined art piece that “reflects our community and will be a benefit for many years to come,” and “that will uplift the community, not diminish it.”<\/p>\n
Construction started this year to extend the light rail line from SeaTac through Kent to Federal Way. The project is expected to be completed in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The proposed art piece will be on display near the incoming Sound Transit Federal Way Link Extension station. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":665,"featured_media":47859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-47858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47858"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=47858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}