Downtown art

UPDATED:  Yesterday, I was fortunate to spend an hour with a city planner to talk about outdoor art.  I'm very concerned about the rapid pace of urbanization in our city and how overly dense and uniformly green the downtown is starting to look.  Where's the art?  The pace of growth and demands to plan for it appear overwhelming.  Can the city keep up?   

Redmond is special to the Northwest in that we have a very diverse population of residents from all over the world...and we become more diverse with every year.  Art is especially crucial for us because of our diversity.  It offers a great way to connect and engage us in conversations and activities. We get to know and accept each other through art.   

The Downtown Park has a great opportunity to be our centerpiece for art.  I'm concerned that too few of us have participated in workshops on its design.  I pray and trust the city will make the right decisions. 

Frazer Court is a private development that installed this
interactive art.  See the stones on the pedestals?
You can move them around.  

What about the private developments -- those 6 -9 story apartment buildings and 4 hotels? Flowered pots and green shrubbery smartly dress up the buildings, but where's the art to engage us with each other as we walk down the sidewalks?  Look (left) at the attractive and inviting art of Frazer Court. It's interactive, too! Doesn't it look cool? Unfortunately, when you look around town very few, if any other developers are installing art. Have you seen any artscapes?  The city needs to come up with an incentive program soon before it's too late.
  

Kudos to the council, staff and community volunteers for bringing art to the Redmond Central Connector trail.  SIGNALS is prominent, interesting and easy to understand.  It creates a great place for us to interact and get to know each other.  Just look at So Bizarre! 

SIGNALS

SKY PAINTING ($95k) and the ERRATIC ($115k) on the other hand are different. Was there ever a workshop to involve us at the ground level of these projects?  The city had to spend $1M to move the ERRATIC off the light rail easement to Leary Way gateway (good choice)  Even though these art pieces are on the trail and very large, few people have seen them.  Do you know where they are?  

The city planner said they will install some temporary art in the Downtown Park and neighborhood parks.  This ought to give the planners some "wiggle room" as they await a response from the viewing public.  Phase 2 of the Redmond Trail Connector is underway.  I hope there's enough time to hold workshops so we can participate in this part of the trail.  I'm concerned there's not enough time or resources to hold another workshop for the Downtown Park.  The demands on staff are intense.  More and better delegation to the city commissions is called for.  

Bob Yoder, opinion  

*The workshop for the Bike Park was very useful in the design.  (Its location was taxing.)