The Seattle Public Library board of trustees has selected artist Donald Fels to design artwork for the new Ballard Library and Ballard Neighborhood Service Center. The Library Board unanimously confirmed the Fall City mixed-media artist at its May 22 meeting.
The 10-member Ballard Art Advisory Panel - made up of representatives from the Library, the Seattle Arts Commission, city's Fleets & Facilities Department, and the Ballard community - recommended Fels for the job.
Board vice president Linda Larson, who also is the board steward for the Ballard Library and was on the advisory panel, said she was impressed that Fels was a lifetime library user. The panel also appreciated Fels' rich history of engaging with community issues, his interest in collaboration and the extent to which he researches his subjects before forming his concepts.
Fels has worked with stone, concrete, steel, aluminum, photography, wood, bronze, fiberglass, bricks, paper, literature, and sound.
Recent museum projects include "Shore Viewpoints," which examines the history of Seattle's Elliott Bay waterfront (portions shown at Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art); "Trading Stories," which looks at the production of international commodities (Tacoma Art Museum); and "7PLY: Plywood and Memory," which explores how material goods hold cultural memory (Bellevue Art Museum). Since 1996, Fels has been the lead artist for the Alki/Duwamish Culture Trail. One of his most well-known pieces is a wall at Safeco Field that combines baseball-related graphics and text.
Fels said he is interested in creating public art that intrigues both the first-time visitor and stands up to repeated viewings.
"The artwork that (patrons) see in the library shouldn't become so quickly known that in effect it becomes invisible on subsequent visits," he wrote in his application letter. "It is important that public art, like the best art we encounter in museums and galleries, continues to surprise, entice, even educate us."
The panel recommended Fels after interviewing three artists from a roster of public artists that the Arts Commission compiled specially for branch library projects. The commission, a city agency formed in 1971 to increase public awareness of and support for the arts, is managing the library's public art program.
His work will be integrated into the 15,000-square-foot branch library and a 3,600-square-foot neighborhood service center planned for a site at 22nd Avenue Northwest and Northwest 57th Street. He will work with Valerie Otani, who is the arts planner for Ballard's municipal center.
The existing 7,296-square-foot Ballard Library was built in 1963. The new branch will have more seats, an expanded collection of 66,700 books and materials, expanded reference areas, larger areas for children and young adults, more computer space, a meeting room and parking.
The new $6.5 million library will be funded by the $196.4 million "Libraries for All" bond measure that Seattle voters passed in 1998. The plan calls for improving or replacing all 22 branch libraries, building five new branches and building a new central library. For more information about Libraries for All, visit the Library's Web site at www.spl.org and select "Libraries for All capital projects."
(For more information, call Caroline Young Ullmann, communications assistant, 206-615-1627.)
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Content modified: 25 May 2001
12/30/2005
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