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Artist Nichole Rathburn and her artwork Little Makers on Dune Peninsula at Pt Defiance Park 3

In 2014, Parks Tacoma embraced a policy of setting aside 1 percent of the district’s capital projects budget for public art.

This policy and the district’s $198 million capital improvement bond are driving forward numerous artworks throughout the district with support from the City of Tacoma’s Office of Arts & Cultural Vitality.

Goals for the art program include:

  • Using public art to foster Parks Tacoma’ multi-pronged mission of fostering active lifestyles, promoting appreciation and stewardship of nature and wildlife, and building understanding of culture and heritage.
  • Showcasing art outside traditional settings.
  • Contributing to the diversity and livelihood of the Tacoma art scene.
  • Making art accessible and visible throughout Tacoma.
  • Creating public art that delights, intrigues, attracts visitors, and broadens the public’s experience.

Learn more about some of the other artworks around town:

Art Installations

Above Below - Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

Above Below

Location: Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium – Tropical Reef Aquarium atrium
Selected Artist: Mindy Barker
Installation Date: February 2024
Budget: $24,000

The Tropical Reef Aquarium, formerly known as the South Pacific Aquarium, underwent behind the scenes improvements as well as exhibit enhancements in late 2023 and early 2024, reopening in June with the new name and new artwork. Mindy Barker was selected through a competitive Request for Proposals process, and brought her experience creating eye-to-eye murals that inspire empathy between people and animals.

Upon entering the newly revamped atrium space, the first thing visitors experience, along with the direct gaze of a clownfish, is fresh and bright color. Top lit depths of water and blue-skyed vistas both appear to be composed of similar stratified values of color, layered together to create a perceived visual distance. Circling the entire atrium space, the composition encompasses these layers of value and color within undulating patterns of both subterranean and superterranean environments: imagined water movement, air movement, or a tropical landscape. The chosen hues support the bright blue of the Stingray Cove, the green lushness of the real and unreal plants within the atrium, and the already existent mural that provides a backdrop to the Lagoon. Hanging high overhead, faux clouds enhance the dreamy quality of the mural, moving gently in the circulating air, and thematically connecting the air, water, and landscape elements of the space.

Artist’s statement: “Humans and nature are completely linked, w­hat affects one affects the other. Oversized portraits of a clownfish, pufferfish, zebra shark and sweetlips all gaze outward for a reason. They look directly at us­ like a plea and reminder that we, the onlooker, share in the work of maintaining the delicate balance of life in our water, air and soil ecosystems.”

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Alluvion - Dune Peninsula at Point Defiance Park

Alluvion

Location: Dune Peninsula at Point Defiance Park
Selected Artist: Adam Kuby
Installation Date: Fall 2017
Budget: $125,000

In March 2016, Adam Kuby was awarded a commission to create an outdoor sculpture for the new 11-acre park on the peninsula, on the east side of Point Defiance Park next to the Tacoma Yacht Club. Alluvion harks back to the origin of the site through the use of a smokestack pipe. The peninsula was built of slag, or waste materials, from the former Asarco copper smelter. For decades, the giant smelter smokestack dominated its surroundings, providing jobs but also polluting the environment.

The artwork was created by starting with 9 segments of pipe, each 15′ long x 3′ in diameter. The first pipe was left whole. The next piece was cut in two, the next one cut in 4, then 8 and so on… 16, 32, 64, 128… The artwork refers to all the metal that was produced at the ASARCO site for items large and small, but the composition also touches on the darker side of the smokestack–its dissemination of arsenic and heavy metal toxins fanning out across the region.

The sculpture’s physical transformation along its length–from a tall vertical object to a series of low elements in the landscape–also parallels the transformation of the industrial site into a park. Gravel paths and meadow grasses weave through the sculpture, integrating it into the park environment. The plantings offer a soft counterpoint to the hard metal, and the paths allow people to move through and experience the artwork from many vantage points.

Learn more about Dune Peninsula

art alluvion

Alluvion on Dune Peninsula

Art Brief - Eastside Community Center

Art Brief

Artwork Title: Art Brief
Location: Eastside Community Center
Selected Artists: 
Christopher Paul Jordan and Kenji Stoll
Installation Date:
 May 2017
Budget: 
$30,000

In November 2017 a committee selected Tacoma-based artist team Christopher Paul Jordan and Kenji Stoll to create an art strategy for the new Eastside Community Center (ESCC). The resulting Art Brief recommends up to 7 different opportunities that were developed based on feedback from the community engagement process, and work with City of Tacoma Arts Staff. Opportunities include:

Purchase of existing artworks to display in the center:

  • A public art training program
  • Two memorial artworks
  • A youth involved mural
  • Several community history exhibits
  • A large outdoor sculpture to welcome visitors

Creative opportunities suggested in the Art Brief are open to everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, or religious background.

Given the cultural and historical context of the Eastside, creative opportunities outlined in the brief will have a strong emphasis on cultural relevancy and equity, and will prioritize artists who can exemplify these connections and experiences.

Eastside artists and residents, people who have strong historical connections to the Eastside, people of Indigenous ancestry, and/or people of immigrant and refugee communities are especially encouraged to participate.

escc art brief

Artist Training Cohort - Eastside Community Center

Artist Training Cohort

Parks Tacoma, through the work of lead artists Christopher Paul Jordan and Kenji Stoll, selected a cohort of eleven artists with ties to the Eastside neighborhood to participate in a paid public art training program.

The goal of this training cohort was preparing artists to move from a studio art practice to creating public artworks. The cohort represented a diverse range of art forms, ethnicities, cultural experiences, ages, backgrounds, and abilities.

Through classroom sessions with experts and a hands-on training project, the cohort learned about public art, practiced responding to artist calls, wrote and presented their own project proposals, and each created a temporary public artwork.

Each artist received a $500 attendance-based stipend upon completion of the training program, with an additional $1,000 budget for the temporary public artwork.

Participating artists included: Adika Bell, Dionne Bonner, Lisa Fruichantie, LeShawn Gamble, Tiffanny Hammonds (through a partnership with Sound Transit), Gerardo Peña, Elizabeth Reeves, Brian Robinson, Chuck Taylor, Dion Thomas, James Youngs, Jasmine Brown (audited).

E.T. Pacific Walrus - Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

E.T. Pacific Walrus

Location: Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium – Front entrance
Selected Artist: Matthew Gray Palmer
Installation Date:
 September 2017
Budget: 
$130,000

A committee selected Matthew Gray Palmer in January 2017 to create a life-size bronze memorial sculpture of E.T, a beloved Pacific walrus at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. The portrait was hand-sculpted and cast in bronze. Lisa Triggs, E.T.’s longtime caretaker, was part of the selection committee and helped ensure that the final sculpture was true to E.T.’s likeness and spirit. E.T. now greets all visitors as they enter the zoo.

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et matthew photobyingridbarrentine

Family of the Thunderbird - Owen Beach Promenade at Point Defiance Park

syayayəʔ ʔə tiiɫ x̌ʷiqʷadiʔ pt.2 (“Family of the Thunderbird”)

Location: Point Defiance Park, Owen Beach promenade
Selected Artist: Anthony Duenas
Installation Date: 2018
Budget: $8,000

Artist Anthony Duenas (Puyallup) was selected to complete 3 large painted panels for placement on a utility building at Point Defiance Park. The central mural tells the story of how the thunderbird created the Puyallup people. Ancestors are represented in the wings of the thunderbirds and the woman represents the continuation of life cycles – her open arms welcoming all. The companion murals along the side of the building depict Puyallup tribesmen who raced in the open waters around what is now known as Point Defiance and back to Owen Beach.

How to pronounce the name of this artwork?
Listen Now
Lushootseed speaker Archie Cantrell, Puyallup Tribal Language Program

Family of the Thunderbird Public Art

Ghost Log - Ruston Way Waterfront, Dickman Mill Park

Ghost Log

Location: Ruston Way Waterfront, Dickman Mill Park
Selected Artist: Mary Coss
Installation Date: 2020
Budget: $115,000

The Dickman Mill Park project site sits on Indigenous land, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people. Cedar is sacred to the local Puyallup Tribe and the Ghost Log honors their history through form and text incorporated into the sculpture.

Read more about the artist and Ghost Log Read more about the Dickman Mill Park Head Saw Project

Originally commissioned as the design team artist for the current Dickman Mill Park Improvements Project, Mary Coss proposes a monumental artwork for Dickman Mill Park to go with the reinstallation of the historic head saw on the original mill site.

The artwork, Ghost Log, resembles a cedar log that is 7.5’ in diameter, 40’ long. It morphs from the form of a gear (inspired by the historic Dickman Mill head saw) to the organic form of tree limbs, referencing both the industrial heritage of the site and the awe-inspiring natural resources that made that industry possible.

Ghost Log will be constructed of corten steel. The exterior will be wrapped in a laser-cut pattern resembling cedar bark, punctuated by fragments of text drawn from historical sources and contemporary conversations with community members associated with the site.

Ghost Log public art

2021 Partnerships 1

In Loving Memory - Eastside Community Center

In Loving Memory

Artist: Dionne Bonner
Installation Date: 2020
Materials: Latex Paint and Acrylic
ECC-004-2018
Commissioned by the Metropolitan Park District of Tacoma

Violence against our youth is devastating. In Loving Memory is a memorial dedicated to all the young people from the Eastside of Tacoma who have lost their lives to gun violence. This painted wall mural at Eastside Community Center reflects the creativity, resilience, and strength young people have within them, even when facing adversity.

In the design, we see images of young people in vibrant colors that represent the youth of today, while the shadows remind us to never forget those lives lost to violence. Energy radiates in different directions throughout the mural proclaiming a bright future for the young people that gather at this community center today.

The mural depicts the devastation violence has on a community and the vibrant connections that help cultivate a place of refuge. From a neighbor’s front porch to a graduation ceremony, the watchful and dedicated people of the Eastside surround each other. This openness makes memories people never forget and fuels this unique community’s growth and resiliency over time and into the future.

Online Memorial:

Add a name or view the list of names. To commemorate a young person who died because of gun violence in Tacoma, or to see the list of names please visit the Youth Memorial page.

In Loving Memory Public Dedication

Little Makers - Dune Peninsula at Point Defiance Park

Little Makers

Location: Dune Peninsula at Point Defiance Park
Artist: Nichole Rathburn
Date: 2019
Material: Cast Bronze
PDP-062-2018
Commissioned by the Metropolitan Park District of Tacoma

“A man inflicts himself on his environment.”  -Frank Herbert, in an interview with Willis E. McNelly, 1969

In Frank Herbert’s landmark novel, Dune, sand trout were responsible for depleting the planet Arrakis of water. Attempts to terraform the planet into a livable environment mirror the creation of this park on the former slag pile from the ASARCO Smelter.

The artwork, titled “Little Makers” is a set of four bronze shapes that reflect the immature stage of the Sand Worms on the planet Arrakis from Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel. The “Little Makers,” as they are known by the Freman nomads of the planet, are responsible for depleting the planet of all its water and creating the vast, inhospitable, planet-wide desert.

Rathburn was inspired by the environmental warnings of the novel to create a work that would make people think about our own impact on the planet Earth and the precious resource that is clean water. The immature sand worms are also known as “sand trout”.

Cast at Two Ravens Studio in Tacoma, Washington.

Learn more about Dune Peninsula

Little Makers Public Art

Malcolm X Center Mural - People's Community Center

Malcolm X Center Mural

Artists: Hue Collaborative
Location:
People’s Community Center
Installation Date: September 2016-June 2017

In 2016, Christopher Paul Jordan of Fab-5 led the development and implementation of a Mural Training and Community Engagement Project at People’s Community Center designed specifically to create professional development opportunities for emerging artists of color in the area. The training program culminated in a mural for the exterior of People’s Community Center, Malcolm X Center Mural, as well as indoor public art commissions.

The goals of the project were to:

  • Attract more artists of color
  • Engage multiple artists in the public art process
  • Train artists to work on public art projects
  • Increase access for artists of color and connect them with other opportunities in the city
  • Engage artists cross-generationally
  • Tell the story of People’s Community Center and Hilltop
  • Produce community-based artwork

In addition to the mural, two members of the cohort also went on to create artwork for a second opportunity inside of People’s Community Center, collecting and displaying oral histories of the neighborhood through a touch-activated artwork. As part of a third project, 15 artworks from 13 artists of color with strong ties to Hilltop were also purchased through an open application process for permanent public display inside the completed center. The completed mural and portable artworks are part of the City of Tacoma’s Municipal Art Collection. These public art projects were managed by the City of Tacoma’s Office of Arts and Cultural Vitality, in partnership with Parks Tacoma.

Learn more

Click image to view larger

peoples mural

Northwest Basket Weaving Designs - Melanie's Park

Northwest Basket Weaving Designs

Artwork Title: Northwest Basket Weaving Designs
Location: Melanie’s Park walkway
Selected Artist: Sharron Nelson and Denise Reed (Puyallup/Chinook)
Installation Date:
 February 2024
Budget: 
$20,000

With the development of Melanie Jan LaPlant Dressel (“Melanie’s”) Park, the Public Art Program identified an opportunity to feature artists from the Puyallup Tribe of Indians to commemorate the Native connection to the Tacoma waterfront. The park is in proximity to the main village site of the Tribe, approximately at today’s 15th and Pacific Ave intersection, and artwork provides an accessible way to communicate layered histories to park audiences.

In consultation with Puyallup Tribe staff, Sharron Nelson and Denise Reed were invited to submit designs for this project. Sharron is a master weaver and Puyallup Tribe Elder, and Denise is her daughter and educator for the Tribe’s Culture Department. The pavement layout was provided by artist, designer, and Puyallup Tribal member Chris Duenas. The designs were fabricated as concrete stamps by local company Tacoma Rubber Stamp and installed by the construction contractor.

These Coast Salish basket weaving designs come from Northwest basket weaving tradition. Sharron and Denise gather their own traditional weaving materials, such as cattails, tulle, sweet grass, bear grass, wild cherry bark, birch bark, cedar, and cedar roots. It takes more time to gather and prepare weaving materials than it does to actually weave a design. Some of these designs have been passed down for many generations. The weaving designs created by Sharron and Denise represent their tribal history and things that they love, such as the mountains, gathering, plants, the ocean, canoes, animals, and family.

Read more about Melanie Jan LaPlant Dressel Park

Perspectives of Truth - Eastside Community Center

Perspectives of Truth

Location: Eastside Community Center, wall above the center stairwell
Selected Artist: Lead artist: Tiffanny Hammonds, Youth artists: Lucia Cordova-Vazquez, Tasi Kaauamo, Yarah Enyart, Nathaly Lemus-Solis, Malu Kaauamo, Navecia Son, Skye Williams
Installation Date: June 2024
Budget: $10,000
Project Overview:

The mural, “Perspectives of Truth” is made up of four panels. From left to right the panels are centered on the themes of  “Culture”, “Community”, “Belief”, and “Identity”. Led by artist and teacher Tiffanny Hammonds, this piece was created in response to the recommendations from the Eastside Community Center Art Brief, completed in 2017. This series of panels explores themes of culture, community, belief, and identity using a collaborative artistic process with seven student artists from First Creek’s Club-B program. Over three months of twice-weekly meetings, the artists pushed their creative limits to convey messages through their work. Each artist contributed sketches for four themes, which were combined to create this mural.

Culture: This panel explores what culture is, how it impacts us now, and what the students feel future generations should be aware of. Culture encompasses the diverse elements that shape who we are, our choices, and our perspectives. Artists expressed their love for food, dance, family, diversity, clothing, and language. Discussions on cancel culture and social media emerged, highlighting its distortion of and exposure to various cultures. One of the artists mentioned how social media distorts the beauty of cultures while also exposing them to cultures they were unfamiliar with. Observing the detachment from traditional cultural values, the artists depicted hands holding a phone with a distorted black-and-white image of what’s in front of it, symbolizing the disconnection. One artist highlighted environmental change. Despite the varied color palette, the water was deliberately not blue to symbolize the destruction of our planet.

Community: Using sketches of portals, people holding hands, and villages, the artists depicted community. They created an image of individuals emerging from a portal, representing intergenerational connection, belonging, and love. Inspired by unifying landscapes, they included salmon to honor the Salishan Community and surrounding tribes, symbolizing unity and resources.

Belief: Initially focused on religion, artists expanded to belief in oneself and others. The image shows people navigating different hills, symbolizing personal journeys toward different beliefs. Everyone has a hill to climb. Those who don’t believe are depicted exiting the hills into a dark cloud. Sun, moon, and candles in the border remind us to be the light and believe in ourselves and our neighbors.

Identity: Continuing from belief, figures lost in a crowd represent isolation and imposed identities. The yellow figure embodies light, standing alone against adversity, symbolizing the importance of finding inner light for personal and communal healing.

Several perspectives share their versions of truth.

Read more

Phoenix - Eastside Community Center

Phoenix

Location: Eastside Community Center
Artist: Mauricio Robalino
Installation Date: 2019
Budget: $58,000

A vibrant 20 foot-tall bird-like sculpture titled “Phoenix”, welcomes visitors to the Eastside Community Center. Tacoma artist Mauricio Robalino developed the concept of a giant bird sculpture to celebrate the local wetlands, and welcome people to the new Eastside Community Center.

The look of the piece is inspired by the great blue herons that inhabit local wetlands. As a symbol of nature, the hope is that it reminds us to respect all living beings, and creations like art that living beings make.

A prominent “welcome” artwork was recommended through the Eastside Community Center Art Brief, a plan calling for specific art strategies to be implemented as part of the center’s goals to reflect the community and make the space inviting. Local artist team Christopher Paul Jordan and Kenji Stoll spearheaded the Art Brief project and developed the plan after a lengthy process of community engagement.

phoenix phoenix

Portable Works Purchase - Eastside Community Center

Portable Works Purchase

Location: Eastside Community Center
Selected Artists: Darishma Alphonse, Adika Bell, Jasmine Brown, Kate Cendejas Thun, Anthony Duenas, Lisa Fruichantie, Lourdes Jackson, Gwen Jones, Denis Maina, Gerardo Peña, Shaun Peterson, Kenya Shakoorm, Grace A Washington
Installation Date: January 2018
Budget: $14,000

In September 2017, a call was released encouraging Pierce County artists to submit existing original portable artworks for consideration of purchase and installation at the new Eastside Community Center. Eastside artists and residents, people with strong historical connections to the Eastside, people of Indigenous ancestry, and/or people of immigrant and refugee communities were especially encouraged to participate.

36 artists submitted applications, and work from 13 artists was selected. The budget is $14,000 in total purchases including any required framing and will not require a resolution for contract approval by the Board. The panel decided to reserve approximately $2,000 of the budget to make additional purchases later to fill gaps in representation missing from the current selections. The process for those purchases will be determined at a later date. The artworks selected represent a wide range of media and styles, and the artists selected come from many ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. All artists have geographic or cultural connections to the Eastside.

See the full collection

Salish Nettles - Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

Public ArtSalish Nettles

Artwork Title: Salish Nettles
Location: Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium – New Pacific Seas Aquarium
Selected Artist:
 Kait Rhoads
Installation Date:
 Summer 2018
Budget: 
$30,000

Kait Rhoads was chosen by a selection committee in April 2017.

She will create a unique, suspended glass artwork inspired by jellyfish. The artwork will be a grouping of three sculptural elements directly inspired by Sea Nettle Jellies, created with Rhoads’s signature “hollow murrine” technique (sections of blown glass tubing woven together with copper wire onto a metal structure).

The technique results in stunning glass artworks that play with light and structure in a unique way. Rhoads is passionate about marine life, ocean conservation, and community involvement. As part of her project, she is working with local youth organization Hilltop Artists and the Museum of Glass (MOG) on elements of fabrication.

What does it take to hang an 80-pound jellyfish? Find Out

Kait Rhoads is a Seattle glass artist inspired by the natural world. She has shown ocean-inspired work at the recent “Into the Deep” at Tacoma’s Museum of Glass, as well as exhibiting nationally and internationally for three decades. Rhoads has been artist-in-residence at museums around the country, with work in collections at the Corning Museum of Glass, NY to the Seattle Art Museum, WA, Shanghai Museum of Glass, China and many more.

Salish Sea Nettles

Shoal and Shimmer - Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

Artwork Title 1: ShoaPublic Art 4l

Artwork Title 2: Shimmer

Location: Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium – New Pacific Seas Aquarium
Selected Artist: Gordon Huether
Installation Date: summer 2018
Budget: $265,000

Gordon Huether was chosen by a selection committee for this project in May 2017. Huether will install two installations in the new Pacific Seas Aquarium. Both work with light, and play off of the incredible marine life showcased in the aquarium.

The first installation, Shoal, is inspired by a shoal of herring. Using hundreds of metal fish waterjet-cut in the artist’s studio, the installation will depicts the small, silvery school of herring that are abundant in the waters of Puget Sound. Colored LED lighing will cast a revolving cast of colors, changing the appearance of fish shapes.

The second installation, Shimmer, is inspired by the light shimmer found in the existing North Pacific Aquarium. The artist will capture and project video of the shimmer as an immersive installation, reminding viewers of the sensation of floating on the water. The two public art installations will be an integral part of the new aquarium, and will help tell the story of the ocean and our responsibility to protect it.

Gordon Huether, from Napa, CA, has made over 70 public art pieces from Austin, TX to the Bay Area, New York and Germany. He works to create a dialogue between the art and architecture of a site, enhancing people’s experience of a space with new perceptions.

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Public Art Shoal

Public Art Shimmer

 

Where Land Meets Sea - Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

Where Land Meets Seajost

Artwork Title: Where Land Meets Sea
Location: Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium – New Pacific Seas Aquarium
Selected Artist: Maria Jost
Installation Date: Summer 2018
Budget: $5,000

In June 2017, a selection committee chose Tacoma-based artist Maria Jost to create a mural that represents ocean life for the new Pacific Seas Aquarium at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. The 6’ x 15’ mural reflects the theme Where Land Meets the Sea. Jost’s intention is to showcase the dreamy beauty of the Puget Sound intertidal zone through use of a stylized aesthetic, while also staying true to the biology and physiology of the flora and fauna. Jost worked closely with PDZA staff to ensure key species were represented realistically, painting each element in ink and watercolor before creating a digital collage to form the mural. This is the largest piece that Jost has completed to date, and is a perfect fit, marrying her work as an artist and science teacher.

Maria Jost is a Tacoma illustrator and former scientist who teaches at the Science and Math Institute, which shares a facility with Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. Her whimsical yet calculated collage-drawings show a scientist’s take on nature’s beauty, most recently seen in her interactive “Sea Creature Scavenger Hunt” around West Seattle.

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pdza land meets sea mural