Story Photos
 Photo by Dave Rubert University of Washington artist Gary Carpenter's terrazo table was one of a handful of student works chosen for the Salmon Art Trail project at the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. |
Art imitates wildlife
Friday, October 19, 2007 7:30 AM PDT
By Tom Paulu
Printable version
E-mail this articleILWACO -- It's not uncommon to stroll by a sign on a nature trail, with words and plexiglass-covered pictures trying to explain what you're seeing.
But this trail has flying metal fish and a colorful stone picnic table shaped like a dragonfly.
Five undergraduate art students from the University of Washington recently designed and installed works of art along a trail at the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge, adding to several art pieces already there.
The short Salmon Art Trail connects to a longer loop through the cool coastal forest, making a good place for an educational stroll for young and old.
The new trail opened three years ago along a stream that had been restored and reintroduced with chum salmon and cutthroat trout. The five new artworks were officially introduced during the refuge's 70th anniversary celebration last Saturday.
The Friends of Willapa raised the $80,000 needed to commission the new art -- it was not funded out of the refuge's budget. From 18 submissions, the group picked the five that were eventually built.
"Having the art dimension has really made it more interesting," said Katherine Mack Driscoll, president of the Willapa Friends. some of whose 500 members are identifiable by their "Honorary Amphibian" hats.
The students spent 50 to 60 hours a week over the summer assembling the works at their UW studios, said their professor, John Young. "You will not find a project like this anywhere else in the United States of America," he said.
He named his table "Charismatic Minifauna." It's a play on "charismatic megafauna" such as blue whales and giant pandas -- "animals people love to save," Carpenter said.
The species in Carpenter's table are mud-dependent and less glamorous, a deliberate choice becase the refuge staff wanted the artists' works to represent "smaller, underappreciated" species, the artist said.
His table has a dragonfly shape, and the benches represent a mud-dwelling worm, a giant waterbug and a juga snail.
"Everybody gets elk," said refuge manager Charlie Stenvall. "We're about migratory birds and biodiversity."
Near the dragonfly table, the Salmon Trail winds down a boardwalk that's accessible to people using wheelchairs. It's impossible to miss a 15-foot-tall abstract sculpture out on the mudflats. UW student Kristen Boraca created "Flock Spiral" to depict the upward flight of shorebirds. Those who don't mind slogging a few feet off the boardwalk can sit on a seat inside the white spiral.
Everyone on the path has to step over "A Story in Shards," made of hammered bits of bronze inserted in the boardwalk surface. Artist Allison Blevins made them to represent shards of oil created by the breakdown of plants at the refuge.
Farther up the trail are bronze sculptures of life stages of the tailed frog and western lampreys on a stone surface made by Jacqye Jones.
As people continue down the trail, they'll pass the contribution of Becca Weiss, a dozen painted aluminum birds that float on big, looping white stands.
Even more noticeable are a run of 50 metal chum nailed high in trees. They were installed by an earlier UW project when the boardwalk trail opened. "I think it really captures the idea of fish leaping in streams," Mack Driscoll said.
According to Mack Driscoll, the "amphibitheater," with its numerous bronze frogs and salamanders, is popular with children.
The Salmon Trail is about one-quarter mile long and leads to the Cutthroat Climb loop, which continues another two-thirds of a mile.
The loop rises -- and then falls -- steeply, with wooden steps making the going easier in places. A few huge old-growth hemlocks are interspersed among the smaller trees in the deep-woods experience.
Every few dozen yards, there's a nature lesson for young and old: The tracks of forest inhabitants such as deer, bear and raccoon are carved into slabs of tree truck. Lift up metal plates to uncover the names of the critter.
Plans call for eventually extending the trail another mile or so to the old-growth grove in Teal Slough, Mack Driscoll said.
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