Public and private art bloom near 'ugly' strip

Originally published Saturday, March 29, 1997

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

People who don't know about the nice homes and the dynamic diversity of Lake City might get a negative image of the community from Lake City Way.

Lake City Way is part of a state highway that wraps around the north end of Lake Washington and travels to Monroe. Its influence on Lake City's business district has been profound. A preponderance of auto dealerships and car shops -- coupled with a lack of landscaping, sidewalks and public art -- has left Lake City Way Northeast an unappealing thoroughfare.

"Visually, it's pretty ugly," says artist Joline El-Hai, who lives in Greenwood and has a studio at the Cedar Park Arts Center.

The arts center was founded in 1981, shortly after the Seattle Public Schools shut down the Cedar Park Elementary because of declining enrollment.

In all, 17 people -- including five children -- live and work in the converted school. Six other artists rent studio space there, says Anne Paisley, who shares two former classrooms with her husband, Alan, their daughter, two cats and two poodles.

In addition to their own artwork, members of the center are backing a proposal to turn a two-acre asphalt playground into a new community park, says Paisley.

Her neighbors down the hall include Sandy Silva and her husband, David Jacobson, who live in the school's auditorium, which still has a stage. Silva is a professional dancer who tours extensively, while her sculptor-husband is working on a series of large concrete busts of H.G. Wells, Buster Keaton and other famous people.

"For me, it's been an amazing space," says Silva. "To live and work in one place and not have outrageously expensive rent -- I love it."

Lake City's foray into public art is something of a controversy. "The Flying Potatoes" is what Anne Paisley calls the concrete castings that sit in the median of Lake City Way near Northeast 123rd Street. Paisley and her husband, a musician, help manage the arts center.

Del Mastro, who was around when the gateway art was installed, says city planners picked it. In a 1980 newspaper interview, artist Mike Sweeney says the boulders suggested "wilderness" and the geometric steel beams on top "suggest the motion of nature." Others have said they look like butter knives cutting potatoes.

Since the art was tied to funding for the landscaped Lake City "gateway," the community accepted the art, though some residents were not very enthusiastic, Del Mastro says.