Cloud Haiku (Nickolus Meisel)

This piece sits at the South Lake Union Streetcar station on Westlake and Seventh Avenue. It consists of several bronze cast in the size and shape of pillows, each painted a subtle, non-invasive white. Each form, though when touched is hard and unyielding, appears soft and malleable, almost bending to the will of gravity as the soft pillows they appear to be might when strewn about in a seemingly random modus as these have been. Their arrangement seems intentionally scattered, in an almost fung shui style: five are arranged in a pile while three others stand up to several feet away in a more isolated manner. They’re well integrated into the pre-existing elements in the environment, such as the pavement and patches of shrubbery.

            This piece is well situated on Westlake Avenue in Downtown, and is passed daily by many. Its color and form give the piece a comforting and soft demeanor, a good contrast to the hustle and bustle of downtown. It can provide a momentary distraction for a mere passerby or serve as an extended setting for someone waiting at the bus stop. Either way, it’s a calming element put into a chaotic environment and is seemingly meant to alleviate the minds worries, if only for a short while.

            I have had a routine interaction with this piece for months prior to seeing it on our class walk without fully realizing it. They’re located on the route I walk to get to Westlake Bus Station, and only after passing them several times did I even begin to consciously project what I thought they were. Between this first realized projection and the class walk, I thought they were sandbags of some sort that had perhaps fallen off a truck and someone had thrown there to remain obstructing to pedestrian traffic. I had never thought much of them, but looking back I did always enjoy them as I passed – because I didn’t fully understand what the were or where they came from, I found a bit of mystery and humor in these strange form simply lying beside a streetcar station. They always made me smile, and even though I didn’t fully realize that they were a piece of art someone had created and place there for very specific reasons, it’s purpose was not lost. It was able to distract and ease my mind from the motivation behind the quick pace of my walk to the bus stop, and in my opinion was more successful than most art I see. It was able to affect me in it’s intended way without me even making a conscious effort to have some sort of reaction or interpretation of art, and that, to me, is what public art is about.