Day 22: Bikeless in Seattle

Early morning crows, along with boisterous teenagers (dangnabbit!) laughing on the shores of Fay-Bainbridge Beach Park, awoke Steve prematurely to a lovely day. Jackie was woken much more pleasantly to a quick fire, and water already boiled for coffee. Steve has spoiled her. A hurried packing of our camp enabled an earlier than planned ferry (yet again!) back to Seattle. Linda S. claims to have supernaturally good parking karma. We believe we have excellent ferry-catching karma. 

We returned the rental car and begin what would be a three hour process of dismantling Daisy outside of the Amtrak station and putting her into two boxes: one for the extra long tandem frame, and one for the wheels, racks, fenders, and handle bars. By the end we were tired, grumpy, and hungry. A cup of coffee later at Zeitgeist Coffee around the corner from King Street Station, we emerged grateful. We could finally walk free, liberated of our Stuff.

At the coffee shop we formulated plans to visit a couple of museums, wrote down the addresses, and headed out. We came upon several galleries in a row, the first being the Center on Contemporary Art. It featured a black tar paper-lined dance studio, a bathtub full of flour, and evidence of a very unusual, but interesting performance art piece where a dancer had covered herself in flour and used her body to create patterns and brush strokes along the walls. The performance was captured on a video, in which multiple moments of the performance were layered on top of each other. In theory, the concept was probably provocative; something about nostalgia, capturing memories, ephemerality, etc. In practice, we thought that the wall patterns were quite pretty.

The gallery next door, called SOIL, was housing an exhibit of 3 Mexican artists in front, and 1 local Seattle performance artist in the rear. We liked this collection best. Check out the pictures below. 

“Emerald Detritus.” The colors in this collection of common trinkets were more brilliant than they appear in this photo. The artist, Isuaro Huizar, found each object on the streets of Seattle.

“Draws of Perception: first expanded state (2017).” The artist, Rene Almanza, purportedly draws with one pen on each finger. We are impressed by his incredible detail. 

We didn’t catch the name or artist on this incredible piece of blown glass at the Pilchuk Glass School Gallery.

After quickly checking out yet another small gallery on that block, we headed towards the Seattle Art Museum. Throughout the week, Jackie had seen posters advertising an upcoming gallery exhibit at the SAM called Infinity Mirrors. Jackie really want to go, based on the trippy repetitive patterns on the posters and the name-recognition of Yayoi Kusama, a groundbreaking performance and visual artist from Japan. Unfortunately, we were greeted at the door with the news that it was a Members Only day… UNLESS you were from out of town and headed out tomorrow. “THAT’S US!” we shouted gleefully and ran up the stairs to Ticketing. There, a kind fella convinced us (perhaps too easily) to become SAM members, such that we could view the Infinity Mirrors Exhibit in this exclusive opening celebration. We would even have access to the Members Only Happy Hour. 

Infinity Mirrors really was spectacular (Steve) and wild (Jackie). Kusama LOVES polka dots; she’s known, in fact, as the Priestess of Polka dots. She also loves polka-dotted pumpkins, infinite repetition, and bright colors. One of her theories of love is that of communal obliteration through infinite repitition. It made sense to us in the moment, but now proves more difficult to explain. We recommend personal research on the matter. Check out our photos below.

To top off a colorful urban day, Linda S. picked us up from SAM and took us to one of her favorite restaurants, Duke’s Chowder House on Alki Beach in West Seattle, of award-winning chowder fame. Gloriously fed and totally tired, we returned to Linda’s house for another plush night of comfort. We watched a Tom Hanks movie (Linda, tell us again? How do you feel about Tom Hanks?), did laundry, and fell fast asleep.

Sweet Dreams.

“Mann und Maus” by Katharina Fritsch