-Stay tuned.
Okay, Pete, how was that?
-Uh, weird.
-Good weird?
-No, more just weird.
♪♪
-Hi there, and welcome to the show.
I'm Nancy Guppy, coming to you from the beautiful
Tsutakawa Memorial Gates in Washington Park Arboretum.
Now, the original gates, installed in 1976,
were stolen in March 2020 --
a very sad moment for the community.
But there is a happy ending.
The gates were recreated and installed earlier this fall,
and we captured a few moments from that celebratory day.
-My name is Gerry Tsutakawa, and I am the fabricator
of these bronze gates that were stolen.
It was two and a half years ago when they were stolen.
And, of course, you know, there was a period of people
outraged and emotional grief and all that.
Then the foundation and the community really came together
and did the fundraising and asked me to build them.
When they were first stolen,
I said I didn't want to do it again
because it was too much work the first time.
But I realized, you know, it was up to me
because no one else could figure it out.
My father designed them, and I built them in '76,
and my father saved all the drawings.
So I had the original design.
The fabrication is very difficult.
There was 150 pieces of bronze here.
It's all flat sheet, and they all had to be custom-cut length
and welded together, and nothing was done on the computer.
So it was all hand-built.
So I took about three and a half months of full labor
with two people.
When we were installing, and since then,
I've been watching people, and they're really smiling
and they're really happy with this new location.
It's it is such a relief to have them back.
I'm really happy to see that it's come full circle
and instead of grief, it's a lot of happiness.
♪♪
The Tsutakawa Memorial Gates are located between Azalea Way
and the Visitor Center at Washington Park Arboretum.
More information is on their website.
We have a terrific show for you,
including a new neighborhood tour with Jed Dunkerley...
-It's a barbet.
-...the 27th Seattle Queer Film Festival,
and music from 38 Coffin.
-♪ Go so fast ♪
♪ And shine so bright ♪
♪ I'll fly you to the moon ♪
♪ Every night ♪
And we'll begin with glass artist Ryan Blythe.
-What type of work do I make?
It's gonna vary, day to day,
depending on, one, who's hiring me
or if I'm working for myself.
I am a Seattle-based glass artist
currently working off of Vashon Island.
And what we do here, we make blown-glass work
for a variety of clients.
Hello and welcome.
Come on in.
This is the studio I share on Vashon Island,
and we're gonna show you some of the pieces
I'm currently working on for Tiffany and Co.
What I've been doing mostly recently
is I've been hired by Tiffany and Company.
And so what I've been tasked with
is working closely with the creative director.
And we go through
and we're leaning heavily into the history of Tiffany glass,
and I have a lot of books that I research,
and I pick from there,
and I kind of smash them together into this new thing
that has never been done before by Tiffany.
And over here is my team that won't shut up.
A Bucheimer. Edgar Valentine.
One of the best things about glassmaking is the community
and also picking your team, and they kind of pick you, too.
So, the first thing we start doing,
to start off the process,
is we're gonna heat up some of this color bar.
And we're gonna put that on the blow pipe first.
♪♪
So, how I got started in glassmaking,
I originally went to school at RIT in Rochester, New York,
and I was studying industrial design.
I had a friend that was actually in the glass program,
and she took me to visit the glassblowing studio.
And once I saw that, I was hooked.
I knew that that is what I wanted to do.
Okay, so the next thing we're gonna do
is add a layer of this vanilla color.
We're gonna wrap this thing on here.
I come over like this, the bubble's gonna be right there,
and we're gonna spiral this on.
It's gonna look really cool.
My first job in Seattle,
I started working for Dale Chihuly.
I think I was 21,
and I was working at a shop in New Orleans,
and when I was ready to leave there,
I basically called one of the glassmakers
that I had met working down there,
basically just begged and harassed them
till I got a job on the small chandelier team
with Dale Chihuly, that only worked on weekends
and continue up the ladder there at Dale's.
So I've got these horizontal lines right now.
So what I want to do is grab at the bottom,
just kind of pull it all up.
One of the biggest life-changing events for me
was realizing that anytime on the Chihuly team
we worked with these Italians,
the work was just at another level.
And once I realized that that was happening,
I decided I wanted to move to Italy
and work with these masters.
I think that almost a year
that I spent there working with them,
it totally changed my relationship with the material.
I handled it so much differently.
And people noticed when I got back.
You know, they were, like, kind of stunned.
Even though it was only a year, it changed everything.
♪♪
Why did I move from Seattle to Vashon?
I think, like, a lot of us are seeing this in Seattle.
There was a cultural ecosystem that I used to thrive in,
especially in Georgetown,
which was this dirty little neighborhood,
couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting an artist.
The flavor of the community that created these artists,
these great works, and the rents were just getting doubled.
So I talked to my friend Brian out of Vashon, and I said,
"You know, I don't want a community presence anymore.
I just want to quietly work away at a small space
that I can turn off and on as I have projects."
And so we what we did, we hybridized my studio
with his studio,
and now we cohabitate in his space.
All right. So we got a nice surface heat on there.
That way, it won't crack when we spray it
with a room-temperature liquid.
And we watch in here.
You can watch it change all kinds of colors. Go ahead.
[ Machine whirring ]
♪♪
You know, a lot of us artists
will call ourselves storytellers,
and I think I'm good at that, and I think that, you know,
when you see these characters that I make,
whether I'm spoon-feeding you a narrative for that story,
you are gonna have enough bits and pieces there
to create a story for yourself.
My work is just, like, the point of departure.
Where you land is kind of up to you.
How's that? [ Laughs ]
♪♪
-Keep up with Ryan on Instagram.
Also, Chihuly Garden and Glass presents
the fourth annual Refract -- The Seattle Glass Experience.
This year's festival will be bigger and better than ever,
with over 50 arts organizations in the Pacific Northwest
offering in-person shows, demonstrations, exhibitions,
and parties, all focused on the glorious world of artists
working in glass.
Refract runs October 13 through 16,
and more information is at refractseattle.org.
♪♪
-It's time now for NARF --
Neighborhood Adventure Ramble with Friends
with your host, Jed Dunkerley.
-Hey there. Welcome back to NARF. It's been a while.
We are here today at perhaps the most
Seattley place in Seattle -- the Seattle Center.
But we're not here to go to the Space Needle.
We're here to look at some public art.
There's a lot of new additions.
There's a lot of under-appreciated marvels.
And there's a lot of hidden gems to be found.
And along the way, you can learn a lot about local history
and animals.
Who can resist?
Don't resist. Let's go take a look.
We're here at Gloria Bornstein's "Neototems."
You probably know it as "The Whales,"
but have you ever wondered, "Why are they here?"
I mean, whales are great, but why are these whales here?
There's a reason.
You see, in ancient times, there's a Native American myth
that there used to be an underground spring
that connected Elliot Bay with Lake Union,
that whales would swim through.
Now, you got to imagine whales
probably were in Lake Union at some point.
And you wonder how nobody's found this ancient spring.
But they have speculated that pre-locks, pre-ship canal,
whales could have ridden high-tidal bore
all the way up into Lake Union.
Bet you didn't know that.
But these aren't the only whales.
There's another one. Let's go see if we can find it.
♪♪
Here we are next to the children's theater.
And look, the rest of the whale. It's the tail.
Now, originally, the installation
was supposed to feature a whole pod of whales,
but it was cut short.
But they brought Gloria Bornstein
back seven years later to finish the job.
And this is actually a fountain when it works.
But whales aren't the only things
you can find in this garden.
There's plenty of other friends if you look around.
♪♪
All right, here's one of my favorites right here
in the corner by the box woods.
It's the octopus, strewn on a rock.
It looks like it was left here by the tide.
It doesn't look happy.
But I love it.
♪♪
All right, what have we got? What?
How long have those been there?
The answer -- since 1962.
Actually, they've been right here
in front of the Phelps Center since 1974.
Gift of the government of China
for their participation in the World's Fair,
right here in Seattle.
A different time.
♪♪
We're here in the courtyard of the Cornish Playhouse,
looking for a sculpture
by one of the great Pacific Northwest sculptors,
James Washington Jr., part of the Northwest School,
contemporaries to Mark Tobey and Morris Graves.
We've got a sculpture in here somewhere.
Where is it? Oh, my gosh.
It's a barbet, relative of the toucan.
But what is it doing here, covered up in greenery?
This guy's a legend.
I mean, he just had his fountain of triumph redone
and put up with a statue of him
by Barry Johnson at the corner of 24th and Union.
He's a Seattle legend, and his his work is here,
hidden, forgotten.
But now you know. See if you can find it.
♪♪
Okay, continuing on the theme of local history and animals,
here we are in front of the brand-new Climate Pledge Arena
at a really cool installation by comic artist Megan Kelso.
This is called "Crow Commute."
You can see crows in the background of all these panels.
It starts out with this central panel,
"From Time Immemorial" and celebrates this area,
from the '60s to the present, with these little vignettes.
Here we are at a brand-new sculpture
by Climate Pledge Arena called "La Diab Pish,"
which means "The Devil Fish."
And it's in honor of our newest
professional sports team here in Seattle.
A little local history -- the Kraken.
It is the octopus by local artists
Preston Singletary and David Franklin.
To finish up our tour of local history,
we sort of come to the end and the beginning.
This is an homage to particle colliders,
subatomic physics,
by local artist Norie Sato, called "Chikara No Hikari,"
which means "Light of Power."
And I just love that in front of our sports arena,
whereas other cities would have statues to local sports heroes,
we have an homage to particle physics.
All right, well, to wrap up, whereas most public art,
you kind of got to get on the Internet
and do some research yourself,
the Seattle Center makes everything really easy for you
with these mappy kiosk things they've installed.
There's one here by the fountain.
Another one over by the Space Needle.
All you do is pull out your phone and click on the QR code,
and you can pull up your own map.
It's not working, but for you it will.
And, you know, enjoy.
Go out there and see what you can find.
It never hurts to look.
So until next time, keep NARFing. Have fun.
See what you can see.
♪♪
Our band this week is 38 Coffin, featuring Lauren Goffin,
Emi Pop, Lindsay Scarey, and Dain Hudson
performing "Cars, Babes, Rock 'n Roll"
from their debut LP.
♪♪
-♪ Go so fast ♪
♪ And shine so bright ♪
♪ I'll fly you to the moon ♪
♪ Every night ♪
♪ I feel broke apart ♪
♪ You'll need to repair ♪
♪ You love it enough ♪
♪ Till I get down there ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪♪
♪ You want it so bad ♪
♪ You'll drive for miles ♪
♪ Try so hard ♪
♪ Still got no style ♪
♪ Look around ♪
♪ There's so many squares ♪
♪ You can't be cool ♪
♪ Till you don't care ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪ Can't you hear ♪
♪ Our blues beat? ♪
♪ Got the moves ♪
♪ Of all time street ♪
♪ We like to listen ♪
♪ Real loud ♪
♪ If you don't know now ♪
♪ I'll show you how ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪ Cars ♪
♪ Babes and rock 'n' roll ♪
♪♪
-Pick up 38 Coffin in record stores and on Bandcamp,
and catch the band live Friday, October 28th
at Jules Maes Saloon,
Saturday, October 29th at Slim's Last Chance,
Friday, November 4th at Darrell's Tavern,
and Thursday, November 10th
at the hugely popular Freakout Festival.
♪♪
One more item for your "out and about" calendar.
The 27th Seattle Queer Film Festival
is back with 10 days
of in-person and virtual screenings
of 150 films representing 27 countries.
Opening Night kicks off
with the highly anticipated world premiere of
"What the Funk?!" and Closing Night
features the U.S. premiere of "Golden Delicious."
-Sorry, I didn't see you there. -It's my bad.
The Seattle Queer Film Festival runs October 13th
through the 23rd, and the full schedule,
along with ticket and pass information,
is at threedollarbillcinema.org.
And that's a wrap. Thanks so much for tuning in.
Have a great week, and we will see you real soon.
Mm, this needs a little attention.
♪♪
Much better.
They should probably hire me for this.
I can do it. I'm a team player.
Don't need a lot of money.
Minimum wage is fine.
Yeah, I think that's pretty.
♪♪