Went to the opening of the new Olympic Sculpture Park with my friend Jeff. What an amazing space! Starting amid driftwood and beach sand at the waterfront, you cross several footpaths and bridges over railroad tracks and highways, to several terraces of grassy fields with outdoor art installations. My favorite was "Love & Loss" which is a picnic table and benches shaped like the words "love" and "loss" (the "V" of love is the "V" of a tree's bifurcating trunk; the ampersand is a neon red tube of light).
I also loved the giant typewriter eraser, which sits on a lawn overlooking Western Avenue. But the most famous piece is "Wake" by Richard Serra, which I thought was pretty boring, all rusted brown metal, in a shady corner, with no real sense of scale or originality, and already covered with scratched in graffiti. Why in the hell would you have outdoor art with signs that say "Don't touch. It harms the art?" What idiocy is this? Jeff and I used a magic marker to change some of the signs to say "Do touch. It charms the art." Hehehehe. We so bad. We have so much fun.

Later J and I went to the memorial for Chris Stern, the inimitable letterpress artist and typography guru. It took place at the Seattle School of Visual Concepts, and was just packed with friends, students, associates, and fellow free spirits and old hippies. So sad to know that he has passed on. Best wishes to Jules.