Saturday, October 11, 2008

More Cheap South End Fun: Western Bridge

Friday I finally checked out Western Bridge, a free art "venue" in Sodo.

I love their stealth front door -- clever!

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The main exhibit right now is this huge white-on-white painting that stretches across the walls and onto the floor. It looks like shadows of trees coming in through big, high horizontal windows. Which confused me a little at first since the building does have big, high horizontal windows. Except it's on 4th Ave. South, so there are no trees around. (Also, a shadow would bend at the corner.) It's like a trompe l'oeil for the stupid and/or unobservant.

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Another exhibit featured very dark photos of the banks of the Amazon. I didn't love the art, but I did love the building itself and decided that I wanted to live there.

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This feeling got much stronger when I wandered into the living area upstairs.

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The other two patrons were hesitant to enter this section, as it didn't seem like people were supposed to come in. But I told them they had to because it was the best part.

The tub is sunken into the cement.

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This place belongs on the hipster street of dreams.

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And it's just two blocks from Costco!

Western Bridge is open noon to six, Thursday - Saturday. It's located at 3412 Fourth Avenue South. 206-838-7444. Admission is free.

6 comments:

trellis said...

Where do you discover these gems? I'm gonna have to visit.

JvA said...

I guess I just hear about them and have mentally filed them away.

The Stranger reviews Western Bridge exhibits. And the Museum of Communications is always advertised as part of the Georgetown Garden Walk.

The Georgetown Power Station Museum is also advertised as part of the Garden Walk, but it's closed in the fall/winter months.

I think next I want to go to the new Kazoo Museum (which I heard about on KUOW -- not sure where it is) and the Frye Art Museum. There's a Museum of the Mysteries on Broadway.

I tried to find a list of obscure Seattle museums on the Internet but had no luck.

Anonymous said...

As far as free museums go, the Frye is one of the best in the Seattle area. Over the past couple years they've had pretty decent traveling exhibit too.
Hope you enjoy it!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info - I had not heard of this and will now check it out.

I couldn't tell from the picture on this computer - does the painting of the shadows extend onto the wood floor?

JvA said...

Yes, it does!

Unknown said...

TOTALLY stealing the tub idea. Well, when I'm brave enough to move forward with the bathroom addition, anyway.