If I saw this big boat sailing through Seattle rush hour traffic, it would completely make my day—gridlock or no. I guess it’s sort of a moot point for me, since I work from home, but if I had any sort of morning commute at all, I could totally see myself rockin’ it with this baby.
This Sunday my town is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the pagoda at Point Defiance Park. Originally a streetcar station, the building features an Arts & Crafts design, Japanese-style roof and Welsh ceramic roof tiles. A teenage arsonist nearly destroyed the structure in 2011, but the subsequent restoration brought back several of the original features that had been remodeled away over the years. The restored pagoda looks better than ever, and just in time—since it was just added to the National Historic Register.
So you can bet I’ll be there on Sunday, raising a toast to the next hundred years.
The Panama Hotel was the centerpiece of Seattle’s once-thriving Japanese community, until every one of the neighborhood’s residents was rounded up and imprisoned during World War II. Many stowed their personal belongings in the basement of the Panama for safekeeping—and never came back to claim them. The few who did return after the war found their homes and businesses had been sold out from under them. Japantown was finished.
To this day, the hotel is still stuffed with personal effects and artifacts from the war era. The Panama is now part hotel, part museum, part tea house. I sketched in the warm light of the front windows this week, trying to capture a sense of what Japantown must have felt like so many decades ago. But all I found was an overwhelming feeling of what has been lost to Seattle—and what will never return.
Every time I’m in Portland, it seems like I have a list of errands a mile long. Inevitably I get caught up in the bustle of the city, ticking items off my list, and usually only taking a break long enough for a hurried sketch now and then. But whenever I get the chance to visit the Japanese Garden, all the noise disappears and time seems to stand still.
Which, I’m pretty sure, is precisely the point of the place.
Wednesday’s post reminded me that like lighthouses, I seem to have a whole collection of farm field drawings—like this sketch I did last year. I always thought the inherent lesson in one-point perspective (sketching nerds unite!) is what made these fun to draw. But now I think it’s the geometry. There’s just something so satisfying about finding perfectly ordered stripes and shapes interrupting a wild, unpredictable landscape.
I did both of these sketches on the same road trip. What I love best about traveling this way is that it makes it so easy to see many facets of a complex country—all in one long stretch. If you want to go from a place where the buildings are so tall you have to look up to see the sky…
…to a landscape so vast you can see both ends of a freight train at once…
…all you have to do is get in the car and drive.
Last year the folks at Tacoma’s Broadway Center for the Performing Arts asked me to do a set of illustrations of their historic theaters. Then they kindly offered me a media sponsorship of one of their upcoming shows. I was happy to say yes (hey, free tickets for me and my friends!), but I didn’t give it much thought beyond that—the illustrations were plenty of fun on their own. But then they said, “We think we have the perfect show lined up for you.”
And that’s how I got to chat with Ira Glass yesterday. While I waited my turn at the meet-and-greet, I did what I always do: reach for pen and paper. The best part was the sketch turning into a collaboration—when Ira added the word bubble.
You know, as much I love Paul Bunyan and his mighty axe, I’m breathing a sigh of relief that he and his ilk haven’t gotten to every bit of forest on the continent. Because far better than any lumberjack (even a mythical one) is a patch of virgin, old growth forest. Thankfully, the only folks you’ll see among these towering douglas firs and red cedars are fellow tourists—carrying camera tripods instead of axes.
Just in case Paul Bunyan is looking to trade up… I think I found just the thing.
Well, I wouldn’t exactly call this statue the handsomest Paul Bunyan in the world, but you gotta love that plaid shirt and winning smile. He’s got plenty of moxie—which makes me think Portland is the perfect place for him.