More interesting, however, are the works created specifically for the park. Along the waterfront,

Teresita Fernández, “Seattle Cloud Cover,” 2004–06, laminated glass with photographic design interlay,  and Alexander Calder, “Eagle,” 1971, steel.

furniture-maker and architect Roy McMakin has fashioned a seating area, with benches, tables and a tree, titled “Love & Loss.” Not far away, Louise Bourgeois has translated her interest in psychological themes and time into a fountain, “Father and Son.” In it, the two figures stand with hands stretched towards one another, separated by spraying water that shifts once an hour to obscure first one figure, then another. Teresita Fernández’s “Seattle Cloud Cover” is woven into the structural fabric of the trellis bridge that spans the railroad tracks. In this work, photographic images of the changing sky are laminated between two layers of glass, allowing viewers to peer through into the real sky beyond. Mark Dion has once again successfully mined the tradition of place, bringing a 60-foot-long nurse log (a decomposing trunk upon which insects and plants feed) he discovered in the Pacific Northwest into a greenhouse to recreate its rainforest environment.

Visitors are encouraged to use the microscopes and magnifying glasses supplied in the artist-designed cabinet to observe the fungi, lichen, slugs, insects and other life forms the log supports.
The park’s distance from SAM’s main facility and lack of entrance fees or fences (as stipulated in a $20 million endowment gift) creates a space that allows the art and its viewers to interact organically. And set against the sparkling backdrop of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountain peaks, could there be a better way to celebrate our love for creative expression?

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Rebecca Dimling Cochran, Art & Antiques’ Atlanta correspondent, is an art critic and curator.