CULTURE & ARTS
O
I was mortified as I have never
been much of a rule breaker.
n Monday October 15,
Later that day I researched the
Seattle lost its cornerstone and
sculpture and it turns out it is
pillar of culture, Paul Allen who
owned by Paul Allen and is part of
died at age 65 from septic shock,
the Paul G. Allen Family Collection.
as a result of non--Hodgkin’s
While the sculpture is now located
Lymphoma. Allen most notably
at Seattle Center this was really the
known as the co-founder of Microsoft
first time I researched Paul Allen. At
leaves a monolithic legacy behind.
the time I knew what most people
know, Allen co-founded Microsoft
After hearing of the news, I thought
with childhood friend Bill Gates. Ironic
back to 2010. During my high school
to think that he would purchase an
years, I took my first art class at a
art piece that he and Gates made
community college. There was one
irrelevant by way of computers
assignment that I will never forget from
replacing typewriters.
both the learning experience and partly
from shear embarrassment. We were to
find a local sculpture take a picture in front
of it, discuss it in terms of concepts used and
provide a history. Pretty straightforward.
In 2015 Allen, an avid art collector
whose personal collection included old
masters, impressionists and modern art
from Renior to Rothko, established the
Seattle Art Fair, the first and only major
During a trip to Seattle with my parents I
art fair in the Pacific Northwest. The fair
visited the Olympic Sculpture Park and found
brought in artists like David Zwirner,
a large and captivating sculpture. My mom
Gagosian and Pace in its first year. Allen
explained that it was a typewriter eraser,
also commissioned pieces by local artists,
something I’ve never seen before thanks to
like the typewriter eraser.
technology. The sculpture sat on a busy street
and on a slight grassy hill with an knee height
fence surrounding the sculpture park.
I proceeded to stand near the sculpture from the
sidewalk as my mom took the picture. She kept
telling me to cross the fence to get closer in order
for her to get everything in the shot. I was very
reluctant and for a good reason because the second
I crossed the fence a speaker started blasting saying,
“Get off the grass now, , you are being videotaped!”
My mom quickly snapped the picture and
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LimeLight
“If I can give people
a little bit of that
experience and open
their eyes to the
different possibilities of
painting and sculpture
and other forms of
art, that would be a
fantastic outcome.”
LimeLight
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