Gallery
Tracking Shelter

© 1998 Pam Beyette, all rights reserved
Medium: Laser-cut and painted steel
Located at N. 46th St. & Phinney Ave. N. in Seattle

Tracking Shelter
In the shadow of Woodland Park Zoo, a menagerie of animal silhouettes and animal tracks can be seen daily. Unlike their real life cousins next door at the zoo, this collection of animal shapes roam free atop a bus shelter at 46th Avenue North and Phinney Avenue North.

Inside the bus shelter, there are several plaques with animal tracks and text from the animal’s point of view etched in copper. While waiting to catch a bus, riders can guess which tracks match which animals while discovering more about the animal’s habits and natural environments.

Most of the animals depicted in the bus shelter are native to the Pacific Northwest region. The animal silhouettes are cut from ¼" steel and attached around the top of the shelter with silicon bronze bolts. Encircling the bottom perimeter of the shelter, animal are cut through the steel panels. The laser-cut steel was cut by Laser Craft Inc. in Auburn (253-939-0176). Looking like a wilderness caravan, the animal shapes are visible from several vantage points around the bus shelter.

Tracking Shelter" includes the Great Blue Heron, River Otter, Grey Wolf, Cougar, White-Tailed Deer and Grey Fox. Can you tell which of these animals are speaking below?

"Frolicsome fun loving clowns, the lot of us. Wild and waggish, we twist and turn, roll and slide in our daily blur of non-stop hi-jinks and horseplay. Play today gone tomorrow, that’s our motto."

"In the half-light of dawn, while the moon fades to a wisp of chalky gray, high above stands of ash, birch, polar and pine, I step lithely, scanning the landscape with keen eyes, ready to bound away in breathtaking leaps at the slightest movement."

"I huddle in my den alert to every sound waiting for darkness to mask my shyness. Once above ground, I swiftly change to a cunning, agile and cagey hunter until the light of dawn smothers my brashness and drives me underground."

Artist Pam Beyette
Pam can be sighted in the zoo’s neighborhood where she lives and works. Her "art tracks" can be seen around the country. From her back yard warren she can hear the Woodland Park zoo animals.

Her images, words and symbols are glazed and etched on tiles; embedded in colored mosaics; sandblasted into granite and marble and etched and cut into bronze and copper and other metals.

Animal Prose:
Pam frequently collaborates with writer, Michael Hamilton, whose prose is inscribed in this shelter from an animal’s point of view.

Funding
This commission was funded by the King County Public Art Program, Metro Transit Facilities, and the Seattle Arts Commission in 1998.