Betty Bowen Viewpoint Newly Restored

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This is a setting I enjoy often and from which I've made several photos to show you in past years here and here. It is a viewpoint within small Marshall Park at the west end of West Highland Drive. In 1977 Seattle's famed architect Victor Steinbrueck headed up the effort to create an art installation as an homage to deceased writer and arts patron Betty Bowen, a life long Queen Anne resident. She had long been involved as an advocate to develop little Marshall Park into an attractive gathering area where residents and visitors alike could enjoy the beauty of the Sound and enjoy the open green space where sunset over the Olympics is the highlight of the day. Steinbrueck organized the creation of a seating area surrounded by a curved cement path in which are embedded mosaics created by himself, Guy Anderson, Harold Balazs, Kenneth Callahan, Richard Gilkey, Morris Graves, Charles Stokes, and Margaret Tompkins. None of the mosaics were signed, and after 30 years, the installation was in need of some cleaning and restoration. That volunteer effort has just been completed and celebrated with a gathering and installation of a plaque that finally tells visitors which artist created which mosaic and credits the many friends who helped in the viewpoint's completion.

This iPhone shot features the view rather than the art work (underfoot of a woman and her dog out for a sunny afternoon walk). You can see a huge cruise ship in the new Smith Cove cruise ship terminal in Magnolia, the Magnolia bridge, Bainbridge Island across the Sound, and beyond that the rare view of a snowless Olympic range.