Fantastic Mural by Paige Pettibon
We toured the new Northgate Kraken Community Iceplex practice facility for the Seattle Kraken NHL team a few weeks ago. It is a really top notch facility for viewing the Kraken practices and will become quite the hub for ice sports in the Seattle area.
Two things really struck me, the first was how malls, like Northgate, are reinventing themselves in the face of a changing retail environment, i.e. the rise of internet retail. The malls used to be a destination in and of themselves, but now they have learned that they need a draw beyond shopping. This is an example of that.
The second was the fantastic mural by Tacoma based artist Paige Pettibon who is Black, white, and Salish (from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes). I was really struck with how beautiful and powerful it is. The weaving of traditional motifs with a hint of the Kraken was wonderful.
You should follow Ms. Pettibon’s Instagram feed, her work is multifaceted, beautiful, and utterly amazing.
“[This mural] is a way of welcoming [the community] to learn our culture through our eyes. I like to think of it as a way of bringing people together. I want people to have [the mural] be theirs in their own way where they look at it. There is a lot of intention there in the art piece, but I always want people to have their own take away from it, too.
A traditional teaching is that you listen to a narrative, and you get to take away the moral of that story. And that the moral of the story can change with you over time. And that’s what I think about my work, too.”
Paige Pettibon from the Starbucks Profile
Thanks to the Kraken Community Iceplex social media staff who graciously helped me for this.
