Workers Destroy Sculpture Crew Disliked One Of Seven Works Of Art Near Creek

Members of the state Department of Transportation crew found the sculpture disturbing, so they destroyed it. Artist Chuck Iffland calls it “backhoe censorship.”

The work - one of seven installed without permits along the Hamm Creek trail near White Center to celebrate the stream’s restoration to ecological health - looked like something a “kind of psychotic person might get off on, but the average person would not,” said Mike Brace, a department foreman.

“It was as though somebody went out and found some skulls and bones laying out in the woods. I felt that that thing had to go right away.”

The six other pieces, all on state land, were not disturbed.

“It’s backhoe censorship,” sculptor Chuck Iffland said. “They didn’t like it and they trashed it.”

DOT spokesman Bill Southern said no one obtained official permits for the project. If the artists had sought permits, they probably would have gotten them, he said.

A notice was posted at the site Thursday informing the artists that they have 24 hours to remove the remaining works, Southern said.

“If you’re going to remove one piece, you’ve got to remove them all,” he said.

Southern said he was trying to arrange a meeting with the artists before the 24 hours was up and held out hope for a resolution.

“The object is not to slam art here,” he said, but the rules apply to everybody.

Iffland’s sculpture should not have been singled out, the spokesman said. But it was so different from the other pieces, which used natural materials including stone and wood, that Brace thought it had been “piggybacked” onto the outdoor exhibit.

Iffland’s 900-pound piece consisted of cast concrete heads and arms with hands hanging from a metal grid attached to a tree. Iffland called it a “technotopian artifact,” depicting a society that elevates technology without acknowledging its adverse effects - such as the near-destruction of Hamm Creek.

Matthew Lennon, curator of the installation, said the department could have handled things better.