Comet Lands Under Bridge Bloomsday Sculptor Puts Parts From Old Steam Plant To Good Use

The artist who created the Bloomsday runners in Riverfront Park unveiled another sculpture in Spokane on Monday afternoon.

This one’s a little interactive.

David Govedare’s colorful 40-foot-long sculpture, “Steam Plant Comet Show,” is mounted on a wall beneath the railroad tracks on the east side of Lincoln Street in downtown Spokane.

The wall relief looks like giant overlapping dahlias. Long pipes extend from orange and yellow heads.

Made from steam pipes and valves from the old steam-heat plant downtown, the sculpture brightens the spot while paying tribute to the landmark’s industrial past, Govedare said.

Two rotating steam valves, like iron steering wheels, beg to be spun by passing hands.

“Those are prayer wheels,” Govedare said during the public unveiling.

He said he hopes everyone who walks past the sculpture will spin a wheel for good luck and for his or her dreams.

“Maybe eventually, the paint will be worn off them,” he said.

Govedare’s art is the result of a joint project of Steam Plant Square, Davenport Arts District and the Spokane Arts Commission.

A year ago, the Steam Plant Square renovation project - backed by Wells & Co. and Avista - cleaned up the area. But underpasses were painted without contacting the Spokane Arts Commission, and in the process, several murals done by local artists were covered.

The Post Street underpass featured the locally well-known “oooeee dogs” mural, said Karen Mobley, arts director for the city of Spokane.

“This is basically the apology,” she said.

The art project was put out to bid, and Govedare, Spokane’s most visible sculptor and the creator of the wild horses sculpture on a hill near Vantage, Wash., was chosen. The steam plant sculpture cost $6,700, plus installation.

Govedare began by surveying a warehouse basement filled with scrap metal from the old steam plant, some of it seeping black ooze, the sculptor said.

“We had this vast basement full of valves, pipes and cast-iron doors,” Govedare said. “It was kind of daunting looking at it.”

The result is a piece of art given to the community, said Kim PearmanGillman, chairwoman of the Davenport Arts District and senior vice president of Avista Development.

The underpass is a gateway to the downtown arts district, which will receive a boost with the renovations of the Davenport Hotel and the Fox Theater, Pearman-Gillman said.

The underpass also is on the direct route from a parking lot to Steam Plant Square.

The steam plant renovators installed new lights in the underpass to illuminate the sculpture, laid brick to give it an old feel and erected splash guards for pedestrians, PearmanGillman said.

Three times a week, crews paint over graffiti on the walls.

“It is part of reclaiming a public space,” Pearman-Gillman said. “This whole area is going through a transformation.”