Park fountain makes a splash
Those who patronized Pig Out in the Park last weekend — and it always seems like that’s everybody in Spokane and Kootenai counties — found a treat for their visual as well as taste buds.
Some 30 years after it was envisioned, a dramatic fountain now graces the pedestrian entrance to Riverfront Park, taking its place among the city of Spokane’s growing collection of public art.
It was worth the wait.
As the customary crowd meandered through the park, savoring sausages and sipping lemonade, many made it a point to check out the shiny new feature, beneath which kids splashed and above which the distinctive metal sculpture of veteran Spokane artist Harold Balazs provided a crowning accent.
True, not everyone is cheering. In tough financial times like these, it’s easy to forget the civic value of an amenity like this. Easy to dismiss it as a frivolous extravagance and to fret over the funding it siphons from other, more urgent, more tangible concerns.
In this case, the $1.4 million cost of the fountain was made affordable by two separate expressions of public spiritedness.
It was Spokane Rotary Club 21 that built public enthusiasm for the idea and backed it up with an $850,000 fund-raising effort to pay for the fountain. The Spokane Park Board then picked up the balance by tapping bond proceeds that Spokane voters had approved earlier for capital projects, not general operating expenses.
As a result, Riverfront Park now boasts an eye-catching adornment that’s fun for youngsters and memorable for residents and visitors. If the fountain forms an image that tourists and convention-goers take home with them as part of their Spokane vision, it may help lure some of them back.
And for those who fancy a cityscape enriched by artistic accents, the fountain is a welcome and lively addition. Balazs’ work is familiar, of course, including sculptures in the Spokane River and by the Opera House. So is Ken Speiring’s, which includes not only his well-used red wagon in the park but also his bronze likeness of friend Balazs, pushing a wheelbarrow, in a tribute to the Sisters of Providence farther east on the south bank of the river. David Govedare’s Bloomsday runners at the southwest corner of the park are familiar to just about everyone who ventures downtown.
These and other public artworks could be – and have been – challenged on cost grounds, because the contribution they make to community life and well-being is hard to translate into concrete dollars-and-cents terms. Indeed, the Park Board almost pulled the plug during a faint-hearted moment two years ago.
For the sake of Spokane’s personality and vitality, it’s a good thing they let that moment pass.