Artist’s winged towers harken public to center

Heading west on Fifth Avenue from Altamont Street, you can’t help but see it: like a bright yellow beacon, one of local artist Roger Ralston’s “Liberty Wings” leads the way to the renovated Liberty Aquatic Center.

There are two wings, one on each side of the gazebo leading into the new pool. They are abstract wind vanes perched on top of 15-foot-tall support towers made out of galvanized steel. The wings themselves are 10 feet tall – one is bright yellow, the other grayish.

Ralston also made wind vanes for the newly reopened Freya Street Bridge, and he’s the creator of the Caterpillar Boogie Woogie, which is mounted inside the Spokane Falls Community College library.

Liberty Aquatic Center was constructed with funds from the parks improvement bond voters passed in 2007, and it opens Monday alongside the five other new aquatic centers.

The Spokane Arts Commission worked with an art selection committee and coordinated art by six local artists to be placed at the new aquatics centers.

The Liberty Aquatic Center, located at Fifth Avenue and Pittsburg Street, features a water slide, six 25-yard lap lanes and a big play structure in the pool.