Spokane digital sculpture tour makes viewing, learning about artworks more easily accessible

Ken Spiering and his welding students put the finishing touches on their steel creation “Mountain Sheep” during the early morning hours of May 4, 1974, the first day of Expo ’74. Walking upstream against the traffic of eager visitors to put their equipment away, they had no idea what a landmark their life-sized sheep would become.

That sculpture is now cemented into the city’s artistic and historical canon, and is one of the featured statues on a new online tour.

To consolidate renowned works such as Spiering’s, Spokane Arts and Visit Spokane are host to an interactive digital sculpture tour featuring more than 50 pieces of art. The platform aims to create an easily accessible resource for people interested in learning about Spokane’s sculptures.

Karen Mobley, a program contractor with Spokane Arts, says the website – easily accessible via mobile device – will give people the initiative to immerse themselves in Spokane’s

“It gives people a start into the adventure of learning about the city, its history and its people,” Mobley said.

Each piece on the web platform contains a brief explanation of the installation and the artist behind it.

“If you follow the public art story in Spokane you can learn more about the tribes, the workers, the runners and you can have fun and interactive experiences,” Mobley said. “Public art is both serious and fun.”

Spiering is the brainchild behind some of the most iconic pieces in the city’s history also featured on the tour, including the “Big Red Wagon.” He’s seen firsthand the impact public art brings to the community.

After working long 18-hour workdays for months to create the world’s largest Radio flyer wagon, in 1990 he finally finished the piece.

He was interested in seeing people’s reactions to the 26-ton piece as they came around the corner, so on a cool spring day, he sat on a bench by the sculpture, and watched a young father pushing a kid in a stroller pass by.

“I’m thinking, ‘How’s the kid going to react?’ Well, the kid jumps out of the stroller and he starts running toward the wagon, and the dad was saying ‘come back here,’” he said. “He clamored up the stairs on all fours to go up onto the wagon and then come down the slide, and I thought ‘Man, how cool is this?’ ”

Soon enough the dad joined in on the fun, and the pair became one of the first families to enjoy the unique play area.

“This is why I built the piece, so it could be something that parents interacted with their children as their children interacted with the wagon,” he said. “And so that was probably the most spiritually rewarding piece of all.”

In today’s digital age, he worries about the sculptures being treated as selfie destinations rather than works of art to engage with.

“If it becomes that kind of activity for people, I’m not so sure it deepens any understanding whatsoever about public art,” he said. “Public art has to be experienced by sometimes just coming on it as a discovery, even though you didn’t make it a destination.”