Retired LC Prof Bruce West has sold a lot of his stuff. To us.

West has been sculpting abstracts of local mountain vistas for dozens of years. Chugging along, and selling a lot of them to our government. Which park them and forget them. Well, why not?

How Land Form looked in 1976 when first installed.


How Land Form looks now. Stronghold of squirrels.


I attended the Acorn Festival at Lair Hill Park recently with about 600 squirrels and this behemoth. Man is such a speck, we ponder beyond Descarte, how do we know WE exist collectively? What will be here in a thousand years? What will tell our tale?

Spray paint. Where’s RACC?

Well, squirrels. Definitely. And probably this thing. Ugly as hell.


More spray paint mess. Is this art or vandalism? A puzzle. I guess it’s art because it’s been here for years. An augmentation. An intervention. An appropriation. Something.

The squirrels did not contribute the spray paint.

Below is what the Waterfront Park Stage looked like in 1978 when it was first installed. Bruce West made the beautiful groovy backdrop to a performance space / plaza, and entrance what was at the time to only access point on the west side to the river. (Now only at Harborside Marina if you have a key or clumber down to the waterline below about Market Street.)

(Actually there’s a neat hidden bit of beach about 300 yards beyond Harborside, directly under the Marquam.)

Here it is now. The Big Dig sewer has churned up Waterfront Park leaving this piece behind cyclone fence for the past year or so. The surrounding brickwork will need replacing, and all the wood is rotten. Lamps will need to be replaced. We’ll see…


Transit Mall thing politely titled, untitled. Part of the 1976 or 77 splurg on low-maintenance art for the Mall startup.

Can we get exchange this untitled thing for a picnic table?

People forget how the construction of the Transit Mall bankrupted dozens of small businesses on 4th, 5th, 6th and Broadway.

Below, another Bruce West artwork, in the Pittock Block main lobby. Security Guard says, “That’s art? You’re kidding, right? Lemme write this down!”