West Seattle sculptor Lezlie Jane created 10 vertical brass panels that are now installed on the Equity Residential building on the South East corner of the West Seattle Junction. Jane said she was born in the same spot back when it was occupied by the West Seattle General Hospital.
Some new art now graces the Equity Residential Building on the corner of California Ave SW and SW Alaska Streets depicting scenes from this area's history. The ten 12 inch by 39inch vertical brass panels occupy recessed spaces on the columns of the building on both streets. But there's something very special about this work.
The artwork was done by West Seattle sculptor Lezlie Jane who was quite literally born in the West Seattle Junction. From 1938 to 1961 the second floor of the building there was occupied by the West Seattle General Hospital which was West Seattle’s primary health center until it moved into larger quarters on Holden Street in 1961. "I knew I was born in the West Seattle Hospital in the Junction but I never figured it out until I got this project."
Jane, whose artwork can be found in many places around West Seattle (her work Luna Girls is just north of Salty's on Alki) was commissioned by Equity Residential to create the panels which include The Alki Point Lighthouse (where for 40 years someone would hang a kerosene lamp), The geographic legacy of West Seattle (celebrating our 4.8 miles of public waterfront), The Duwamish indian tribe, Seattle firefighters (Engine 32), the Street car that in the early years of the 20th Century ran down California Ave SW, City views of Seattle then and now (which includes the ferry Kalakala sailing past a modern skyline), and the famous "Mudhole" on Point Williams now occupied by Colman Pool. That particular panel has a female figure poised to dive in. "That is my Grandmother, Emily Brown from a photograph in 1922 when my Grand parents came from Montana on vacation. My gramma couldn't swim or anything but my grampa, James Hugh Brown was an amateur photographer with his own darkroom. She would pose for him. So I put her on the diving board there. If you stand in that spot, in the background you see "The Brothers" in the Olympic Mountains."
Jane said, "This is the kind of art I make. I think in big pictures. To go to the kind of dedication that I have when i create something, if it's not going to last I don't know why I would do it. I think I'm an old fashioned classical sculptor and I make things that last forever. I appreciate all art but for me, this is the kind of art I have to make."
