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Dan Webb: Break It Down

Destroyer (detail), 2012, Dan Webb, carved fir, 99 x 35 x 23 in., Private Collection, © Dan Webb.

Dan Webb: Break it Down

Jun 25 – Sep 5 2015

Olympic Sculpture Park

Kreielsheimer North Meadow

Continuing the tradition of compelling temporary summer installations at the Olympic Sculpture Park, SAM is proud to announce the commission of an original, site-specific work by Seattle artist Dan Webb.

Working on-site over the course of the summer in a studio “shack” built by the artist, Webb will whittle a second life for one of the Olympic Sculpture Park’s own Douglas fir trees, which is slated to be felled by the park’s gardeners.

The various objects that Webb carves from the tree will in turn become, as the artist describes, "the raw materials for yet more things, until the wood itself has been exhausted, and only sawdust is left." The tree’s seeds will finally be replanted into this mulch, growing in the park as a living record of the project.

Materials for Break it Down generously provided by Dunn Lumber.

Photos: Matt Sellars and Dan Webb.

Break It Down Timeline

​THE SHACK​

The Shack

Part 1: The Shack

The Shack
The Shack
the Shack
The Shack
The Shack
The Shack

​THE TREE​

The Tree
Dan Webb
Dan Webb
Dan Webb
Dan Webb

Part 2: The Tree

Dan Webb
Dan Webb

​THE CARVING​​

Part 3: The Carving

Dan Webb
Dan Webb
Dan Webb
Dan Webb
Dan Webb
Dan Webb

​THE DUST & THE SEEDS

The Sawdust


Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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