Snohomish High art offers 'gateway'

Originally published Saturday, November 27, 1999

By AMY E. NEVALA
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Snohomish students call it the bug zapper for its neon lights. Though they walk, run and lunch beneath it during their high school careers, few know "Tops of the Arches" as art. The piece was commissioned in 1983 as part of the Washington State Arts Commission's Art in Public Places Program.

Reintroduced to their local courtyard art celebrity -- three tall, dark rectangle arches with jewellike neon red stripes running down the sides -- the students swap ideas of its meaning.

Junior Jamie Rinh, 16, says the piece makes her feel "confined" when she walks under the narrow slate walls, while sophomore Mike Petersen, 16, says that beneath the art he feels "protected from outer forms of life."

"It's futuristic, like a gateway to a different world," said sophomore Joe Bosler, 15.

That's what artist Jim Hirschfield intended. "The three slate and neon arches are symbolic of the passage or transition which students experience during high school," Hirschfield said. "Students move through adolescence to the beginnings of adulthood in three formative years."

"It was during that 'Star Wars' era," said Snohomish High School art teacher Susan Russell. "I've heard students say it reminds them of that."

Other public art pieces in the Snohomish schools include the long, narrow steel "Wedges" by Gerald McGinness, which stand in the Snohomish Freshman Campus courtyard. The school bought the pieces in 1982.

Three elementary schools in the Snohomish School District -- Cathcart, Dutch Hill and Machias -- also have public art pieces in and around their schools.

Snohomish senior Heather Barnes, 17, said "Tops of the Arches" sets her school apart. "It lights the place up," Barnes said, running her palm down the cold, smooth surface, over the fingerprints and rain splatters. "When you're walking around, your eyes are drawn to it."

"It gives our school a different twist," said sophomore Dustin Clark, 16. "It makes it more appealing."

Hirschfield said the cherry-red neon lights inlaid against the gray surface symbolize a setting sun piercing through dark storm clouds. "That's the way the sun sometimes comes through the clouds in the Northwest," he said.

Senior Dustin Diamond, 17, sees it another way. Nodding toward a building near the arches, he said the bright colors on the slate "light the way to detention."