A Psychedelic Turtle?

On a weekend in mid-September,  A group of Wallingford neighbors came together to repaint the street mural of ‘Bubbles the Turtle’. I recently walked by the intersection of North 41st and Interlaken Avenue North, one block west of Hamilton Middle School, and was struck by the size of this art piece, the bold colors of green, red, and blue, and the swirling shapes.

My first thought was that it had an almost psychedelic feel to it. No, I didn’t go into an alternate state of consciousness, but I was a little puzzled because I couldn’t quite make out the shape of the turtle. It wasn’t until Carolyn Wei, a neighborhood organizer involved in the project, sent Wallyhood a link to a video, shot using a drone, and piloted by Jonathan Martinez, during the repainting, that I was able to discern the shape of Bubbles from the bubbles!  In this picture taken by the drone, the dark figures are the shadows of volunteers at work.

Carolyn wrote to us that they had seventy-five people from the neighborhood come through that weekend to help with the power-washing and actual painting. Bubbles was originally painted back in 2010, and was designed by Rachel Marccotte, a local graphic artist, with volunteers free-hand painting it. To withstand cars driving over it, they used traffic-grade paint, the same type used to paint traffic lanes, but obviously in custom colors. The neighbors try and repaint the Bubbles every two to three years due to wear and tear, but this last happened back in 2019.  Supplies were paid for by donations from neighbors and Tweedy and Pop Hardware.

In an article in the Seattle Times, in August of 2010, Neighborhood resident, Ella Sauer, age eight at the time, was credited with coming up with the idea of making the mural a logger head turtle, because she said ‘” I like Turtles a lot.” The original painting required permits from the city, that included at least sixty percent of neighbors on both streets to sign off on it, but it with a great deal of volunteer outreach, it was unanimously approved. A $1200 Matching Funds grant paid for the materials and various other costs.

Carolyn wrote us that this year’s repainting was another great community building experience, “since we work together to plan the project, and need community buy-in to execute it (e.g. give a heads up that we are closing the intersection for the weekend, get volunteer help and fund raise).” I can’t help but think how every time a resident near that intersection drives or walks by or through it is reminded of the amazing things that a group of creative people can do together!