Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Maybe Some Day Your Duckwalk Will Be In Bronze

I've known for years there was a bronze statue of Chuck Berry somewhere in Seattle, and I showed some images of it once that I found on the internet-- but it's exact location somehow eluded me.  Then a few weeks ago my friend Al told me to go check out the entrance to a new apartment building in an alley off Broadway.  And lo!  There it was.  (Fittingly, it's on the other side of the block from a statue of Jimi Hendrix, which I think was done by the same artist.) 

It's hard to trap lightning in a bottle, or to put motion and life into realistic bronze.  As a fan with my own idea about Chuck Berry, I'm not sure it happened here, or that it's happening in the St. Louis project.  (Surprisingly, the biggest problem with sculpting Chuck Berry seems to be the face!  I don't get that.  But in this one I give kudos to the right foot and lower leg.  It looks like real duckwalk to me.)  But hey-- an apartment building with a statue of Chuck Berry near the entrance?  If that's not my future retirement home, what else could it be?


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Doesn't really look like Chuck Berry to me :(

Anonymous said...

AMAZING..

Remo Prete said...

Doesn't really look like Chuck but it's great there is a statue of him :)

Just somebody said...

Hooray! This was the first web entry I found to reference this Chuck Berry bronze. Was trying to figure out exactly who it was. Anyone else know its history? I found it today too. FYI for anyone that's looking, it's in front of the Broadway Building apartments, 1641 Nagle Pl, Seattle, WA, bordering the west side of Cal Anderson park.