Trouble in the Air - Rainier Vista Community Whirligig
Artists: Carl Smool, Mary Coss and Anna Balint with students from Asa Mercer Middle School.
Location: Rainier Vista - Community Park
Description: Public Art Workshop, stainless steel and acrylic paint, 2006
Funding: Fusion, Seattle Mayor's Office of Art & Cultural Affairs, Mercer PTSA

Students from Asa Mercer Middle School met twice weekly after school to collaborate on a Community Whirligig for the park of the Rainier Vista Development. For five class sessions, students worked with local storyteller, Anna Balint, to discuss explore legends from around the world and to put their stories into a contemporary legend of sorts based on their lives in Seattle. The story is about a girl and her family living in Rainier Valley and what happens one night during a violent storm.

Using this story to garner imagery and symbolism, visual artists Carl Smool and Mary Coss worked with the students over ten more class sessions to draw, design and paint the water-cut stainless steel whirligig forms, along with completing various smaller take-home projects. During the fabrication of the artwork, students visited Pratt Fine Arts Center where they watched as their metal designs were rolled and then welded onto the shaft that spins the whirligig. In preparation for creating the project, students took a field trip to see other whirligigs and public art in Rainier Valley.

The Community Whirligig was installed in February 2007, with the help of Carl Smool, Flag Factory Northwest, and a volunteer crew from Seattle City Light. The metal whirligig now spins above the community park in Rainier Vista, where residents and children playing in the park can view it.