Megan Kelso, whose comic strip creation Crow Commute will be a featured installation
at the Climate Pledge Arena as part of “Art at the Arena,” was featured on KIRO7 (Seattle).
For months, we’ve been showing you the artwork that will be installed at the new Climate Pledge Arena.
This month, we introduce you to cartoonist Megan Kelso and partners, Laura Haddad and Tom Drugan.
Kelso has been a cartoonist for 30 years but had to get even more creative during the pandemic to begin sketching some ideas.
She began by driving around Seattle, sketching ideas on receipts. That’s because receipts are the shape of her artwork so it gave her the orientation she needed.
Her piece will consist of 21 panels, that together will create a timeline that begins in 1969.
Kelso tells me, “I did different panels to sort of attract different types of viewers. Like, some are actually little comic strips to tell a story within one panel.”
Megan is one of a few creators with bragging rights that her comic strip ran in The New York Times.
Back to the KIRO segment:
The finished piece will be 85 feet long and be installed along memory rails on the southeast side of the arena.
Kelso will include a lot of people, vistas and crows.
It begins in 1969 with people streaming out of a Jimi Hendrix concert. It goes to the left and ends at Fort Dent in Tukwila.
Then, “on this end, it ends at 2021 in Kenmore at the Kenmore Park and Ride. So it covers a lot of ground,” Kelso told me.
Megan is featured in the first half of the KIRO report.
“Crow Commute” is a long mural of etched stainless steel panels that will add up to a portrait of the city that will work as both a timeline and a map. There will be 21 panels (10 inches high X 4 feet long) for 85 feet that span Seattle history from 1969 to today.
More about the project and Megan at the Climate Pledge Arena site and at Megan’s Twitter feed.