West Coast Pumpkin Regatta visitors can experience much of Tualatin’s new Veterans Plaza at the Lake of the Commons next month as the city finishes and opens several key portions of the long-planned monument.
Construction, which began early last Spring, will be largely completed by Regatta time as planned, says Tualatin Parks and Recreation Director Ross Hoover, meaning eventgoers will be able to stroll through the labyrinth, chat in the story circle, hang out on the turf and chill on benches around the reflecting pool.
However, the community will have to wait until Spring to visit three large pieces of service-inspired public art commissioned for the Plaza in February and slated for installation in early 2025.
The Plaza’s finishing touches come from Douwe Blumberg, a Kentucky-based sculptor who’s no stranger to public art. His 16-foot-tall bronze sculpture at the Ground Zero monument honoring America’s Special Operations response to the 9/11 terrorist attack was the first to recognize emergency responders’ role.
Blumberg was chosen from more than 42 artists who answered Tualatin’s call for submissions last year.
His three Veterans Plaza sculptures include a nearly 16-foot-tall stainless steel and glass entry piece called Flames of Honor, and two slightly smaller pedestal pieces, Wings of Freedom and Wings of Peace, that each feature a bird swooping up into flight and top out at about 13 and 11.5 feet respectively.
“The artist is working on it right now,” Hoover said. “We’re so fortunate to have had such amazing submissions from so many artists.”
Blumberg is the son and father of U.S. veterans. He received a 2018 Americans for the Arts, Public Art in Review Award. Beyond Ground Zero and the forthcoming pieces for Tualatin, his works appear in public spaces across the county, including a series of sculptures at the Las Vegas Veterans Memorial.
He shared his thoughts about service and the significance of publicly honoring veterans in a video made for the Las Vegas monument.
“It is important that this country appropriately acknowledges and respects the service regardless of if the current culture feels a certain conflict was morally wrong or morally right. Soldiers – men and women – responded to the call. They left their homes, they put themselves in grave mortal danger, and a lot of them bear physical and mental-emotional scars their whole lives,” he said. “That act is what we as a people, as a nation, need to publicly and regularly acknowledge.”
Blumberg’s commission is $160,000 for the three Tualatin pieces, chosen by a service-inspired art selection committee that began meeting in March of 2023. It issued a call for submissions in June 2023 and then chose five finalists who presented in person to them last February.
“We took an intentional, meaningful approach to thinking this space through,” Hoover said of the nearly five-year planning process that preceded construction. “We want to ensure that this space reflects our communities’ desires and intent around honoring people.”
Community members can add loved ones’ names to the Monument on engraved bricks that will be laid into the Plaza’s surface. The $150 bricks with space for name, military branch and service period can be ordered online through the Parks and Recreation Department or in person at the Juanita Pohl Center, 8513 SW Tualatin Rd., through Oct. 23.
The city is tentatively eyeing Memorial Day for a ribbon cutting and grand opening celebration to officially “open” the Plaza after the art is installed.
“That feels like a really good time to welcome in this new space and honor veterans and everybody who’s served,” he said, adding, “The space will be usable prior to the ribbon-cutting event. It will feel open, usable, and functional before that event.”
Meanwhile, workers from Boring-based Paul Brothers, Inc. continue construction.
Benches are in place in the large circular area around the reflection pool, and underground plumbing to fill the pool is complete.
As more of the site is complete, the city will continue to peel away fencing to reveal “an amazing public gathering space with a really strong focus on how we honor those who have served.”
For brick information and order forms, visit: tinyurl.com/3s72uvnz.
