Mercurial Miss
Patti Warashina
Meydenbauer Center
A goddess of commerce heralds prosperity as she welcomes convention center visitors.
A striking ceramic figure stands with arms raised and head angled upward, toward the windows and stairs of the lobby at Meydenbauer Center, a convention center in Bellevue, WA. She is Mercurial Miss, a large-scale, site-specific work by Patti Warashina representing the female version of Mercury, Roman god of trade and commerce, and protector of merchants.
Signifying the peace and prosperity of the community, Mercurial Miss holds three symbolic items: a feather, indicating the power of flight; a caduceus, a serpent found on ancient heraldic staffs; and a credit card, a medium of exchange. She perches atop rocks meant to represent the Northwest mountains and a shadow behind her suggests the sky with its blue color and transcendence with its wing shape.Continue Reading ›
Based in Seattle, Warashina is a ceramic sculptor who celebrates the human figure. She has exhibited her work nationally in galleries and museums, and has been honored with a number of prestigious awards, including Visual Arts Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Governor’s Award of Special Commendation for the Arts, and a Smithsonian Visionary Award.
Mercurial Miss was commissioned as part of the Honors Program, which recognizes visual artists who have made significant contributions to our region through the sustained production of high-quality artwork.