Flora2004 · Longfellow Creek, Seattle
Five markers, tracing a hidden creek back into the city that buried it.
Commissioned for the Longfellow Creek Legacy Trails project, Flora is a series of five way-finding markers sited along the creek's urban path in West Seattle. Peter de Lory photographed the creek's plant life — fern, elderberry, equisetum, lupine, leaves on water — in black and white, then combined the images with vivid color fields for fabrication as enamel-on-steel signs.
Installed in 2004, the markers double as public art and navigation: each sign helps walkers trace the creek's often-underground course through the neighborhood, restoring visibility to a waterway largely hidden by development.