Moburg

In the two months of living in Seattle, I have successfully managed to get stuck in the rut of routine. Instead of using the time to explore the city, as I surely thought I would after moving here, I find myself going to work, coming home, and going out to the same places over and over again on a daily basis. I've stopped taking walks around downtown at lunch. I've stopped noticing coffee shops, to the point that when a friend from Canada came to visit I ended up taking him to... Starbucks. Nothing less than embarrassing for a Seattleite. I've stopped walking into random antique shops and boutiques in search of original treasures. I've stopped being fascinated.

But coffee with a friend last night rekindled my interest. We met up at Grand Central Arcade - a historic building that originally hosted Watson C. Squire's Opera house -- Seattle's first formal theater. It is now the home of a number of eccentric shops, as well as the famous Grand Central Bakery with its out-of-this world butter croissants. The Arcade is a bubble of the past where a movie-like setting of red brick walls and wooden railings meets modern day technology in the form of laptops and i-phones plopped up on the tables of mid-day snacking freelancers, researchers and interviewers.

But the most fascinating item living in the romantic lobby is actually a painting. With all creative interests filling up my life, I somehow never developed any interest in art. I've had the privilege of visiting many famous Russian museums, hosting myriads of incredible art galleries. But the sections I usually skipped to were royal fashion expositions and decorated rooms. No art gallery or single painting could ever hold my attention for longer than a few seconds, and none of them have really stood out to me enough to stick with my mind for a long time.

This said, I did have two random love affairs with artistic creations. One of them was a wooden sculpture of an ostridge with its head hiding underneath whatever surface was hosting it. When I was about 11, it was for sale at a small shop in old Riga -- my hometown -- and I went to "visit" the ostridge at least once a week until it was sold, much to my disappointment. My second love affair came my freshmen year in high school, when as part of a writing class we had to complete an assignment on abstract art. It turned out to be my most successful assignment, as the painting that I got to write about was Kandinsky's "Yellow-Red-Blue." The vibrancy of the colors, as well as the "lion head" so clearly sticking out to me from the picture, made my imagination run wild. Since then nothing has really stuck with me. Until last night when I saw THE painting hanging on one of the walls of Grand Central Arcade.

The painting depicts a foggy, dimly lit Pioneer Square station. It's empty, except for two dancers. A woman and... a rat. The rat is wearing a suit and evokes feelings of pity for having to hide in the night rather than disgust or mistrust. I couldn't stop staring at the piece in fascination, actually interrupting my friend's conversation to point it out once I noticed it. The painting stirred up real, genuine, emotion. We sat in front of it and talked about all the possible scenarios depicted for a good ten minutes. Only about three minutes into the conversation I noticed that the woman on the painting actually has rooster legs. I came up closer to the item that captured my attention after so many years of disinterest in anything paint-related. The inscription in the bottom right corner read "Moburg."

Needless to say that the next morning the Sherlock inside got the best of me, and Grand Central and Moburg were googled in all possible combinations. There wasn't much info on the latter. What I've managed to find out is only that the artists name is Bruce Moburg, and that he was a Seattle based artist who won some 1999 pi contest for postcard prints. From the looks of it, Mr. Moburg passed away on November 22, 2007, but his art can still be found "around the city." My curiosity is at it's peak as I can't wait to explore the town more in depth in search of more of his creations. I'd also love to know who is in charge of decorating Grand Central, and how they got a hold of the mouseman and one other Moburg painting.

I can imagine starting up an expensive, eccentric, and random collection. I will search for Moburgs and try to buy them off from current owners. People who come visit will be fascinated by the mouseman -- the one that started it all -- and wonder who Moburg is. It will be something my own, something unique, something Seattle-only... just like the Arcade and the painting currently hanging on its wall. But I'm thinking that will only happen once I am rich, and own a living room as big as the Grand Central Arcade patio which currently hosts the dancers in the fog... For now, I'm just happy that something managed to renew my fascination and curiosity for the city.