Space Needle (7)

Monorail (needle) tracks. ©Ryan Schierling

Space Needle (6)

Marine layer. ©Ryan Schierling

Space Needle (5)

Seattle Sonics mascot Squatch, atop the Needle. October 2006. ©Ryan Schierling

Space Needle (4)

Looking north from Beacon Hill, through downtown. ©Ryan Schierling

Space Needle (3)

5 a.m. snow. ©Ryan Schierling

Space Needle (2)

Half-mast, 9/11/07. ©Ryan Schierling

Welcome home.

The future. ©Ryan Schierling

Thanks to the 1962 World's Fair, when you think of Seattle, you inevitably visualize the Space Needle. Growing up in Kansas, I didn't know much about the Pacific Northwest. But, just like Mount Rushmore, the arch in St. Louis and the Washington monument, I knew what the Space Needle looked like. When it was built, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River - 605 feet of the future.

I moved to Seattle in 2001, and was lucky enough to find a charming (read as: not a condo with retail space below) place on the edge of downtown, a block from Seattle Center, and a 60-second walk to the Space Needle. Honestly, it's easier to take the monorail downtown than to catch a bus. Looking at the Seattle skyline from Alki Beach, from the ferry coming back from Bainbridge Island, from the top of Queen Anne hill at Kerry Park, driving north from Portland or south from Vancouver, B.C., it's a special feeling to see the Space Needle and know that I live there.

Not in the Needle, exactly, but a geographic blink from what was originally named "The Space Cage." When I walk out my front door every day, I'm treated to an unblemished view, and I eventually began shooting photos of the Needle, from wherever I happened to be, inside or outside of the city.

I mean, it's my neighborhood.

These are a few of those photographs.

Kim's story.

Birth of an American Pop Star. ©Ryan Schierling

Have you ever had someone tell a story that you just couldn't quite visualize? Or, that you could picture, but you knew that it really needed to be recreated in three dimensions to fully appreciate?

Imagine Thanksgiving dinner ruined by a little girl who stuffed her Barbie doll into the Tom turkey, along with the onions and apples and rosemary, mid-way through the roasting process.

For me, the biggest conundrum of this was not sawing Barbie in half so she would fit neatly inside the bird's cavity, but the question of whether or not she should be wearing heels or slutty boots with her fishnet stockings.

Space Needle all blowed up.

Happy New Year. ©Ryan Schierling

Putting the ghetto in Ghetto Melrose.

2008, Shep Pettibone remix. ©Ryan Schierling