“This unsanctioned work of art shows the possibility of creation in a rapidly changing city. The building was a home of creativity for a long time and painting the inside is meant to honor the space, meditate on it, remember it and appreciate it. The mural and the building it inhabits were recently demolished to make way for everything new and better promised by higher rents and worsening traffic.”

—The artist known as Baldmanwatching, who spent 55 hours applying 35 gallons of salvaged paint to the floor and walls of the former Salle Auriol Fencing School in South Lake Union to create a 15,000-square-foot mural that only a handful of people will see.