Fire Eater

[View Larger Map]

Here are a couple of photos of Fire Eater, a metal sculpture on the outside of Fire Station 10 on Taylor's Ferry, near the intersection with Terwilliger. It wraps around the building and my photos were taken from SW 4th, a small side street. They didn't show the Taylor's Ferry side as well as I would have liked, so I included an embedded Street View so you can see it from that side too. The sculpture dates to 1985 when the fire station was first built. Its RACC description is fairly brief:

Peter Teneau’s “Fire Eater” was commissioned for Portland Fire Station 10 as a visual symbol of their work. Based out of Portland, yet recently retired, Teneau specialized in large scale, site-specific sculptures.

As I said, I didn't get as good of a look at it as I would have liked, but I do like the design. To me it sort of evokes an abstract silver dragon, which I guess makes sense on a fire station because of the whole fire-breathing thing.. I'm not really familiar with the artist, but I see that the Portland Art Museum has a couple of his artworks in their collections, although they're not currently on display.

One fun detail about the fire station itself is the address: 451 SW Taylors Ferry, as in Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel with book-burning firefighters. I'm not absolutely sure the address was intentional, and I haven't come across any sources saying it is. I haven't even come across anyone noticing or remarking on the address at all. But if it's just an accident, it's a very weird and improbable sort of accident.