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The three bells along Alder Passage in Seattle. Photo: Joe Freeman Jr.

Public art / 04

Three Bells of Liberty

We fabricated the aluminum forms for Horatio Law’s three bell sculptures in Seattle.

Alder Passage · Seattle
Artistic concept: Horatio Hung-Yan Law Fabrication: Western Iron Works
The project
Artistic concept
Horatio Hung-Yan Law
Fabrication
Western Iron Works
Location
Alder Passage · Seattle, Washington
Completed
2024

The artist’s idea

What the bells mean

Look inside two of the bells and you’ll find faces in the edges of the fins.

Horatio Law worked with students at Alder Academy to develop those profiles. The faces turn inward in one bell and outward in the other.

The center bell carries a network of golden cracks inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing broken ceramics with gold. Together, the three sculptures draw on the Liberty Bell to ask what freedom means—and what it takes to repair it.

The work stands along Alder Passage at the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center.

Artwork and concept by Horatio Hung-Yan Law.

Find the bells in Seattle
The center bell, with its gold-colored crack pattern.

Our work

Building the bells

We fabricated three five-foot bell sculptures from aluminum, using ½-inch plate for the fins and ¾-inch plate for the bases.

Individual fins form the outside of each bell around an open center. On two of the bells, those same pieces also carry the face profiles from Horatio’s design.

3Bell sculptures
½″Aluminum fins
¾″Aluminum bases
All three aluminum bell forms together in the shop.

Fitting the fins

The open sections show the face profiles and the way the individual plate pieces come together.

Face profiles along the inside edges of the aluminum fins.
An open bell during assembly, showing the interior and the tops of the fins.

The bell tops and crack pattern

A closer look at the fin spacing and the branching pieces around the center bell before the final black-and-gold finish.

The fins and circular plate at the top of a bell.
The center bell’s branching pattern before finishing.

The finished work

The bells after dark

Lighting brings out the faces and branching details against the black bell forms.

The finished bells illuminated after dark.

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