Tacoma’s reputation as the City of Destiny and a hub for glass art is well earned, yet the city’s creative spirit doesn’t stop at the museum doors. Framed by sweeping views of Commencement Bay and the loom of Mount Rainier, these massive steel forms and intricate pieces of stonework feel less like additions to the view and more like extensions of the landscape. These works capture the streets themselves and turn the entire city into a living, breathing exhibit. Here’s where to experience an outdoor sculpture walk across Tacoma.
Phoenix
1721 E 56th Street, Tacoma
Standing proudly 20 feet tall outside the Eastside Community Center, Phoenix serves as a vibrant, larger-than-life welcome to all who arrive. Installed in August 2019, the piece was crafted by Tacoma artist Mauricio Robalino in response to the Eastside Community Center Art Brief, a community-driven plan spearheaded by local artist team Christopher Paul Jordan and Kenji Stoll, following a lengthy process of public engagement designed to ensure the center’s art reflected the neighborhood it served.
Robalino drew inspiration from the great blue herons that inhabit the area’s wetlands when creating the vibrant, birdlike sculpture, translating the iconic waterfowl’s graceful presence into a bold emblem of local ecology. More than just a welcoming figure, Phoenix carries a deeper purpose as a symbol of nature and is meant to remind visitors to respect all living beings and the art they create.
Sundial
2201 Ruston Way, Tacoma
On a sunny day at Jack Hyde Park, there’s no need to check a smartphone or a wristwatch – the Sundial sculpture overlooking Commencement Bay can easily tell you the time just fine! Designed in 1978 by landscape architect Tom Pulford during park renovations, the metal installation was created to serve as a striking focal point above the municipal beach below. It was made from metal bent into two bowstring-shaped crescents, one standing vertically with a rod, or gnomon, that casts a shadow, and the other lying horizontally, marked with numbers for each hour and notches for every five minutes as the shadow moves across the day.
The park itself was completed in 1980 under the name Commencement Park, later renamed Jack Hyde Park on Commencement Bay in 2002 to honor Jack Hyde, a geologist and former City Council member who served as Tacoma’s mayor for just 17 days in 1994 before dying of a heart attack at age 59. Owned by the City of Tacoma and maintained by Metro Parks Tacoma, the sundial has taken on a quiet second meaning over the years, standing as a fitting tribute to just how fleeting time can be.
Goddess of Commerce
201 St Helens Avenue, Tacoma
Standing seven feet tall and weighing 700 pounds, the bronze Goddess of Commerce serves as a striking emblem of Tacoma’s economic legacy and civic resilience. Sculpted by artist Marilyn Mahoney, the artwork is a detailed replica of the original 1885 statue that once topped the Chamber of Commerce building before being removed in 1949 and tragically lost to a storage fire in 1950. Resurrected through a grass-roots community fundraising campaign in the 2000s, the piece is packed with regional symbolism: the goddess cradles a miniature model of the Tacoma skyline in one arm, holds a model freighter in her left hand to honor maritime trade, wears crane earrings referencing the port, and features salmon streaming down her back to represent the fishing industry.
Initially, the completed remodel faced multiple site rejections across downtown with proposals to place her in Tollefson Plaza, atop the historic Carlton Building, and in Pierce Transit Plaza all being turned down. Eventually, persistent supporters were able to secure her a permanent home at the intersection of St. Helens, Sixth, and Baker with the help of the Theater District Association. She was unveiled in August of 2011, returning a long?lost symbol of Tacoma’s commercial identity to the streets that shaped it.
Little Makers
5361 Yacht Club Road, Tacoma
Honoring Tacoma’s unique connection to legendary sci-fi author Frank Herbert, Little Makers grounds the cosmic world of Dune firmly in the South Sound terrain. Sculpted by Nichole Rathburn and completed in November 2019 at nearby Two Ravens Studio, the installation consists of four bronze forms modeled after the immature sandworms of Herbert’s novel, known as “sand trout” or, to the planet’s Fremen nomads, “Little Makers;” the creatures responsible for draining the fictional planet Arrakis of all water and creating its vast, inhospitable desert.
Rathburn used Herbert’s 1969 quote, “a man inflicts himself on his environment,“ as the thematic core of the work, drawing parallels between the novel’s environmental warnings and Dune Peninsula Park’s own history as a former ASARCO Smelter slag pile, reclaimed and reshaped into the livable green space it is today. Designed to appear as though they’re emerging from and burrowing back into the park’s mounds, the bronze forms leave visitors with a lasting reminder of humanity’s impact on our own planet.
Annie and Fannie
501 South I Street, Tacoma
Standing on sleek marble pedestals near the Division Avenue entrance to Wright Park, two matching statues of dancing Greek maidens have greeted visitors since 1892. Affectionately known as Annie and Fannie, the duo brings a touch of classical European elegance directly to Tacoma’s oldest urban green space. Tacoma businessman and pioneer civic booster Clinton P. Ferry purchased them in Europe during a trip abroad in 1891 with the intention of bringing classical art back for the developing park. Ferry actually acquired nine statues that year, though only six survived the journey home across the Atlantic, including these two “dancing girls,” both cast in a sandstone-and-concrete composite and modeled after neoclassical works by Italian sculptor Antonio Canova; one after “Dancing Girl with Her Finger on Her Chin,” now in Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, and the other after “Dancing Girl with Her Hands on Her Hips,” now housed in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum.
The statues originally stood on opposite sides of Yakima Avenue, which once ran straight through the park, before being moved closer together once the road closed to vehicles in the 1930s, the same decade they briefly picked up the nicknames “Violet” and “Pansy.” Their more lasting nicknames, “Annie” and “Fannie,” honor Charles Wright’s daughter and the nearby Fannie Paddock Hospital, now Tacoma General. After undergoing professional restoration in 2009, the pair continue to welcome visitors over a century later, offering a serene, timeless greeting at the park’s northern edge.
From quiet neighborhood parks to bustling downtown corners and sweeping waterfront vistas, Tacoma’s public art scene proves that the city’s creative heart beats far beyond its famous museum halls. These open-air installations take art off its traditional pedestal, weaving history, community identity, and raw craftsmanship directly into the ground beneath our feet. No ticket required, no velvet ropes to keep you at bay; just an open invitation to artistic exploration around Tacoma.
