Lakeside School

Ries Niemi ’72 is an expert in learning the rules of art — and then breaking them. First educated at Lakeside in the classical techniques of drawing, painting, and embroidery, Niemi later became a self-taught master of industrial mediums such as metalworking, enamored by the unique contrast they created with the softness of textiles. He brings an artistic flair to utilitarian objects, perhaps best exemplified by his series of distinctive metal chairs, which he describes as “a frame, and a blank canvas … they offer certain parameters of utility.”

He has earned more than 40 commissions for public installations, including the larger-than-life stainless-steel baseball players inset into the gates and fences surrounding the Seattle Mariners’ T-Mobile Park. Most of his public pieces capture more abstract concepts — in Pasadena’s Del Mar Station, 550 feet of intricate fences and panels echo the “language of trains,” evoking an industrial and art deco feel; at Whidbey Island’s Oak Harbor High School, finely boned metal cairns suggest the exploratory nature of education. Still working into his early 70s, Niemi endeavors to “misuse tools in interesting ways”— and this unconventional thinking, experimentation, and intuition define his powerfully expressive pieces.