Moon Gates is an abstract sculpture created by
Doris Chase in 1999 (she died from complications from Alzheimer's and strokes in 2008). There is a bronze plaque flush with the lawn on the east side of the sculpture that reads:
Doris Chase
1999
A gift to the Seattle Center and the
Citizens of Seattle from
The Kreielsheimer Foundation
The Space Needle Corporation
Gladys and Sam Rubinstein Foundation
Samuel and Althea Stroum
Marlon O. Williams
Dr. and Mrs. E.C. Alvord
Carl and Jacklyn Meurk
Harry and Judi Mullikin
Mrs. John (Mary) Robinson
Mrs. T. Evans Wyckoff
with additional support from
Seattle Center Foundation
Paul Schell, Mayor
AIC's decription (which I wrote and provided) for this sculpture says the following:
Bronze abstract sculpture in four pieces; three of the geometric pieces have circles or ovals cut out in the center, creating hollow spaces; the fourth piece is a cutout resembling the shape of its base. The work invites the viewer to walk around the piece and engage it physically by sitting on pieces or stepping through pieces.
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HistoryLink.org has a very good bio on Doris Chase and the following excerpts describe her transformation as a painter into a sculptor:
(Doris) was beginning to experiment with painting on shaped canvases when one of her students, Betty Talbot, gave her some pieces of laminated oak. Intrigued with the grain and the layered look, she used the wood as a shaped canvas, painting on its surface. Her first solo New York exhibition, in 1965, at the Smolin Gallery, comprised paintings on wood. She exhibited a series of small painted sculptures inset with hinged sections which opened to reveal painted interiors.
Soon the painted pieces gave way to pure form, and the laminated wood shapes began to be taller than their creator. Her restless drive for change found expression in sculpture that had no fixed position, but rather invited viewers to participate in rearranging modules.
Nesting modules, usually cut from one block, could be pulled apart into an infinite number of relationships to each other, then restored to the matrix to form a whole block again -- a particularly feminine aspect. "I want a new kind of spectator," she said, "not just an observer, but one who will touch and actively work with the movement and arrangement of its interacting parts; one who will redesign space, and reorganize form; be entrapped in creating."
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Moon Gates is a perfect example of a piece that invites the observer to engage it by touching it and actively interacting with it, whether it's sitting in it, on it, or even climbing on top of it, which younger children can often be found doing. Doris Chase also has another well-known sculpture titled Changing Form and located in Seattle's Kerry Park and encourages the public to move its top piece in order to get a different interpretation as the shape changes.