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Art Installations
The BECU Storm Center for Basketball Performance features several art installations highlighting our championship history and honoring the Puget Sound community.
Together with state and city entities, the Storm is investing in the Interbay neighborhood we call home and in the arts. Basketball is at a unique intersection of art and culture, and the Storm aims to reflect that in how we show up in our community.
BECU Storm Center Mural | Dravus St Sidewalk Protector | Bringing the New Season | Sneaker Wall | Bench of Champions | Confetti Mirror Boxes | Genesis Box | Upcoming and In Progress
BECU Storm Center 'Together We Rise' Mural
2025
The BECU Storm Center for Basketball Performance mural is rooted in the organization’s commitment to supporting young people across the city of Seattle and the state of Washington. The Seattle Storm and BECU partnership focuses on celebrating the love of basketball through year-round youth programming, financial wellness education, while leveling the playing field for girls, women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ populations both on and off the court. Muralist Marry Merlot is a Seattle native with over 20 years of artistic experience. She blends the art form of graffiti with modern, vibrant and bold themes to create pieces that reflect the space she’s working in.
Dravus St Sidewalk Protector
2025
Reflecting the Storm’s commitment to promoting social change, while highlighting the power of women and their legacy of teamwork, Vasquez’s mural design is based off of a quote by revolutionary Black feminist, writer, professor, poet and civil rights activist Audre Lorde: “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
On one side, the design centers the words “Dare To Be Powerful”. There are basketballs scattered around each side of this text to resemble a bouncing effect with the yellow line, almost like a runaway ball on a court. The other side centers three large hearts budding from leaves, and a leafy green vine with lilac buds twisting through each end. The words “Grow” and “Love” act as bookends to this imagery, but they’re also quick and subtle reminders to pedestrians and drivers who pass by.
Bringing the New Season
Malynn and Mike Foster (Squaxin Island Tribe)
Carved Tenino sandstone
2016
In carved stone, find a frog, a singing face, the imprint of a human hand, as well as other symbols drawn from Coast Salish traditions. Bringing the New Season connects imagery from ancient petroglyphs with meaning from our contemporary lives. Local tribal stories tell of a time when Moon transformed the world. We too can shape a positive future for the next generations when we work together as a team, just like the players at the Storm Center each ever changing basketball season.
About the artist
Malynn Wilbur-Foster is a Squaxin Island tribal member and is the middle daughter of renowned artists Andy Wilbur-Peterson (Skokomish) and Ruth Wilbur-Peterson. She was raised among her people near the Skokomish and Squaxin Island reservations and has lived there most of her life. She works in various mediums, but her focus is primarily in weaving, painting, jewelry and carving both stone and wood. She is passionate about the health and healing of her people and is a voice for the planet and all of her beings. She continues to live by the seasons of her people, grounded in the spiritual essence of resilience and finding new ways to thrive in an ever changing world. These things are often shown in her work. She is honored to speak the words her ancestors cannot.
Malynn’s work has been shown in galleries since 1998 and has been featured in 2 books, S’abadeb, The Gifts and Contemporary Art on the Northwest Coast: Salish, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Makah, (Norris) and can be found in collections at the Seattle Art Museum, Burke Museum and Washington State History Museum. In 2015 she was commissioned to carve a traditional house post for the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe with her father and was part of the team that helped carve the Jake Jones pole there too. In 2017, she had a solo show at Galerie Nativ in Prague, Czech Republic, featuring a series of paintings on canvas. In 2019, she was commissioned to create a series of stone carvings with her husband, Squaxin Island tribal member Mike Foster, for the Washington State Convention Center. In 2020 was commissioned to create a sculpture for the Seattle Water Front at the Salish Steps. She has received grants for her achievements in both art and for being an indigenous knowledge keeper.
Malynn is always looking for new ways to tell the stories of her people fusing traditions and technology. Everything she has learned has been the traditional way under mentors that are masters in their fields. Some of them include her parents, Andy (Skokomish) and Ruth Wilbur Peterson, Mike Foster (Squaxin Island), Richard Cultee (Skokomish), Lisa Telford (Haida), Yvonne Peterson (Chehalis), and Alex McCarty (Makah).2
Sneaker Wall
Wood, steel, LED & various sneakers
2024
Located at the top of the BECU Storm Center's championship court bleachers, the sneaker wall is designed to feature a rotating collection of WNBA player sneakers as well as highlighting the Storm's annual Kicks for Equality campaign.
Learn more about Kicks for Equality
Part of the Storm's social justice platform, Force4Change, Kicks for Equality is an annual auction featuring custom designed sneakers worn by Storm players/coaches and other Storm memorabilia & experiences.
The funds raised from the Kicks for Equality campaign benefit the Storm Foundation and Force4Change efforts. The funds will go to the Storm Foundation – a registered 501(c)(3)—and distributed throughout the year to support our broader Force4Change efforts and initiatives, as guided by our players. A few examples of how the funds may be used include:
- Donations to the honorees of Believe in Women Night to support their ongoing work around the community.
- Donation to the winner of the newly create Prism Award, given during Pride month to a LGBTQ+ leader of color, to support their ongoing efforts
Each year we select a talented BIPOC woman sneaker artist to work with the players to custom design their sneaker. The shoes reflect important causes for Storm players such as mental health, gun violence awareness, Black Lives Matter, Pride, gender equality, indigenous people awareness, and African art and heritage.
Bench of Champions
Concrete, Steel
2024
An icon designed in celebration of Championships won, to express the power of women and a legacy of teamwork. The entire facility is dedicated to highlighting the power of female fortitude in the face of societal obstacles and the artwork does the same. With a dash of joy that accompanies victory, our goal is to reset expectations for what female professional athletes, and more broadly, all girls and women deserve: space for themselves.
House of Sorcery is an Art & Design studio that handles projects of all types through an art lens.
Confetti Mirror Boxes
House of Sorcery
2024
Inspired by a photo taken in 2020 following the Seattle Storm's fourth WNBA Championship. The Confetti Mirror Boxes symbolize the Storm's ongoing commitment to pursuing championships and excellence.
Genesis Box
Kiln-formed Art Glass, Wood
2024
The Genesis Box was created to honor three individuals who led the way in transforming the dream of a permanent home for the Seattle Storm into reality.
They are represented by sculptural elements that highlight their heritage and acknowledge their expertise.
The feather, designed with colors and icons of The Blackfeet tribe, represents Debora Juarez, an enrolled tribal member. In her role on the City Council, Debora not only fiercely advocated for support of this project, but served as the primary facilitator and navigator, successfully translating her advocacy into full Council approval of a zoning code amendment to allow for construction of the facility.
Jack McCullough volunteered his vast legal knowledge and negotiating skills to steer the project through its zoning and land use hurdles at a time when it was only a proposal, helping to transform it into a viable endeavor. Jack is represented by a bust of Hammurabi; a Babylonian king responsible for the first written legal code, drafted between 1755 and 1750 BC, recognized for its fairness and respect for the rule of law that today serves as the model for our democratic legal system.
Spero Valavanis, the first architect to join the project, answered an invitation to design the Storm’s future home by sketching out his early ideas on a napkin. Embraced and loved due to his long and enthusiastic association with the Seattle Storm family, Spero spearheaded a design process with input from the players, team management, and owners, a truly collaborative experience. In a nod to his heritage and design sensibilities, the Ionic Greek pillar represents him.
About the artist
Seattle resident Michael Dupille has worked in art his entire career as both creator and educator. Experienced in a variety of media including animation, illustration, print, and textile design, he continues to challenge himself through invention and innovation.
Michael was part of the glass blowing program at Central Washington University in the early 70’s. Since the late 1980’s he has worked extensively with glass, having developed and refined a technique for “painting with glass” that uses crushed glass (frit) in combination kiln fired methods. He refers to this process as fritography. Michael pioneered many kiln forming processes, especially in mold making and kiln casting.
He has done design work for Bullseye Glass, was a guest artist and instructor at Camp Colton, and his creative input is well featured in Boyce Lundstrom’s books on art glass techniques. His work is highly collectible and his numerous public and private commissions include projects for the Washington and Oregon State Arts Commissions, The Everett Cultural Commission, The Seattle Times, The Pierce County Arts Commission, Amazon.com and the Seattle Mariners.
Upcoming and In Progress
- Sidewalk art surrounding the BECU Storm Center (Tariqa Waters)
- 15th Ave Mural with BECU (Artist selection in progress)
- Statue on 17th and Bertona (Artist selection in progress)