Art Installations

The BECU Storm Center for Basketball Performance features several art installations highlighting our championship history and honoring the Puget Sound community.

Bringing the New Season | Sneaker Wall | Bench of Champions | Genesis Box

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.  

Artist Biography 

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). 

Sneaker Wall 

Biography 

Part of the Storm's social justice platform, Force4Change, Kicks for Equality is an annual auction featuring custom designed sneakers worn by Storm players and coaches and other memorabilia. 

Since 2022, the campaign has benefited Black Future Co-Op Fund, Washington state’s first Black-women-led philanthropy looking to ignite Black generational wealth, health, and well-being. 

Each year we select a talented BIPOC woman sneaker artist to 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.

“The Kicks for Equality fundraising campaign has been the highlight of the Force4Change efforts the last few years. This is an opportunity to highlight our players’ style while raising money for the Black Future Co-op Fund,” said Crystal Langhorne, Executive Director of Force4Change. “The Storm are strong advocates for the work the Black Future Co-op Fund does, and by helping them uplift Black families, we can all share in the vision of a future where everyone can thrive in prosperity.”  

Bench of Champions 

Designed by House of Sorcery 

Concrete, Steel

2024 

Statement 

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. 

Artist Biography 

House of Sorcery is an Art & Design studio that handles projects of all types through an art lens.  

Genesis Box 

Designed by Michael Dupille 

Kiln-formed Art Glass, Wood

2024 

Statement 

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.  

Artist Biography 

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.