The city is full of traditional totem poles carved by Northwest tribal artists, who bear a distant kinship to the Polynesian creators of Easter Island moai. In SAM’s Olympic Sculpture Park, installed this spring, the 46-foot-tall white head that is Echo recalls both cultures of the Pacific. Its siting, gazing northward up Puget Sound, makes the elongated bust seem vaguely totemic—as if waiting for unknown voyagers (or even colonizers) to arrive. The Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa based the figure on Greek myth (sad Echo is a nymph condemned to remain mute unless she mimics others’ speech), but her enthusiastic reception by tourists and other frequenters of the waterfront has rescued this figure from divine punishment. Today she’s adored. (Echo was gifted to SAM by local collector/philanthropist Barney Ebsworth.)

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