Can anyone tell me what those orange/pinkish "things" are?

Birds, planes, ...oh, they're kissing herons??

Apparently so:

That's the vision of Mike Ross, the public-art sculptor for Sound Transit's future underground station at Capitol Hill. His steel birds, one facing north and one facing south, would appear to kiss each other. They would lurk among huge crossbeams, over the train platforms. "Because I started with such aggressive symbols, I arranged them in a nonaggressive way," he said Thursday. A New Yorker, he was inspired by Seattle's natural setting and aviation history, but wanted bright colors to offset the region's perpetually gray skies.

This massive sculpture, my friends, is what your hard earned tax dollars is going toward within the latest, most awesomely expensive Sound Transit subway project. The cost of this fine, fine art? Oh, just half a million...

The $550,000 sculpture at the station, near Broadway at John Street, would be part of a three-mile, $1.8 billion subway from downtown to Husky Stadium, to open in late 2016.

As for aesthetics, the article says this:

The Seattle sculpture would explore the relationship between nature and technology, war and peace, strength and fragility. "It asks a lot of people," he said. Ross said he hopes children will enjoy the playful shape.

SayWA? "It asks a lot of people"... By golly, it does! It asks that they continue to fork over their tax dollars and be reminded of it every time they pass a hideous half-million dollar sculpture. As for the children, I can see it now: Little Billy tugs on his mom's business suit and queries, "Mommy? What IS that big...thing?" Meanwhile, Little Sally is hiding behind the stroller in fright.

Hey, it's almost like it could be Seattle's own version of 'Nessie!

-Cydney

H/T: Orbusmax

Cross-posted on The Celebrity.