Pacific Fishermen Shipyard

Seattle is a mariner city full of many shipyards but none is as devoted to its neighborhood as Pac Fish. Doug has been collecting signs of now-defunct Ballard businesses for years and if you're ever at the foot of 24th Ave NW in Ballard, you really have to sneak a peak through the gate and check it out. Better yet, get buzzed in to the Ship's Store and get a jigsaw puzzle somebody made that captures the scene.

The Pacific Fishermen Shipyard started out as the Ballard Marine Railway that built fishing boats for the growing Alaskan fishery. During the Second World War it built about a dozen mine sweepers for the war effort. After the war a couple boats, made of local cedar, were decommissioned and repurposed. One by Jaques Cousteau and turned into the Calypso, and another by John Wayne and turned into his yacht the Wild Goose. 

I wanted to make a painting that honors this great shipyard as well as many of the businesses that make Ballard my favorite neighborhood. This took me about three months and there are over 115 entities, if you're counting.