Buster Simpson’s Remedy: a Seaside Assault

The artist Buster Simpson, sits atop the ”Seabearer” portion, of his seaside “Migration Stage”, in Seattle, WA (2025); photo John Drury.

By JOHN DRURY December 24th, 2025

After nearly a decade in the planning stages, Buster Simpson’s 14 dolosse (Simpson’s Migration Stage) now stand at the ready - at the leading edge of downtown Seattle’s Puget Sound coastline - for whatever, might indeed be “thrown” at them; and for the foreseeable future. As part of Seattle’s ongoing waterfront revamp, allowing easy access from downtown to the seashore now - where once stood a prohibiting highway overpass - the project, in entirety, is a brilliant and revitalizing, reimagining the city’s core.

An artwork designed also, for coastal management, Buster’s dolosse double to serve too, as a point of respite, available seating for those strolling travelers, perhaps weary - who might now enjoy a casual walk along the new waterfront boardwalk, peppered with attractions and world-class sightseeing – or as evidenced recently, a gathering place for public protest. And those dolosse - they’ll be there, in their present position at water’s edge, forever … or, at least until they’re moved fifty-feet back anyhow, in flight an inevitable and daunting, rising seawater. Here we might allow also, a gathering of concerns (an existential flotsam), for the thoughtful management the endangered environment.

For more than fifty years, Simpson has led by example; green concerns voiced in a stellar career embracing the conservation of land, sea and air. There is not another artist in Seattle, who enjoys the downtown “footprint” of the prolific Buster Simpson, whose many works are scattered throughout the city; along the light rail system running north and south from the airport to ever-further destinations, at the foot and facade of businesses in town and atop the city’s convention center. A current exhibition of Simpson’s work, Acts of Conscience, is currently installed (and is made generously complete, with a community meeting table) at the University of Washington’s Gould Gallery, and addresses his ongoing concern for our democracy, our environment and the sustainability of our resources.

 Buster Simpson, “Migration Stage”; 2025, cast concrete along the Seattle waterfront.

Simpson’s waterfront Migration Stage is a two-part, cast concrete juxtaposition of artworks. In addition to each of his anthropoid dolos (Anthropomorphic Dolosse), are Buster Simpson’s stacked “sandbags” – his titled Seabearer - the paired works an irascible compliment all that is his conceptually, cause-based work (in addition those installed throughout the city, guerilla style, for decades); those “official”, to the ever-growing face of a downtown Seattle until recently, in boom – the city’s downtown, like many American cities now, showing the wear and tear of an ever-thinning economy, homelessness and open-air drug use.

At the water’s edge then, there is this welcoming place to sit, and to rest, or to congregate, courtesy artist aggressor Buster Simpson - respite an encroaching ocean, at fore, and an ever-increasing oligarchical fascism rapidly approaching aft, to find in one’s wandering mind perhaps, the peaceful now. Buster Simpson’s is the rare art of service (dare I say political?) … accommodating, clearly instructional and pro-active, for the betterment the whole of us; and serve as a sample, and sensible, call to educated action. All of his many projects, in the end, are cohesive in concern for the advancement a logical pursuit democratic being, shared responsibility for the sensible maintenance of our resources and a loving respect for one another - regardless race, creed or religion. “As an artist practitioner in this moment, I am combining aesthetics with collaborative constructs,” Simpson says, “the meddler with the mender, mitigation as purge, an artful agit-prop, with satire and humor.

A single anthropomorphic dolos, as part of Buster Simpson’s, Seattle waterfront artwork, “Migration Stage”; 2025.

Buster Simpson, paired dolosse - as portion the artist’s “Migration Stage”; 2025, a waterfront project at the Seattle waterfront.

Buster Simpson (2025) “Migration Stage”; cast concrete, “Anthropomorphic Dolosse” (foreground) and “Seabearer”.