SKETCHY STUFF:
THE CROSSLAKE CONNECTION
ARTWORK BY ARIELLE FANTASIA
[March 30, 2026] Saturday’s celebrations for the launch of light rail over Lake Washington had it all: cute merch, verbose politicians, drum lines, transit furries… and Arielle Fantasia, a Seattle-based artist on assignment for CHUM News.
For the latest edition of Sketchy Stuff — an ongoing series where we send sketch artists to cover newsworthy events from their vantage point — Arielle attended Saturday’s festivities, landing an all-access pass to ride the first-ever train in public service across the I-90 floating bridge. Straphanging next to bigwigs Mayor Katie Wilson, Governor Bob Ferguson, City Councilmember-Emerita Sara Nelson, We could think of no better way to kick things off—ha—than with work by Seattle artist Sam Zappola, who attended the Seahawks parade on our behalf.
In true Seattle fashion, Sam encountered work-from-home hardos taking their calls al fresco, Seahawks-branded rubber chickens careening through the air, sports bros showering others in beer, and more:
A couple of guys by the Seattle Public Library decided to take "WFH" very loosely. I saw them set up at least four hours before the parade even began.
Pretty much every interaction I had with anyone at the parade ended up with one of us saying "Sea!" and the other saying "Hawks!"
While waiting for the parade, fans were tossing a so-called "sea chicken" back and forth between crowd-control barricades.
If you enjoyed Arielle’s artwork, check out their Instagram.