As a nascent town, Tacoma’s prospects for growth took a turn for the better when it was chosen as the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s transcontinental line, which was completed in 1873. In the following decade, the 1880s, Tacoma’s population grew from 1,000 to 36,000.

The award-winning campus of University of Washington-Tacoma (UWT) is centered around a series of buildings erected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to facilitate Tacoma’s role as the railroad terminus. Some of the warehouses that loaded and unloaded boxcars and the hotels that housed the passengers have been refurbished and refitted to serve as classrooms and offices of Tacoma’s foremost public university.

In order to reference Tacoma’s role as the railroad terminus as well as UWT’s history as a busy railroad district, artist Brian Goldbloom created his 2002 sculpture entitled “Terminus.” The work is a group of 10 granite forms that are hinged together and set like upturned “V’s” on the pavement of a little plaza just off a walkway where the rails once ran. The plaza is just off the northern tip of the Keystone Building, north of the grand staircase that climbs from Pacific Avenue up to Jefferson Street.

Nine of the 10 units are made of rough-hewn, unfinished slabs of salt and pepper granite. The 10th, however, has been carved from the same stone into a perfect likeness of a suitcase that has been opened wide and upended. Here at the terminus, the end of the line, one opens one’s suitcase and dumps everything out. The unfinished forms suggest unfinished business that is to begin now that the journey has ended. From another angle, “Terminus” could signify the end of life and the emptying out of the soul.

The little plaza, a designated smoking area, is equipped with low concrete walls and a broad concrete square ideal for sitting and contemplating Goldbloom’s art. Were it not for the beautifully-carved suitcase, however, such contemplation might be unsatisfying. The collection of low, unfinished forms resembles the clutter of a construction site. It is only the carved form - the suitcase - that gives its fellows a context and meaning.

A gifted stone carver, Goldbloom is known for his ability to conjure realistic objects from his granite slabs: cell phones, sandwiches, barrels and chopsticks are a few of the things that emerge from the surfaces of his public works. Based out of Amboy, Wash. and a graduate of the University of Oregon, Goldbloom has been making public commissions for more than 30 years. The marvelous granite suitcase on the UWT campus is a little masterpiece.

For further information on Goldbloom, visit his website at goldbloomart.com.