Guerilla artist dies

Guerilla performance artist Jason Sprinkle, who gained notoriety in Seattle during the 1990s, died May 16 after being hit by a freight train.

Sprinkle was part of the merry band that memorably tied a giant ball and chain around the ankle of Hammering Man in 1993, much to the public's amusement.

The public -- and the authorities -- wasn't amused, however, by his last big public splash: a stunt that inadvertently triggered a terrorist bomb scare in downtown Seattle three years later. (Registered SeattlePI.com users can read all about it in our archives.)

P-I art critic Regina Hackett recounts the highlights of his career and the difficult years afterward in an obituary today:

In the 1990s, Sprinkle was Seattle's most famous guerrilla performance artist, and some of that fame he didn't want. Although his first foray was almost universally celebrated, his last caused a public panic and landed him in jail on terrorism-related charges.

After he got out (charges reduced to a shadow of themselves and the sentence a year's probation plus the 30 days served), he was a changed man ...