Coyote Leads the Salmon Upriver
The North Central Washington Museum (now the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center) commissioned Seattle artist Rich Beyer to create a cedar sculpture for an 1988 interactive children’s exhibit showcasing the historical photography of the Columbia River.
Coyote Leads the Salmon Upriver enjoyed such an enthusiastic response that Beyer was approached to create an all-new aluminum version of the sculpture for placement in the new Walla Walla Point Park.......
Coyote Leads the Salmon Upriver
The North Central Washington Museum (now the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center) commissioned Seattle artist Rich Beyer to create a cedar sculpture for an 1988 interactive children’s exhibit showcasing the historical photography of the Columbia River.
Coyote Leads the Salmon Upriver enjoyed such an enthusiastic response that Beyer was approached to create an all new aluminum version of the sculpture for placement in the new Walla Walla Point Park. An ad hoc group, “The Friends of Coyote”, approached the Wenatchee Rotary Club in 1989 who decided to bring the sculpture to life. Our Club Purchased the sculpture located at Riverfront Park for $25, 000. The Wenatchee Arts Commission and the Allied Arts Council both endorsed the project with generous donations from the community, including the aluminum donated by Alcoa Wenatchee Works.
Beyer was a specialist in creating “Placemaker Art” that had at its center the notion that public art needed to tell the story of the place where the sculpture resided. This sculpture illustrates the story of Coyote freeing salmon trapped by a triad of sisters along the lower Columbia so that they could be given to the People upstream. In Beyer’s interpretation, Coyote is carrying a small salmon while looking over his shoulder at the salmon in front who wears a necklace of salmon eggs.
Rich created the figures for the sculpture out of large blocks of Styrofoam which then were packed in sand with vents for the molten aluminum. This allowed for a high degree of flexibility with the forms with each of the finished figures carrying a personality and story of their own.