Rico Pasado

A few photos of Rico Pasado, the cute bear sculpture on the NE side of Jamison Square. Awwww, it's so cute! It feels like overkill to say anything about it besides "Awwwwww...", but this humble blog specializes in overkill, sadly. In that spirit, the RACC page about Rico Pasado has this to say:

Mauricio Saldaña’s Rico Pasado was donated to Jamison Square by the Portland Rotary Club. Rico Pasado, or “rich past”, references both the brown bears that used to frequent the area and the 100 years of service provided by the Rotary Club. Rico Pasado was Saldaña’s first solo public art commission, but he has become well known in Portland for his facility in granite and has worked with public artist Fernanda D’Agostino on a number of projects.

Saldaña also created Vida y Esperanza, the cute squirrel sculpture at Mt. Talbert Nature Park. RACC's database also returns a couple of recent book-themed works of his up in the Kenton neighborhood. I'm not familiar with those, but I'm willing to say he's 2 for 2 in the cute animal department. (This is about as sophisticated as the art criticism ever gets here, in case you were wondering.)

He also has a photo gallery at Stone NW, showing these & other projects he's been involved with, including two Fernanda D'Agostino sculptures for the TriMet transit mall: Urban Hydrology and Patterns May be an Action, or the Trace Left by an Action. Also shown are some sculptures up at Smith & Bybee Lakes that I'm fairly certain I have photos of, lurking somewhere in the depths of iPhoto. I may have to go track those down now, or soon.