Coyote VI

Today's item from outside the Portland Art Museum is Coyote VI by Gwynn Murrill. As the name indicates, it's part of a series of coyote designs: Coyotes V and VII are in Jackson, WY, and the latter once was (or another copy of it now is) in Venice, CA. Coyote III, made of koa wood, remains in the artist's collection. Where the others are is left as an exercise for the reader. A post at Fifty Two Pieces has more about Coyote VI, as well as a cute real coyote that managed to sneak onto a MAX train a few years ago.

The collar isn't part of the sculpture, by the way. Some joker must have added that. Wasn't me. Honest.

Here's an article by the artist describing a recent exhibition of her work in Century City, CA. The city took the unusual step of designating the median strip of a major road as a rotating sculpture garden, and it hosted a collection of Murrill's animal and bird sculptures from November 2012 to January of this year, for the enjoyment of passing drivers. That is an extremely Californian idea. Not only would it not happen her; the idea it wouldn't even occur to anyone here. Which is fine, I mean, we aren't really a city of grand boulevards anyway, and I'm not sure where you'd put something like this. Probably out in the 'burbs somewhere, and then nobody would notice except metal-thieving tweakers. I can see how this would work in Southern California though.