Dancing with Sea Lions
The Dancing With Sea Lions project began as a fundraiser for the 20th Anniversary of the Florence Events Center. The volunteers of the Florence Arts, Culture, and Entertainment nonprofit group (previously known as the Friends of the FEC) headed up this project in conjunction with the Florence Events Center Staff. Twenty life size sea lion sculptures were each painted by a different artist. All of them were displayed with their sponsors along the Oregon Coast till October of 2016, when they were then purchased by businesses and individuals. Fifteen of them are still publicly displayed in Florence and near by coastal locations. See our 'Where are they now' map for their current locations, and check our blog for updates. Share your Dancing Sea Lion pics with us and we'll add them to our Gallery of images.
Terry Woodall
Project Name: Pinniped Parade
Sponsor and Owner: Three Rivers Casino Resort
The Southern Oregon Coast and Coast Range Mountains, with their rich wealth of wildlife, sea life and myrtle wood forest, provide Terry with all the important elements of his full time and life long career creating sculptural art based on wild nature. From his Pacific Carvings Studio / Workshop established there in 1981, Terry has provided thousands of carvings and sculptures to hundreds of locations worldwide.
Terry creates the majority of his sea life and wildlife subjects from myrtle wood, a rare and highly desirable hardwood found only in his southwestern corner of Oregon. Many of his artistic techniques have been invented through experimentation, such as the stain application to his carved Orca whales. A key element in Terry’s work is utilizing the natural flow and shapes of the wood for his expressive sculptures.
Beginning in 2007, Woodall has achieved international recognition and numerous awards with his interpretive sculptures of wildlife interactions executed in both wood and bronze. Perhaps the most pivotal experience in Woodall’s career came with the Artist for Conservation Foundation Fellowship Award, which gave him the opportunity for an artistic field study to Lake Baikal, Russia. The focus of this artistic field study were the world’s only freshwater seals that inhabit Lake Baikal and many creations depicting these unusual pinnipeds resulted from Terry’s observations.
Pinniped Parade is a result after field studies of pinnipeds and creating art works inspired by these experiences in the favorite spectrum in his wild life artist career. Perhaps the close proximity to these marine mammals throughout his life has tipped the scales in their favor, but Woodall also likes the challenge of sculpting these expressive mammals in all their variable forms. The sea lions can be seen as graceful underwater swimmers and rock climbing clowns that bark like friendly dogs.
For his Dancing With Sea Lions design, he has created 140 small sea lions in carried forms, all carved from a wide selection of the finest myrtle wood grains. These sea lions are randomly epoxied in place on the large fiberglass sea lion known as Porter, and are happily dancing in their own “Pinniped Parade.”
The Pinniped Parade
All of the sea lions were spiffied up for the big parade,
Except one named Whiskers.
Whiskers forgot to shave!
Can you find Whiskers?