Do you think this man is humping  a bear?

This piece sculpted by Richard Beyer in 1972 can be interpreted to mean many different things, as all art can be. Initially many people think it’s a man humping a bear, so much so that the campus store sold t-shirts with an outline of the sculpture and the letters M.H.B. to commemorate it. Upon closer inspection, however, people like Western Gallery director Sarah Clark-Langager think it’s a statement of respect between the hunter and the hunted. Due to the increase in cougar sightings in recent years she also believes it has given the sculpture a new meaning: the ghost of the cougar coming back to hunt.

As per Richard Beyer’s usual inspiration for his 90+ other sculptures, he created this sculpture to represent a piece of folk lore the area is known for. With this man embracing a cougar, faces turned towards the sky, expressing in simple figures and soft curves the story of an old man and an old cougar getting drunk off whiskey and singing into the night, becoming amiable and no longer fighting each other. Carved on site from a block of marble imported from California it expresses even in its material the unity, purity, and simplicity of a lore in drunken stupor. The full story, as expressed by the Western Front, is that this man who used to hunt cougars on Sehome Hill gave it up and took up drinking instead, one night he reconciled with the cougar and they drank whiskey together, singing “America” in a drunken embrace. The sculpture even includes a whiskey jug behind the man’s right shoulder.

Created by: Janna Bodnar and Kevin Miller

Photos courtesy of Janna Bodnar

Music courtesy of Kevin Miller