Not all sculpture ideas work out. The hard thing is, you never really know which sculptures will and which won’t pan out until they actually take form. At the moment, I am trying out a brand new idea for a sculpture inspired by the motherly heroics of one Yellowstone coyote. While out in the Park with friends a few days ago, we had the unique opportunity to watch a lone, mother coyote move her pups to a new den site. Never have I had so much time to observe a relocation effort. On this day, we were able to see the old den, the location of the new one and the exact distance and route taken between the two.
The very first stage of ‘bulking up’ the coyote in modeling wax.
When we first spotted the ‘yote along the road, she was carrying a “big chunk of food or something”. It was only after a closer inspection that we realized that the “food” was moving—it wasn’t a hunk of meat at all—it was a puppy! We waited several minutes after she disappeared into the brush (to deposit the little one) before she exited, heading back the direction from whence she had come. She HAD to be to be going for another ‘pick-up’! After scanning the area from an elevated spot for what seemed like a long time, someone yelled, “there she is!” Momma coyote was toting another wee one right past the pullout and our vehicle for another sojourn of approximately 1.5 miles, to the new den.
After a few more minutes of work on the coyote den mother.
She deftly negotiated the sagebrush flats, through a herd of bull bison before crossing the road amid traffic and human chaos towards the new ‘apartment’. In total, we saw her move 3 pups though they can have as many as 4-6; we could have missed some. The move took her roughly 16-25 minutes for each round trip circuit of 3 miles. This was easily a 9-mile day for her and it could have been as much as 18, if the litter was big.
Today, I did my best to make that memory tangible while waiting for some auto maintenance at the dealership in Bozeman. Time will tell if this idea survives the fabled “closet of death,” which is where all studies go to live before they are considered for enlargement or casting in bronze. Most get thrown out or melted down. Every idea at first seems like the best thing I’ve ever done, but only after time passes does an idea’s real potential reveal itself. As many as 20–40 of these little attempts might be created before one of them may be transformed into bronze. What will be the fate of this sculpture of momma and her kiddos? We will just have to wait and see… To see other sculptures that have stood the test, of coyotes and more, visit the Gallery.
Coyote mother moves her pups to a new den in Yellowstone. Photo by Kristina Lucas.