“There is a wild animal refuge near the Grand Canyon in Arizona that I visited to study bears. I choose this venue since I knew the bears in their keeping lived in 14 acre paddocks where they could live and play much as they would in the wild. This offered the opportunity to watch them from my car as the bears milled around going about their business. I was interested to see how much they interacted and played with others in their paddocks, though I was delighted to witness how much they teased, and were teased by ravens.

These birds were free to come in go as they pleased….not at all contained in the paddocks. Yet they seemed a constant presence among the bears, who seemed to enjoy hunting around for food and playing at different things together, surprisingly more with the ravens than even with each other.

I saw a similar interaction going on at home. I live and work on our horse ranch near Abiquiu, NM. Since we are on the river Chama, and have irrigation, lots of wildlife frequent our land …..from coyotes, bears and cougars, to cranes, hawks, geese and ravens.

Ravens are the most common, sometimes having what seems to be conventions that stay at our ranch for weeks at a time.

But the local ravens that remain year ‘round do like to interact with us and our dogs. Many funny altercations go on that seem to be instigated by ravens just looking to entertain themselves….like dropping rocks on one of the dogs from a high branch to get a reaction!

So watching them with the bears struck a cord for me. It has always felt it remarkable when I see how much personality individual animals display, even wildlife!

To capture this in bronze was the inspiration for this sculpture."

----------------------Star Liana York