Description
Medium: Bronze
Type: Sculpture
Title: Room For One More
Dimensions: 14 × 13 × 12 in
Every year in Alaska, grizzly bears come out to enjoy the salmon run that happens in midsummer. Thousands of these fish are in a mad dash for survival and the bears have come to feast. Normally, solitary hunters, these magnificent beasts stare at the water and eat whatever flies into their mouths. The crazy thing is that they don’t fight with each other. All are focused on this yearly ritual to eat as much as they can and put differences and judgments away while they dine.
In this picture, we see four bears perched on top of this small waterfall staring into the water. The large one pushes his way through the others to see what’s on the menu. We see one of the bears dives into the water after his latest catch and the others picking their next meal carefully.
Later we see the larger of the four under the waterfall so stuffed with salmon and despite being full, he is contemplating if he can fit one more fish in his already bulging belly.
“Just one more! I know I can fit just one more fish in my belly,” thinks the bear. Stuffed and sleepy the bear just stares at his last catch of the day.
In life, we see this all the time. I think of my kids during Halloween time. This special time of year kids from all over gather and walk around neighborhoods to laugh and play. Gathering buckets and buckets of treats. Then when they get home (sometimes they can’t wait to get home) they devour everything in their bags. No matter how much they stuff into their mouths they think the same thing as this bear, “Just one more! I know I can fit just one more piece of candy”.
No matter what our species, age, or gender, we have that childlike quality of enjoying more than is necessary. We indulge past what is acceptable and feast until we are about to burst. This could be interpreted as gluttony or overindulgence, but we can also see this as always longing for more. To reach past what we feel is acceptable and continue to reach a goal that many might think is unobtainable, even if that goal is to fit one more fish in our belly.
