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7/29/02
The Olympian: Salmon project spawns ideas

7/22/02
A new Soul Salmon has appeared at the Swan Creek Library and Literacy Center Tacoma. Photos in the Gallery.

4/13/02
Soul Salmon is now closed! Our auction this evening was a great success, and the Soul Salmon project is now over. For details of the auction, read the column at right and view our last gallery. Thanks to everyone for making this such a great success!

4/6/02
Our Auction Preview Party was a great success! Our salmon are now on display until the main auction event, on April 13th.

3/7/02
Learn more about our upcoming Auction Preview Party and view our online auction preview. Be sure to register for the auction!

3/6/02
The registration card for our auction on April 13, 2002 is now online. Please print out this page and mail or fax it in.

2/15/02
Big News! Our auction is set for April 13, 2002, and you are invited! Find out more by reading our invitation, and then call (360) 385-0907 to buy tickets.

2/14/02
Happy Valentine's Day! Check out our special valentine!

2/9/02
Keep your eyes open around the Puget Sound area for our traveling salmon. Soul Salmon's CELESTIAL SALMON CIRCUS will make appearances anywhere
and everywhere. Check back soon for exact dates and locations!

1/28/02
Gallery X, with a montage of photos from the end of 2001 and the first part of 2002, is now online. Don't miss it!

1/15/02
Steelhead Society of BC in Vancouver featured some of their Soul Salmon in their fall auction and gala annual event featured some of their Soul Salmon. Here's a gallery from that evening.

12/15/01
A new gallery is available with pictures from The First Splash!

12/10/01
Soul Salmon has engaged hundreds of Washington residents to help present a gift to Governor Locke. We have some photos of the process!

11/29/01
SoulSalmon was recently featured in the Bremerton Sun and the Port Townsend Leader!

11/14/01
First Splash tickets will be for sale at the Bellevue Art Museum on the evening of November 17th, starting at 6 PM. If your ticket was paid through the mail and not received, pick up the ticket from us at the Will Call desk at the BAM event, beginning at 6 PM.

11/12/01
Driving directions and hotel information for First Splash! are now available.

10/18/01
You are invited to attend First Splash!, Soul Salmon's first major event.

09/24/01
A very important update about the auction has been posted.

09/08/01
Soul Salmon were featured in a recent Tacoma Weekly.

NYTimes: Colorful Sculptures Dot City Streets.

08/21/01
The sponsor list and contact page have been updated.

07/11/01
Photos of Port Townsend Main Street's Salmon, the new Alevin, and Mojo, the Mariner's Salmon have appeared in the gallery.

06/20/01
To see what Cheryl Lawrence and her students in Valley School are doing with their soul salmon, check out the latest gallery.

The Peninsula Daily News covered the Main Street Soul Salmon project in Port Townsend. Also, the Main Street site has some photos.

06/09/01
A photograph of a new Soul Salmon by Amy Burnett has appeared in the gallery.

06/08/01
Coverage of the Vancouver Soul Salmon appeared recently in the Vancouver Sun. More information about the Vancouver project can be found at wildsalmoncity.com/

older news...

About


"Soul Salmon Is Now Closed"

These were event co-chair Candice Gohn's words at the final moments of the Celestial Soul Salmon Auction on April 13th, 2002 at the Odyssey Maritime Discovery Museum in the Seattle waterfront.

We were emotionally roller-coastering up to that evening but when it arrived the Soul Salmon Team was humming. Scores of volunteers had received the "Auction Training", all salmon sculptures were mounted on rolling bases, young salmon presenters were decked in surprisingly elegant "Salmon Tails" and the last minute inventory of jobs was ticked off. Auctioneers Dick and Sharon Friel were poised to begin, with Suzanne Hight monitoring all the background activities. Michelle Kelley's tables were designed artfully, co-ordinated with the handmade salmon centerpieces.

As the guests sat down to the salmon dinner, a welcome wave of relief compensated anticipation of this moment for some of us, the main participants of the Soul Salmon project. It had been an intense, even grueling, two and a half
year effort to prepare for, plan, commission, produce, market, transport and display close to 100 fiberglass salmon.

The People's Salmon, a gift to Governor Locke for the people of Washington State, Soul Salmon and the Puget Sound Water Quality Action Team was graciously received by Mr. Jeff Koenings, Director of the Washington State Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. Michelle Hager, Director of Development for the Hands On Children's Museum in Olympia also said a few words of thanks. The HOCM will be the first stop for the People's Salmon, where it will receive more hands on "signatures", adding to it's rich surface of thousands of thumbprints. Mr. Koenings stated that the finished fish would also be displayed in the Rotunda soon.

The Soul Salmon Auction sold about half of the salmon offered - eleven to be exact. (See complete list attached). The Auction raised $43,000.00, of which $4,300.00 went directly to the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund, a citizen group dedicated to daylighting the waterway under the Northgate Mall's south parking lot, home to five species of salmon in Seattle's largest watershed.

Please read the PT Leader's article written by Martha Worthley to glean more details of this captivating event and see the accompanying list for all salmon sales. In addition to salmon, a glass vase donated by Seattle Glass Blowing Studio was raffled ($310) and all the Starstruck Spawner centerpieces were sold on a silent bid basis at over $100 each. Linda Okazaki's original painting, commissioned by Soul Salmon as the Auction Catalog cover, was sold at auction for $800.00

Our job is not yet done but that moment is getting closer as we wrap up the final details of this amazing project. Some of the remaining salmon are the most expensive and, unfortunately, we can't afford to let them go for the bargain prices of the auction. We have received several good offers to display them and they have enthusiastic supporters and fans, so we look forward to the ability to pay some deserving artists and sponsors a just compensation as we sell them in the next few months. Please direct your interest to me, as I will be in charge of this effort. Perhaps the Celestial Salmon Float will go out for another spin or two? See photos for the full take on the ten and a half salmon trailer - an awesome sight!

THANKS, MANY THANKS and profound gratitude is due to the many people who helped with bringing SOUL SALMON into this world. From the little jobs to monumental efforts on behalf of the salmon, don't doubt that your work went to making a difference to our relationship to the Northwest's icon. I believe these salmon will now do their work - they are in the world now and nothing can change that. Our purpose was to connect people to wild salmon in a surprising and different way - and that has happened. Port Townsend, for example, will forever be depicted as a seaport painted on the side of a giant salmon - which is a deliciously positive image to project into the future! The Northwest formline salmon "family" will become a Northwest icon in itself, I am certain. Time will tell - but we know we did our best - and your help has been most gratefully received. Together, WE DID IT!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Sara Mall Johani
President, Soul Salmon

Please direct yout questions or comments through the following channels.

T: 360-732-4238
F: 360-732-7128
E: housojay@olympus.net

See the previous about section for more details on the project.

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