News
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...
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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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