Fish Swimming Over Old Pateros

In 1967 the town of Pateros was intentionally flooded by the creation of the Wells Dam on the Columbia River. To honor the memory of old Pateros, still missed by some residents, Beyer designed a sculpture depicting fish swimming in a circle over the town buildings.

Margaret Grant was a sculpture student at the University of Chicago who was working with Beyer for her final year, learning his technique of carving a final design in Styrofoam for casting into aluminum. Peggy was so successful at the carving that Beyer had her carve the fish for this sculpture. She also demonstrated the Styrofoam technique to the first grade class at the Pateros School and gave each child a fish to take home. A local artist, Steve Love (who now owns the Beyer Foundry) contributed by carving a large frog crawling out between the buildings. The final touch, suggested by Beyer, was to put a “time capsule” in the pit where the sculpture was to be placed. The children gathered treasured items and placed them in the hole, to be left to be found by some archeologist in the distant future.

Insert proved by richbeyersculpture.com