Larger-than-life sculptures Bigger Big Chair and The Man Who Used to Hunt Cougars for Bounty will switch locations on campus this week
Western Washington University plans to swap placement of two outdoor sculptures in its renowned sculpture collection on campus before a majority of students return for the fall 2024 quarter.
The move aims to rectify the incorrect installation of Bigger Big Chair, a sculpture that symbolizes a “seat of learning” next to Wilson Library to connect with the university’s academic core, said Hafthor Yngvason, director of the Western Gallery and Public Art Collection. In the meantime, The Man Who Used to Hunt Cougars for Bounty will be relocated into the forest near Fairhaven College and Complex.
“The installation of the Bigger Big Chair was an unfortunate mistake that people have wanted to correct for a while,” Yngvason said. “Planning started in 2018 but COVID set us back. The moving of The Man Who Used to Hunt Cougars for Bounty into the woods is a fortuitous opportunity.”
Thanks for the memories
The Man Who Used to Hunt Cougars for Bounty, created by sculptor Richard Beyer, has greeted students, faculty, staff and campus visitors on Western’s Old Main Lawn for 50-plus years.
The upcoming sculpture move surprised many current Western students and alumni. Miguel Garduno Munoz, a senior cybersecurity major who will graduate in fall 2025, said he noticed construction work around the hunter sculpture while taking summer classes.
“I assumed they were fixing the grass after the [Gaza solidarity] encampment,” he said.
Mia Limmer-Lai, a rising senior environmental journalism major who will graduate in spring 2025, said she will miss The Man Who Used to Hunt Cougars for Bounty sculpture’s familiar location on the Old Main Lawn.
“As a writing tutor at the Hacherl Research and Writing Studio in Haggard Hall and a former resident of Edens Hall, I often passed by the enigmatic sculpture on my way to work or class,” she said.
Lorrie (Crocker) Scott, a WWU graduate in 1975 who now lives on the Olympic Peninsula, said she remembers watching Beyer carving the hunter sculpture from a piece of white granite in front of Wilson Library.
“It’s odd to move it,” she said. “I remember hearing the noise from my room in 285 Higginson, as the artist used tools to shape the sculpture. I stopped with other students to watch the artist at work.”
Scott’s family has several ties to Western. Her husband majored in political science in 1973, while their two daughters graduated from the university during the 2000s.
It took three months for Beyer to finish the sculpture with help from an assistant in 1972, Yngvason said.
The hunter portrayed on the sculpture once roamed the forest in Bellingham’s Sehome Hill in search of cougars, Yngvason said, recounting Beyer’s account in the book “Sculpture in Place: A Campus As Site.” Sarah Clark-Langager wrote the book during her tenure as director of the Western Gallery and curator of WWU’s Outdoor Sculpture Collection from 1988-2014.
The sculpture depicts the hunter reconciling with a cougar later in his life in a drunken haze, Beyer said in the book. According to Beyer, the sculpture is a commentary on how urban expansion in Bellingham puts animals at risk. Cougars disappeared from the area because of the addition of new buildings on campus and the establishment of the Sehome Hill Arboretum, Yngvason said. Beyer died in 2012.
“The Man Who Used to Hunt Cougars for Bounty would be well served by a placement in the woods,” Yngvason said. “The proximity to campus architecture does not add to its significance whereas the Fairhaven Ridge Trail site would be most appropriate to the sculpture’s subject.”
Western students in the mid-2000s found The Man Who Used to Hunt Cougars for Bounty sculpture quite comical and bizarre, said James Keller, a 2008 graduate with a bachelor’s in operations management. He now lives in Whatcom County working for Instacart.
“No one used the sculpture’s real name, but referred to it as MHB or Man Humping Bear,” he said.
During that time, The College Store — a now-out-of-business bookstore for WWU and Whatcom Community College located near Haggen and REI in Sehome Village — once offered T-shirts featuring MHB, said Sarah (Brusseau) Allen, a 2006 graduate with a bachelor’s in psychology. She is currently a homeschool parent and volunteers with a children’s theater program in Seattle.
Allen said she still wears her MHB shirt to this day.
Janisa Cook, a rising senior public relations major who will graduate in spring 2025, recalled seeing the hunter statue for the first time during a tour of the Western campus during her senior year at Bothell High School. “I remember thinking: ‘What is that, and what is going on?’” she said.
Tales from the Bigger Big Chair
David Ireland, sculptor of Bigger Big Chair, spent his childhood in Bellingham and studied art and mathematics during a two-year stint, from 1948 to 1950, at Western Washington University — known then as Western Washington State College.
Bigger Big Chair was Ireland’s last artwork made in 2007 before he died of pneumonia in 2009. This was not just another sculpture commission for him; this artwork was a tribute to his alma mater, Yngvason said.
“It is ironic that Ireland’s sculpture ended up on the Fairhaven Ridge Trail against his wishes because Western is known among sculpture curators for the particularly successful siting of artists’ work,” Yngvason said. “Contemporary artists tend to create their work for specific sites that will underscore the meaning of their work.”
Yngvason said to move the Bigger Big Chair is to save it.
WWU art and sculpture professor Sebastian Mendes — who was Ireland’s former student at Stanford University — said during Bigger Big Chair’s site selection at Western in March 2004: “For conceptual and personal reasons, [Ireland] has very strong feelings about his work being closely connected to the academic core of the Western campus.”
Ray Lang, a junior environmental science major who anticipates they will graduate in 2026, said they are sad about the sculpture swap. Bigger Big Chair’s original location along a footpath between Buchanan Towers and Fairhaven College felt like a special place to hang out, they said.
“Everyone I showed [Bigger Big] Chair had no idea it was there,” Lang said. “We all had fun trying to find the best way to sit on it.”
An oversized throne-like chair, Bigger Big Chair stands around 13 feet tall by 13 feet long, according to the Washington State Arts Commission.
Lang said Bigger Big Chair’s move near the Wilson Library could become a popular spot for current and prospective students to pose on the chair for photo opportunities this coming academic year.
Garduno Munoz agreed with Lang about Bigger Big Chair’s interactive potential. Bigger Big Chair will be a more suitable art piece for the student body and community members who walk by the library daily, he said.
“While the Bigger Big Chair is a good sculpture, I feel that it doesn’t have the same nostalgic resonance with many WWU students,” Limmer-Lai said.
Yngvason said he discussed the implications of moving the hunter sculpture with more than 100 students at different levels of study at Western during the 2023–2024 academic year.
“In the few instances when students said they would miss the sculpture, their concerns seemed to dissipate when it was explained that the hunter sculpture would be on permanent view where the Bigger Big Chair is now,” Yngvason said. “The survey is admittedly unscientific, but it might be considered a good indication that swapping the sculptures would not result in conflict.”
Complicated logistics
Both sculptures will be transported and installed at their new locations on Thursday, Sept. 5, said Doug MacLean, project manager at Western. MacLean expects the move to be completed in one day, but there is a possibility work could extend to Friday.
On Western’s North Campus, the area around the hunter sculpture will be fenced off with signs to indicate pedestrian detours on Thursday, MacLean said. High Street will be closed intermittently that day with a flagger directing traffic.
The Fairhaven Ridge pedestrian path on South Campus will also be closed between Buchanan Towers and the Fairhaven Bridge near the Child Development Center playground to accommodate the Bigger Big Chair move, MacLean said.
Bigger Big Chair is a 16,000-pound metal sculpture that once could not be supported by the soil around Wilson Library, but now the move is possible because of the availability of a crane and other heavy equipment, Yngvason said. “[Bigger Big] Chair has a large footprint, and would be best placed on a level, grassy area — not on the side of a hill.”
Transporting both sculptures may also cause some traffic delays, MacLean said. The expected moving route is on Highland Drive and West College Way, but this could change to accommodate traffic safety due to rigging limitations on the sculptures.
More information about the logistics of the sculpture exchange is available on WWU News.
– By Catherine Skrzypinski