The Fishin' Hole Sculpture

Click to hear an interview with Artist Jim Gilmore

This piece was one of the first acquired by the City of Black Hawk in 2002. Jim Gilmore, a Colorado native, had been managing his family’s cattle ranch near Alamosa when he decided to take a year off to pursue his dream of being an artist. Since that decision in the early 1980s, Gilmore has created a number of wildlife-inspired sculptures. In this depiction, Gilmore crafted a mama bear and her three cubs to make up the public installation known as “Fishing Hole.” Gilmore said, “Bear cubs are naturally very playful. For the two cubs on the log looking down, I decided to place one cub’s paw on top of the head of the other cub to evoke that playful nature.”