Ruby Rojas

When I created this piece, I was inspired by something that happened to me a few years ago. I used to take the bus home. One day, after I was dropped off and walked to my house from the bus stop, I was surprised to hear about a bear in the neighborhood. A black bear had come down from the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains in the search of food for the winter. The bear was only about a block away from my stop, it ended up going back up the mountain peacefully. That experience always reminds me how close nature really is. In my piece I created a recreation of the black bear coming down to my neighborhood. I put the tall Sierra Nevada mountains in the background, covered in a dusting of snow. I wanted to make the bear look very friendly, since it did not cause any harm outside of spooking a few people. Sometimes when I am outside, I look up to the mountains wondering if that bear still lives there. To this day, my family still talk about the bear coming down the mountain. Since then, we have seen deer and coyotes, but never another bear.