Heidi Wastweet, USA, 2020, Bronze, 63 mm
Obv: Eagle holding sun in a box reading RAVEN STEALS THE SUN
Rev: Eagle flying over mountain. MEDAL COLLECTORS of AMERICA 2020
Signed: H.W.

Ravens are the most intelligent of birds. Since biblical times, they have assumed near mythological status in various cultures throughout the world, but nowhere are they more esteemed than with Native American peoples. A legend among the Haida people of the American Northwest tells of a time when the world was cloaked in darkness. The raven, having discovered that the light of the sun had been hidden in a box, tricked the box's owner in order to extract the sun, then flew with it up to the sky, thus lighting the entire world.

Heidi Wastweet, a member of the National Sculpture Society and currently president of the American Medallic Sculpture Society, has created distinguished bas relief sculptures in both medallic and monumental form. Given the raven's reputation for being attracted to shiny objects, she has chosen to base a remarkable and unique new conception, her design for the Medal Collectors of America's 2020 Annual Medal, on the legend of the raven as the bringer of light. Setting animated perspectives of this central character against backgrounds of decorative Heidi patterning and the brilliance of the sun, she has sculpted a composition both artful and dramatic. The parallelism between the raven’s intelligent purposes and behaviors and those of scholarly medal collectors make this extraordinary medal particularly apt as the ninth in an ongoing series of Annual Medals to be issued by the Medal Collectors of America. (Text taken from Medal Collectors of America website)