Geek Week PDX Celebrates Nerd Culture With Citywide Sasquatch Art Hunt

Sneaky Sasquatch PDX Art Hunt Launches Across Portland

An 8-foot Sasquatch sculpture stands outside City Hall as the centerpiece of the first-ever Sneaky Sasquatch PDX art hunt, which debuted on Sept. 8, according to reporting by Hoodline. The festival event features 31 original Sasquatch sculptures distributed across small businesses, community centers, and public parks throughout the city. The artwork ranges from the massive City Hall installation down to a two-inch miniature. Festival organizers released clues to help participants track down each sculpture over the ten-day schedule, according to KOIN coverage cited by Hoodline. David Raycroft, who holds the festival’s tongue-in-cheek title of chief goblin wrangler, noted that participating locations did not pay to host the installations, and artists donated both their time and materials without corporate sponsorship.

Artists and Sustainable Design Behind the Bigfoot Sculptures

The 8-foot centerpiece was built by Moni Sears and Rick Sears of Goblin Art, a studio known for previous work at the Portland Winter Light Festival. Moni Sears founded the studio in 2000 as a mask-making operation that supplied pieces for the 2006 film The Wicker Man and Iron Maiden’s 2003 album Dance of Death, according to Goblin Art history. In 2019, the artists shifted toward giant puppets and public art utilizing recycled materials. The 31 Sasquatch interpretations follow a waste-stream design philosophy, constructed primarily from recycled cardboard boxes, paper bags, and reclaimed paper fiber, as detailed by Wildland Roots.

Regional Cryptid Lore and Citywide Engagement

The Sasquatch theme leans into Oregon’s deep affinity for cryptid folklore, which includes the world’s only historic Bigfoot Trap built in 1974 within the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest and the North American Bigfoot Center in Boring, Oregon, according to Travel Oregon. This neighborhood engagement model mirrors earlier citywide art trails in Portland, such as LAIKA’s Follow the Crows trail earlier in the year, which placed 30 six-foot crow sculptures around town to benefit OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. Geek Week PDX itself launched in 2024 after founder David Raycroft identified nearly 200 local small businesses catering to pop culture, prompting a formal civic proclamation from the Portland City Council.