Dancing With Sea Lions is a public art project with fifteen life size sea lion sculptures still on public display along the Oregon Coast in Florence, Reedsport, Yachats, and Waldport, Oregon.

The Dancing with Sea Lions art project began as a fundraiser for the 20th Anniversary of the Florence Events Center in 2016.  Volunteers of FACE, the Florence Arts, Culture, and Entertainment nonprofit group (previously known as the Friends of the FEC), headed up this project in conjunction with the Florence Events Center Staff and volunteers. 

Twenty life size sea lion sculptures were each painted by a different artist. All of them were displayed with their sponsors along the Oregon Coast from Reedsport to Newport till October of 2016, when they were then purchased by businesses and individuals. Fifteen of them are still publicly displayed in Florence, Oregon and near by coastal locations in Reedsport, Yachats, Waldport, and at Sea Lion Caves.  See our Where Are They Now map for their current locations.

(Note that each of the 20 sea lions has a different year painted on it, representing the 20 years of the Florence Events Center. Each artist was assigned a different year and asked to add it to their design in some way. At the opening reception for the Dancing with Sea Lions project, guests were asked to do a scavenger hunt to find all the different dates on each of the sea lions. Some of the artists made this task very easy, with the year prominently featured on their sea lion, while others made it a true hunt by hiding the date so that it was difficult to discover. When you find a sea lion on your journey see if you can tell whether the artist was trying to hide their assigned year or not.)