Press release from the Humboldt Arts Council:

Morris, or lovingly known as Morrie, the ceramic banana slug created for the 2024 Eureka Street Art Festival by local artists Shannon Sullivan and Jessica Swan, was brazenly stolen from the Melvin Schuler Sculpture Garden at the Morris Graves Museum of Art the night of November 2nd following Arts Alive.

After welcoming over 800 community members to the monthly celebration of the arts and town art walk, Humboldt Arts Council staff locked up and said goodnight to Morris. Sometime between 9 p.m. and 11 a.m. Sunday morning, the thief(s) cut the lock and chain that secures the Sculpture Garden gate and pried Morris from his post where he greets passersby’s on the Seventh Street side of the MGMA.

“We are devastated by the theft of our beloved Morris the Slug. Art is meant to connect the community and bring us together. In such a divided time it is art that can unite us, and that is what Morris was intended to do.” Says Jemima Harr, Executive Director-Curator of the Humboldt Arts Council.

HAC Staff are working closely with the Eureka Police Department and ask the public’s assistance in keeping an eye out and an ear open to any known clues of where Morris the Slug might be or who might have taken off with him.

Just next week the MGMA was planning to welcome local students on a field trip to view Morris, and it will be very unfortunate to tell the young artists that Morris is missing. “Public art is meant to be freely accessible to all, and it is so disheartening that someone would intentionally take it away from the community,” says Harr.