By Office of Corporate Communications
November 6, 2019
In this video, AIP Artist Emily Damstra and Medallic Artist Renata Gordon discuss their work on the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness quarter.
On Wednesday, November 6, 2019, the U.S. Mint released a quarter honoring the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho. The quarter is the fifth and final release of 2019 as part of the America the Beautiful Quarters® Program.
The quarter launch ceremony was attended by 1,500 people, including 1,200 school children. Following the launch ceremony, the East Idaho Federal Credit Union exchanged $14,500 in Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness quarters.
The Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness is the largest single connected wilderness in the contiguous United States. The site is named in honor of late U.S. Senator Frank Church, who played a leading role in its preservation. The Wilderness is made up of rugged mountains, deep canyons, and wild whitewater rivers, including the Main Salmon River and Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The site also contains four national forests.
The design of the coin depicts a piloted drift boat on the rushing river, encompassed by trees and rock formations, which is representative of the type of landscape in the wilderness.
“I looked at hundreds of different photographs of the Frank Church Wilderness, and I was inspired by the beautiful landscape,” said AIP Artist Emily Damstra, who designed the quarter reverse. “I also took the advice of the park liaison that the artists work with, who suggested a drift boat as a possible subject matter because drift boats are often used within the park.”
“Every step of the sculpture process, from laying out the underlying structures to finessing the texture at the end, is important because you want a rock to feel like a rock, and you want every form to feel like what it should be,” said U.S. Mint Medallic Artist Renata Gordon, who sculpted the 2019 Frank Church River of No Return quarter reverse design. “This sculpt gave me the opportunity to do that because there were a lot of natural elements and there was a human figure, so it made this sculpt really interesting to execute.”
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