My wife and I were recently traveling north on Hwy. 97 through Oregon, on the way home from a family reunion in California’s gold country. We were passing through the town of Chemult (population 79), just northeast of Crater Lake, when a mural on the long side of a restaurant immediately caught our eyes.

In the interest of full disclosure, all murals catch our eyes. In fact, as a public service I should put a bumper sticker on our car that warns the unsuspecting, “We brake for murals.” But the mural we encountered in Chemult, Oregon — which took up the entire south side of the Ponderosa Public House — was at once familiar to us as denizens of the PNW. It was populated by a bevy of whimsical beasts, including a lovable Sasquatch, all of whom were clearly relishing the delights of the great outdoors, as we in the Northwest are wont to do. At the bottom right hand side of the mural was the name of the artist in familiar lower case letters: henry. And not for the first time we wondered, “who the heck is Henry?”

We’ve been seeing murals by “henry” for years now, and in a multitude of places, most especially in Bellingham. I recently had lunch with “Rebels in the Wild” author Bob Burns in Camano, where I saw a work by henry adorning the wall of Tapped (great restaurant, btw), and then encountered yet another on the retaining wall of a home in Stanwood. His works are ubiquitous, and always bring a smile to our faces. But Chemult, Oregon was an unexpected location for a mural by an artist we had assumed was of more local origin. Which led me to consult that unimpeachable source of all truth and knowledge: the Internet.

Here’s what I learned about “the artist currently known as ‘henry’.”

To begin with, ‘henry’ is the artistic alter ego of a Washington-based painter whose name is Ryan Henry Ward — best known for his large, brightly colored, whimsical murals featuring animals and imaginary creatures that include Sasquatches, owls, bears, rabbits, birds, sea creatures, flowers, and fantastical figures, often with oversized expressive eyes. His work is particularly prevalent around Seattle, although he has painted throughout Washington and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest. And, as it turns out, even in Chemult, Oregon.

Ryan Henry Ward was born in Montana but grew up largely in Enumclaw, Washington. He attended Fairhaven College at Western Washington University in Bellingham, where he studied subjects including art, writing, and storytelling. After college he worked in social services before eventually turning to painting full-time.

He began his professional art career around 2008, and his work spread remarkably quickly around Seattle. In fact, in 2011 Seattle Weekly reported that he had already painted more than 120 murals and sold nearly 2,000 canvases. His current official site describes him as Seattle’s most prolific muralist and says his career now encompasses “thousands of murals and public-art installations” — which would definitely quality as “prolific.”

One of the most distinctive aspects of Ward’s (I’m sorry…”henry’s”) technique is that his murals are painted freehand. Western Washington University reported in 2026 that he does not use projectors or grids. He typically establishes the basic forms and then fills them with the strong outlines, patterns and saturated colors characteristic of his work.

In recent years, Ward’s iconic “Sassy Sasquatch” has become one of his best-known characters. In 2025 he undertook a huge community project involving more than 1,000 Sasquatch murals across Washington, traveling from the eastern side of the state to the Olympic Peninsula, and from the Puget Sound region north toward Blaine.

His official site currently lists his gallery presence at the Seattle Waterfront Marketplace near Pike Place Market, and he continues to accept mural commissions…for those of you who’d like to take their home’s curb appeal to a whole new level. For now, I’m thrilled just to continue discovering new “henries” as my wife’s and my journeys take us around the beautiful PNW.