After retiring from a career of farming and working in a tobacco warehouse, Raymond Coins found he was bored and restless. So the Virginia-born citizen of rural North Carolina started carving stones in imitation of the Native American arrowheads, tomahawks, and other similar items. These fake artifacts sold fairly well, and Coins was encouraged enough to carve some more. Small objects eventually gave way to larger, freestanding stone figures that the artist called his "baby dolls." Perhaps out of a confidence born from understanding carving techniques in one material, the artist soon shifted mediums. Once he began sculpting in cedar, his scale quickly went from intimate to monumental. Whether working in stone or wood, Coins repeatedly told clients and collectors that he carved figures he saw in the raw material.

Buffalo is a fine example of Coins at his most ambitious. This six-foot-long sculpture illustrates the stripped-down directness so admired in Coins's work. It still shows evidence of the cedar tree it once was: limbs that were branches and a hump that was merely a knot in the trunk. By simply crafting eyes, carving nostrils, and suggesting ears, Coins transformed a cedar tree from rural North Carolina into a rare, powerful wild beast. While these basic details could suggest a harmless animal, the enormous hump makes this creature incredibly imposing.

Coins came from a family of farmers and left public school in the fifth grade to work in the fields, so it is reasonable to find nature recorded in so much of his art. In addition to animals like Buffalo, he explored the human figure, sometimes dressing up his sculptures like mannequins.

Brooke Davis Anderson, "Buffalo," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 387.