John and Bertha Mehinger | dates unknown | Fountain City, WI Rock and concrete environment | 1933-1935 This was one of those great moments in being lost. After I left Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden, I remembered reading in Lisa Stone’s book, “Sacred Spaces & Other…
Herman Rusch | 1885-1985 | near Cochrane, WI Embellished concrete environment | Created 1958 – 1974 The highway along the Mississippi River winds through lush farm land and great bluffs. Growing up in Missouri, where the Mississippi is big and muddy and the flood plains…
Fred Smith | 1886-1976 | Phillips, WIEmbellished concrete environment | Created 1948-1964 Driving on from the Rudolph Grotto and Wonder Cave, past Colby, WI (yes, it is the home of colby cheese), it was a few hours to Phillips and the main destination that got…
Fr. Philip Wagner | 1882-1959 and Edmund Rybicki | 1916-1991 | Rudolph, WI Grotto | Created 1928 through the 1950s After a thwarted attempt to find Tony’s Fan Fair in Steven’s Point (he passed away and his fan-filled yard had been completely dismantled) , it was time…
Somewhere in Wisconsin, near Mt. Horeb Metal sculpture yard Driving along a back highway, there was a yard full of sculptures. No one was home, and I couldn’t find an address…but had to stop the car and take a couple of photos. Maybe they were…
Earl Wayne Simmons | 1956- | Bovina, MS Found object environment and paintings Original site 1980s – 2002. | New site (same location) 2002 – present As a child, Earl Wayne Simmons made his own toys from scraps of cardboard, jar lids, and bottlecaps, sometimes…
Reverend H. D. Dennis | 1916- | Margaret Rogers Dennis | dates unknown Vicksburg, MS Embellished visionary environment | Created 1994 to present Sometimes you just get lucky. I had been wanting to meet the Reverend Dennis and his wife Margaret for sometime, and now…
Gordon McMath | unknown | Mountainair, NM Found object metal sculptures | Creation dates unknown Sometimes you find things while getting lost. Around the corner from Pop Shaffer’s Hotel, there is a house with great found object sculptures. No one was home.
Clem “Pop” Shaffer | 1880-unknown | Mountainair, NM Lodging and home environment | Rancho Bonito – 1937 • Shaffer Hotel – 1922 In the early 1900s, “Pop” Shaffer moved to Mountainair, New Mexico—a thriving community known as the “Pinto Bean Capitol of the World”—to work…
Tammy Jean Lange | 1958- | Madrillos, NM Found object environment | Created 1994 to present Along the Turquoise Trail, just outside Madrid, New Mexico lurks “The Bone Zone,” the ever-evolving found object and road kill environment/miniature village by Tammy Jean Lange, also known as…