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USA
Midwest
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Cochrane, WI
Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden - Herman Rusch
1885-1985
Sculpture environment
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Information:
Built: 1958 - 1974
Bored in his retirement, farmer Herman Rusch opened a museum to display his collection of souvenirs and natural oddities. Using barrel hoops as armatures, in 1958 he built his first structure: a wall of interconnecting concrete arches.
Each of the supporting pillars was topped with a conical spire. Colored glass, pebbles, pieces of mirror and broken pottery were inlaid into the wet cement, which was tinted with red dye. Rusch was active till 1974, building a birdhouse, a small Hindu temple, a watchtower and two tall sun spires topped with mirrored stars.
His sculptures include two dinosaurs and a giant stone cactus.
The Gardens are open daily year round while the museum is only open Sunday afternoons from May through October. Tour guides are available. Contact the Fountain City Museum for more information. There are also a couple of sculptures by artist Halvor Landsverk mixed into the works, such as a bleeding man battling a bear.
Text is from "Fantasy Worlds" by Deidi Von Schaewen and John Maizels
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Bibliography:
On DVD - Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations, "Neighborly Northerners", KCPT, Kansas City Public Television, 1996-2001.
"Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations" by Randy Mason, Michael Murphy and Don Mayberger, 2002.
"Sacred Spaces & Other Places: A Guide to Grottos & Sculptural Environments in the Upper Midwest" by Lisa Stone and Jim Zanzi, Chicago, IL: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Press, 1993.
"20th Century American Folk, Self Taught, and Outsider Art" by Betty-Carol Sellen, Cynthia J. Johnson, Neal-Schuman Publishers, New York, 1993.
"Raw Creation: Outsider Art and Beyond" by John Maizels, 1996.
"Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Environments" by Roger Manley and Mark Sloan, Aperture, New York, 1997.
"Fantasy Worlds" by Deidi Von Schaewen and John Maizels, Taschen, New York, 1999.
"American Self-Taught Art: An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,319 Capsule Biographies" by Florence Laffal and Julius Laffal, 2003.
"Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations Coast to Coast Travel-o-Pedia" by Randy Mason, et. al., Kansas City Star Books, 2009. |
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