Wayne’s World @Porter Sculpture Park

An iron Bull Head as big as Teddy’s on Mt. Rushmore looms over I-90 in Montrose South Dakota, 20 miles west of Sioux Falls.

We saw it last year, traveling from the Badlands en route to Minnesota. First you see the Iron Horse, 50,000 pounds of welded steel railroad plates and then the Bull comes into view. There’s no sign; we whizzed past in a “darn, we missed that, didn’t even get a picture” moment.

This year Porter Sculpture Park was a 40 mile detour off our route to North Dakota, but as a Harvest Host, we could overnight for the price of admission and see what the bull was happening there.

Just as the Horse and Bull came into view, we exited I-90 and 1/2 mile later were entering a dirt and crushed stone road bordering cow lands. Owner, Sculptor, Artist Wayne Porter and Bambino the Dog Poet greeted us, offering Boss the premier boondocking spot along the wire fence for “the best views of momma cows, baby calves and Flickertails,” aka Richardson ground squirrels, little cousin to the prairie dog.

Quick to level, Eric set up the solar panels and we ventured into the garden of metal through Pain and Joy. “Pain and Joy can co-exist but neither stays forever, butterflies fly away, thorns are pulled.” The hand painted sign set the tone for what was to come … welded and shaped exhibits of metaphysical or meaning-of-life concepts in Wayne’s Brain-World.

He tackles life and death, war and peace, happiness and sorrow, morality and depravity. He wonders if he can find answers to humanity’s actions and beliefs in physics. Or, perhaps he simply likes to weld.

In this sculpture, “Cracked Goldfish Bowl,” Wayne explores the concept of being trapped in everyday suburban life or put in a Pink Floyd way, “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year.” In Wayne’s World a fish escapes and the others are left to wonder what became of it – did he die or did he find something better on the outside. We’re not sure if that’s actually Wayne’s meaning, but that’s what art interpretation is all about, yes?

We put on our art appreciation hats and wandered about several acres of a straw and dried cowpie terrain, discussing Dead Man’s Hill and the fine line between danger, thrill and stupidity. The extremist still goes. In Wise Man, Bambino the Dog Poet writes ‘Like the three monkeys, he hears no evil, speaks no evil and sees no evil. In order to be wise one first must be mangled.” Or as the old adage goes … Good decisions come from experience and experience comes from bad decisions. Either way, Sheri could relate to the broken ankle.

The main attraction is not warring boars but Bull Head and Horse. There are two stories here, the making of each mammoth construct and the meaning behind them.

Wayne is a former sheep farmer and blacksmith’s son who learned to weld at 12. Self taught in arts and sciences, he says he just knows when the proportions are right. With no blueprints or sketches he created these frames climbing 50 feet of ladder to weld thousands of 30 pound railroad tie-plates together. At 25 tons and 60 feet tall, the ancient Egyptian Longhorn is both symbol and tomb but for what we’re not sure. Here are some pictures. You decide.

Different kinds of minds. Perched over the field of cows on folding chairs, we shared a Rum Chata with Wayne and discussed quantum physics, chaos theory, entropy, movies, sheep farming and the value of a good dog, but in a pinch, any dog works as a companion in South Dakota. It was a night unlike most.