It’s hard to pass the stand of super-colossal metal sunflowers planted along the highway west of Greeley without cracking at least a little smile.
Ditto for the giant arrows “shot” headfirst into the ground near Mancos, a patch of 20-foot-tall grass growing from a median in Englewood and the giant rocking chair in front of the Apple Shed in Penrose.
Outsized and often outlandish, giant objects looming on the horizon are a welcome break in the increasingly homogeneous modern landscape.
“Thank God these things are out there,” says Erika Doss, a professor of art history at the University of Colorado who would rather drive Federal Boulevard to Denver than whiz down the highway because she likes the hodgepodge of old advertising signs along the way. “We are so visually bored. We’re starved for something that’s a little off or a little different.”
Colorado’s inventory of overgrown objects doesn’t begin to rival the vast circus of giant ice-cream cones and fiberglass fish that dance in the Wisconsin Dells, or the panoply of Paul Bunyans towering over Michigan and Minnesota. No “World’s Largest Ball of Twine” or giant jackalope for us.
Our big stuff has the same huckster parentage that gave birth to the “World’s Largest Prairie Dog” in Kansas and a 50-foot pyramid of empty oil cans in North Dakota. But the modern-day appeal of giant tepees and huge hot dogs has more to do with shock and awe than advertising.
“There’s something about the scale that’s amazing, and a lot of it has to do with the West, where everything’s supposed to be bigger and better,” observes Denver artist Bill Amundson, who has a big collection of photos of roadside collossi. “I guess in a landscape this vast, you need something bigger to compete with it.”
Amundson says there’s something nostalgic about seeing giant objects on the horizon. He links the feeling to a childhood spent contemplating the huge bugs and mutant creatures that starred in Cold War-era movies. “They’re just embedded in my consciousness as something very cool.”
We need only look at the Sphinx in Egypt to be reminded that huge representational objects have always been part of the visual landscape, says John Grant, director of special projects at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver.
And don’t be ashamed to think of behemoth arrows and towers created from castoff farm implements as art.
“They may not have been christened with the wand of a curator or a museum, but they are all works of art at some point,” says Grant, who is also the former director of Denver’s public-art program and the guy responsible for landing some of the city’s largest works – the big red chair at the library, the big blue bear at the convention center and the huge white dancers near the performing arts complex.
It’s in the public-art sector that the kitch crosses over into legit.
Witness Lawrence Argent’s big blue bear. Grant says it became an icon the minute it arrived.
“It’s so absolutely not supposed to be there, not at that size and not in that color. There’s an element of being overwhelmed and there is some satisfaction that people get from that,” Grant says. “It’s not normal, and people find entertainment in that. I know I do.”
IT’S PERSONAL
Call it outsider art or hobbies gotten terribly out of hand, but some of Colorado’s best big stuff is produced by bored farmers and people who can’t stand to throw anything away.
JUNKRASSIC PARK | 35574 County Road JJ, Cheraw
Retired farmer Johnnie Allen sold the farm about 5 miles east of Cheraw, keeping a little 4-acre plot where he’s been planting huge sculpture made from castoff metal since 1990. His largest piece is a plains version of the Eiffel Tower, the 40-foot tall Awful Tier, made from an old windmill set atop a platform.
The place is patrolled by a punny gallery of work Allen calls rogues, including “Infidel Castro,” “Jon Way-In,” “John L. Weigh.” Drop by anytime, Allen says. If he’s around, he’ll walk you through the garden he calls Junkrassic Park.
SWETSVILLE ZOO | about a quarter-mile east of Interstate 25, exit 265, on Harmony Road, east of Fort Collins
Ditto for Bill Swets, a retired farmer who created a zoo from the detritus of his farm life. There are hundreds of pieces in his garden, ranging from a huge, skeletal T-rex that points the way to the Swetsville Zoo, to a sublime tightrope walker, with huge dragonflies suspended from its balancing bar, that stands near the yard entrance.
CANO’S CASTLE | 10th Avenue and State Street, Antonito
Down in Antonito, Donald “Cano” Espinoza has spent the past 25 years constructing a huge castle from beer cans, hub caps and a lot of other junk. The effect is a stunning showplace that honors Espinoza’s mom and a friend killed during the Vietnam War.
ROADSIDE GOODNESS
Nothing says “STOP HERE” like an outsized object parked at the side of the road.
GIANT ARROWS AT THE HOGAN | 38651 U.S. 160, Mancos
In the fine tradition of mid-20th-century roadside advertising, the Mud Creek Hogan Trading Post’s second owner built a bunch of plywood tepees and planted huge arrows, shafts made from telephone poles, between them in 1986. Though there are similar giant arrows in northern Arizona, The Hogan’s are the best preserved in the nation, says RoadsideAmerica.com editor Doug Kirby.
The Hogan’s third ownership team, Bill and Judy Countess, insist the upkeep is worth the effort. Judy Countess says the kitsch persuades people to stop and shop the store’s inventory of legitimate American Indian arts and crafts, pottery, rugs and baskets and jewelry. “They’re great,” she says. “They’re basically used to pull people off the highway.”
JOHN MAY MUSEUM CENTER | 710 Rock Creek Canyon, via Colorado 115, Colorado Springs
So maybe it wasn’t some crazed scientist who nuked a bug to create the enormous Hercules beetle near the turnoff to the John May Museum Center southwest of Fort Carson. But the colossal creepy-crawler does evoke a certain horror-movie feel. Head down the hill to the museum for a peek at the 8,000 bugs – huge, but not magnified to mammoth proportions – collected from around the globe.
THE BIG MEN | U.S. 85 in Greeley; Colorado 66, between Hygiene and Lyons
In the 1960s and early ’70s, International Fiberglass churned out hundreds of Big Men, and most were sold to retailers as “attention getters,” the company’s owner Steve Dashew told the good folks at RoadsideAmerica.com. At least two reside in Colorado.
The most visible is the muffler man on U.S. 85 in Greeley, but we’re partial to the pitchfork-wielding farmer that has stood tall in the lawn near a private home between Hygiene and Lyons on Colorado 66 for more than 30 years. Visit the Boulder County big guy and bring along some pocket change so you can feed the gi-normous trout that live in the pond just to the south.
CRITICAL MASS
Denver is a hotbed of huge. Though there are far-flung roadside-attraction-type pieces, like the giant faucet hanging from the side of the Waterworks Apartments at 1733 Williams St. and the concrete cowboy who stands guard at the Rustic Ranch Mobile Home/RV Park at 5565 Federal Blvd., some of it is legitimate, paid-for public art. You’ll catch an eyeful near the intersection of West 14th Avenue Parkway and Broadway.
Start at the west side of the Denver Public Library, with “The Yearling,” by Donald Lipski, which is a tiny pinto pony perched on a huge red chair.
Around the corner to the south, outside the new Hamilton Wing of the Denver Art Museum, Coosje van Bruggen and Claes Oldenburg continue their canon of outsized tools and household implements with a 35-foot tall dustpan and broom.
Coming soon to the new courtyard: a 13-foot-tall bronze cow and her 10-foot-tall calf by Dan Ostermiller.
Down at the Colorado Convention Center, on the 14th Street side of the building, Lawrence Argent’s 40-foot-tall blue bear, called “I See What You Mean,” peers in through the glass wall.
Out back, on the Speer Boulevard side of the convention center and Denver Performing Arts Complex, Jonathan Borofsky’s 60-foot- tall “Dancers” dominate the sprawling sculpture garden, which includes the giant steel ribbon, “Indeterminate Line,” by Bernar Venet.
