All of this talk about big things this week got me thinking about something that I drove by while on Thanksgiving vacation. Vining is a town of only 68 located between Fergus Falls and Wadena on Highway 210. Vining has become more well known recently for being the home town of Karen Nyberg one of the most recent NASA astronauts to be sent into space, now on the the big things. In Vining, Minnesota there is one of the oddest collection of big things that you will ever see in one town, everything from a sculpture of a pretzel to a giant foot sculpture are located in the town. The majority of these big things are located in Nyberg Sculpture park and they are all visible from the highway. They were all created by artist Ken Nyberg (Karen Nyberg's Father) using scrap metal as the main component. Ken creates these sculptures in his spare time, he builds grain elevators the rest of the time. Some of Ken's other works include some similar metal sculptures that sit in his front yard, a large otter statue located in nearby Ottertail City, Minnesota and a bear statue in Byron, Minnesota. In total by my count there are currently 14 sculptures in visible from the highway and his house is located about a mile off of the highway. I found it interesting that statues are made of metal considering that the majority of the ones from class were either fiberglass or metal frame with concrete. I would say that if you ever are going along highway 210 it's definitely worth your time to take 15 minutes to check out the park, with the uniqueness of the sculptures you definitely won't forget them.
posted by Alex Jensen #
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