John's parents visited for a few days recently. Mary said to treat the both of them like tourists, as they hadn't spent any significant amount of time in the area since the 1970s. I appreciated the opportunity to share our home with them, our geographies, and the off-the-beaten-path Wisconsin that I love so much.
I'm not sure what Richard and Mary were expecting as we trekked from Madison to the Forevertron, just outside Sauk City. I had shown them Tom Every's biography and website, explained the Forevertron as the world's largest scrap metal sculpture, but how do you really adequately describe something so vast and intricate, beautiful and strange?
I can't remember how old I was the first time my family and I visited the Art Park, trespassing our way onto the property through the junkyard behind Delaney's Surplus. I was young enough that Delaney's seemed to stretch on forever, junk piled upon junk. We reached the back of the lot where a well-traveled footpath was cut through the brush, Secret Garden-esque. On the other side of the tall weeds loomed the Forevertron, unexpected but expected, like all of Delaney's junk had gotten sick of laying around and assembled itself in a way that sort of made sense. Despite being several stories tall, the Forevertron was completely hidden from the highway; we must have gone past it a hundred times and never knew it was there. We didn't know anything about "art" or "sculpture." But even as a child I had visions of a madman starting in one corner of his property and working his way toward the other, physically manifesting the heroes and monsters and creatures in his mind until they all were quiet. Isn't that what art is, anyway?
Thankfully the park was open the Friday we visited, as the man himself was there, Tom Every and his wife Eleanor. I was too intimidated to talk to him; having wondered about him for most of my life, I was paralyzed by inadequacy. But John's dad Richard had a long conversation with Every, who was pleased that he wasn't an engineer or social worker from Madison.
I ambled around purposelessly with my camera, not intending to take pictures of anything but knowing that I would kick myself if I saw something and didn't have any equipment. I took pictures at the Art Park last year, and The Camera Company Photographers group has been there at least once. I was skeptical that there was anything in the park that I hadn't seen or that I could see in a new way. But if there's anything I'm learning lately it's that photography is counterintuitive to my whole nature in that planning only gets you so far. There's a point where my conscious mind turns off, loses interest, stops trying. But that's when my subconscious mind takes over, quietly taking notes and making lists and once in awhile making me stop when it sees something particularly interesting. I've learned that it's better to have my camera around when that happens. Click.
The rusted out car was parked in overgrown weeds in the northeast corner of the park, seemingly forgotten. I crouched down next to it to get a better look at the inside and realized that I had a perfectly framed view of the Forevertron through the dingy driver's side window. The perspective reminded me of another photo I saw a few months ago (that I can't find despite all my Googling) in which the photographer was crouched behind a car, taking photos through the window of soldiers passing by. It had the same foreground in which one could see the interior of the car and the steering wheel, and the sense of the photographer's cowering position created so much tension that I couldn't take my eyes away from it. I tried to recreate that pose in the photo above. I'm not sure if I succeeded in this particular photo - I would have done better if not for the noon light shadowing the inside of the car and blowing out the background. But the car's state of neglect and the outline of the Forevertron through the window give the photo an apocalyptic feel. I'm pleased with the result, and maybe I'll try the same shot again sometime in better lighting.
More photos from Dr. Evermor's are on my Flickr.
