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The town's landmark inspired the name for a new gas station - Big Foot Gas and Grocery. After 2 1/2 years the foot was finished, and in 1991 Vining citizens gave it a choice location along Highway 210, not too far from the town's Purple Palace restaurant. "I thought, æthere won't be many of them around,' " he says. For his next project, Nyberg planned to weld a foot with a swollen toe, based on something he'd whittled out of wood. In 1983 he made his first metal sculpture - a family tree for a wedding gift. He also had access to lots of scrap metal.
PURPLE PALACE VINING HOW TO
Through his construction job, Nyberg became a good welder and learned how to improvise to make things work without detailed plans. His favorite subjects are mundane - a clothespin, a doorknob, a tipped coffee cup held up by the metal coffee pouring from it.
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Commissioned works dot other area communities including an otter in the city of Ottertail, a panther in Parkers Prairie, a sunflower at a seed business in Breckenridge, and a stethoscope for a nearby medical clinic. Nyberg's sculptures - all welded from scrap steel - are displayed in an outdoor gallery in a park named after him in his hometown of Vining, Minn. Welding steel into a giant foot with a swollen toe is a far cry from the elevators, feed mills and fertilizer plants Ken Nyberg helped build in his 42 years of construction work.īut it was a lot more interesting, and it has led to an interesting new hobby/career.