By Gerry Gilmour
New Century Press
So many years removed from days when one could petition for 40 acres and a mule, one of Fargo’s most familiar faces waits with his pair of oxen in the basement of the Plains Art Museum while the public debates where he best next sets his plow.
“Sodbuster San Isidro” is one of the notable artistic accomplishments created by the notable yet late artist Luiz Jimenez. Commissioned in 1978 by the city of Fargo’s Parking Authority, Sodbuster’s plow was set firmly in concrete and surrounded by native grasses at the intersection of Main and Broadway from 1982 to 2002.
The colorful piece, created with iron rebar armature encased in a polychrome outer shell, was given to the museum and removed to storage for safekeeping. Years of exposure to our wind and cold, ultraviolet light and the pounding reverb of untold thousands of trains took its toll on this fixture of Fargo’s visual identity.
“It’s in bad shape,” says Mark Ryan, curator of collections for Plains Art Museum. And it needs a new home.
Expansion and retraction with the whims of our weather have left the giant work of art pockmarked with cracks and fissures. The hope, that someday Jiminez himself could come rescue and revitalize the prairie plowman. The artist was excited about the prospect. Yet in 2006, Jiminez was literally killed by his own creation, “Blue Mustang,” commissioned for the Denver airport. A large piece of the polychrome Fiberglas sculpture toppled in his New Mexico studio, severing an artery in his leg.
“Sodbuster San Isidro” stands more than 6 feet tall and measures 26 feet from the muscular settler’s boots to the tip of his lead oxen’s nose. It weighs an estimated 900 pounds. San Iisidro is the patron saint of agriculture.
Only those who worked closely with Jiminez could hope to recreate the delicate, layered pigments, resins and coatings the artist used to create the outer shell of his works. “We want to make sure the artist’s voice is maintained,” Ryan says.
Jiminez created popular art that anyone could relate to, according to Ryan. He took ordinary images and made them heroic.
Among the many images he created are “Man on Fire,” and “Barfly,” the latter of which portrays the Statue of Liberty as a busty beer drinker. “Barfly” is a piece belonging to the Plains Arts Museum’s collection.
“Sodbuster San Isidro,” after its debut in Fargo, was recreated for seven other communities and entities. Ryan says curators of those pieces are being consulted as the Plains Arts Museum embarks upon plans to restore Fargo’s original.
Fargo’s statue was created at a cost of $40,000. Ryan says at one time it was estimated it would cost more than $200,000 to fix and refinish.
At a recent “Sodbuster Summit” hosted by the Plains Art Museum, public discussion turned to where to best settle the rebuilt settler and his oxen.
Approximately 100 attended the summit.
Stevie Famulari, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at North Dakota State University, among the attendees, says she became familiar with Jiminez and his works while living in her native New York and later while teaching in New Mixico.
“Any piece of work by Luiz Jiminez is an important work of art,” Famulari says.
Bob Stein, who oversees the downtown area for the city of Fargo’s department of planning and development, says one possibility is Broadway Square, a plot just east (across Broadway) from the former depot site.
Other suggestions weighed at the summit: the Main Avenue Bridge linking Fargo and Moorhead, North Dakota and Minnesota; the US Bank Plaza.
Kyle Anderson, on the board of directors for the Fargo-Moorhead Convention & Visitors Bureau, at the summit suggested the community instead look westward for the next Sodbuster site.
At the FMCVB’s home at 2001 44th St. S., also a visitor’s center and rest stop for weary Interstate 94 travelers, the Sodbuster would benefit from full-time supervision and care, Anderson says.
Cole Carley, president and CEO of the FMCVB, says his tourism organization has pursued the sculpture for more than 15 years.
“ We believe that public art should be viewed and be able to be appreciated by the public,” Carley says in an open letter presented at the summit.
Points in his letter:
Visibility and traffic to draw people to the piece
Ample, proximate parking
Good ambience to enhance photo opportunities
We already have a colorful decorated bison from the “Herd About The Prairie” project on display.
Our building is occupied daily and the piece would be under our staff’s watchful eye. Since we began to display the fiberglass bison and later the woodchipper “stunt double,” there have been no incidents of vandalism or damage.
We are a marketing and promotional organization with the technical capabilities and marketing know-how to spread the news about this great example of public art worldwide.
“With that in mind, we have been saving money for years with the intent of restoring and displaying The Sodbuster as we feel it should be displayed: In the brilliant prairie sunshine set off against the backdrop of a historic grain elevator,” Caley says in his letter. “The Sodbuster belongs in a space where it will be respected, treasured and promoted.”