SPARKS OF INSPIRATION. Mark Blaskey and Mel Sundby are putting the finishing touches on “La Familia,” their entry into the 2016 Sculpture Tour Eau Claire.

Like the Sculpture Tour Eau Claire and the city that hosts it, Mel Sundby and Mark Blaskey make a good team – albeit a slightly unlikely one.

The two men took very different paths to becoming artists: Sundby has an MFA, taught at the college level, and has sculpted for more than 40 years, years ago in cast bronze and more recently in clay; Blaskey spent a career as a civil engineer before picking up a plasma torch and beginning to create metal sculptures about 15 years ago. Having worked together for three years, Sundby and Blaskey say their different skills, experiences, and aesthetic inclinations are complementary.

“The committee considers solely on talent, so it shows the strength of the art community here in the Midwest.” – Michelle Koehn, executive director, Sculpture Tour Eau Claire, on the growing number of Midwest entries in the tour

Without stretching the comparison too far, the same can be said for Eau Claire and the Sculpture Tour, which will soon begin its sixth year of transforming a city where public art used to be relatively rare into a massive outdoor art gallery. Each year, more than 30 sculptures by artists from around the country (and the world) make their home in Eau Claire, enriching the lives of residents and visitors alike.

The 2016 crop of sculptures, which will be installed May 4, includes 34 pieces, 11 of them from Midwestern artists. Michelle Koehn, executive director of the tour, says planners made a concerted effort this year attract more artists from the region. “An artist from Altoona, Wisconsin, could potentially be with an artist from Italy or British Columbia or California,” she said. “The committee considers solely on talent, so it shows the strength of the art community here in the Midwest.” Two of this year’s works will be from western Wisconsin artists, including a piece by Kaye Luetke of Maiden Rock and a sculpture by Sundby and Blaskey.

On an early April morning, the pair discussed their work at Blaskey’s Altoona studio. This will be their second consecutive year as part of the tour. To fill a last-minute opening in 2015, they created an abstract polished steel sculpture, “Avec le Soleil,” which – depending upon your interpretation – portrays Atlas holding the up the heavens, the Tower of London, a sundial, or something else. 

“We decided this year we’d do something a little more lyrical,” Sundby explains. The result is a polished steel sculpture, titled “La Familia.” It consists of three elephant-like creatures – a mother, a father, and a baby – formed from interlocking shapes. Sundby designed the sculpture using small models – or maquettes – cut from paper. Using a computer-controlled cutting table, Blaskey converted the models into appropriately shaped pieces of steel, a process that is considerably faster than cutting them by hand. After that, the pair carefully welded the pieces together and polished them to perfection.

“I’m a civil engineer by training,” Blaskey explains. “I have the mechanics, but not the aesthetics.” (He’s being overly modest: His studio is full of pieces portraying human figures that will be exhibited at the Janet Carson Gallery this fall.)

While their entry in the sculpture tour last year appealed to viewer’s brains, Sundby says, “La Familia” will appeal to their hearts: The mother and father creatures appear to be protecting and observing their little one while also proudly presenting him (an overlapping bundle of emotions any parent can relate to).

Even though “La Familia” and the rest of the 2016 sculptures will soon be on their way, there’s still a bit of time to say goodbye to the class of 2015: They’ll be taken down on April 12. Most will be shipped back to Sioux Falls, S.D., the city where the sculpture tour concept was born. Sioux Falls and Eau Claire are part of a confederation of sculpture tour cities that also includes Mason City, Iowa; Castlegar, British Columbia; and Mankato, Minnesota. Sculptures often end up traveling from city to city – in Sioux Falls this year and in Eau Claire the next, for example. Many others are sold: More than 20 sculptures that originally came to Eau Claire as part of the tour have stayed here, having been placed on permanent public display or purchased for private collections.

Sundby and Blaskey say they are pleased that more Midwestern sculptures are becoming part of the tour, and they say there are more sculptors popping up in the Chippewa Valley as the local arts scene continues to flourish. When asked about the tour’s local impact, Blaskey notes that parts of the city, such as Barstow and Water streets, would look empty without the sculptures. And then there’s all the walking sculpture admirers get in while strolling along the roughly three-mile tour route.

“It’s had that aesthetic and athletic benefit,” Blaskey says.