Mighty Joe
If we had a dollar for every car that slowed down or stopped to look at Mighty Joe – we could buy facebook.
Since we brought this 6ft steel gorilla sculpture to our home we have had 100’s of people take photos of him and actually on him – this happens at all times of the day and the middle of the night.
Between this and our 13ft heart light, I guess U could say we have created some distinctive landmarks for our neighborhood.
Look closely, the nose on Mighty Joe is shaped like a heart.
The story behind Mighty Joe:
We owned land on a 500ft bluff in Prescott WI. our view overlooks Big River (now a stream) and the great Mississippi with all it’s wetlands. This view included seeing the bluff’s in MN about 30 some miles away. A Fun Fact: these bluffs were originally made by the glaciers and that is how the great Mississippi received its name.
Basically, if U went into Prescott and asked anyone in town where the land with the view was, they would direct U to our place. A piece of heaven on earth – seriously!! I will post some photos another day.
After purchasing the land in 1998, Brett who was 2 at the time, used to stand on the edge and look across to the other bluff on the other side of the valley and yell, “Joe!, Mighty Joe!” When I asked why he was doing that, Brett replied, “he lives over there, like in the movie” as he pointed to the other bluff. Brett was right, it looked much like the cascading hills in the movie where Mighty Joe Young would run out and across the big green field.
About 7 months later, I was in LA. for business and driving thru Beverly Hills when I noticed there was an outdoor Art Fair going on. As I drove by, I noticed the head of a silver gorilla sticking up from behind the bushes that surrounded this fair. It looked like Mighty Joe to me, so I pulled over and introduced myself to the sculptor, Oscar Pumpin who was from NY.
He told me of himself; his “claim to fame” was being commissioned to create a steel elephant for the Republican convention many years back. Following the exposure from the convention, he started making other one-of-a-kind animals out of stainless steel bumpers for Zoo’s and corporate lobby’s across the U.S.
I asked what he was looking to get for this one-of-a-kind gorilla and we agreed upon a number; which was way more then I thought it would ever have been – but hey it’s art and more importantly it’s for Brett – who is simply going to freak when he see’s Mighty Joe up at the land. As a bonus, since Oscar was planning on driving the sculpture back to NY. he agreed to deliver the gorilla to our land in WI.
After Mighty Joe was delivered, I drove Brett up there the next day and as we drove onto our land Brett completely lost it, “Dad look, it’s Mighty Joe”! He got out of the car, ran up and climbed up on top of him.
A fantastically great moment I will never forget!!
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