It’s hard to put into words how The Forevertron made me feel when I first saw it–a cross between admiration and heartbreak–and how those feelings kept unfolding in every corner of the junkyard complex that houses this gargantuan scrap-metal work of art.

The Forevertron and its attendants are also impossible to photograph in a way that convey its wistfulness and wonderfulness, but here are a few paltry attempts of my own (and some better ones here.)

As one wanders the Forevertron grounds and inspects the intense detail–saw blades layered by the hundreds to make tails for huge rusting birds, gears lovingly sized and welded around the mouth a gigantic piston housing as a floral border–the sense of awe and also sadness grow.   The amount of work required to assemble this structure (and the Victorian fairy tale of time/space travel upon which its aesthetic hangs) out of discarded metal is mind-boggling; the realization of the amount of waste in our world, and the expressed yearning for a better place to live and explore, is also writ large in its monolithic pipes, tubes, and engine parts.

The artist Tom Every is now in a nursing home, and there’s little information about him on the Interwebs or around Spring Green, WI (it is rumored he had a nasty falling-out with Alex Jordan, builder of House on the Rock–Every’s influence on certain portions of the House on the Rock seems clear, but you won’t hear anyone mention him there.)  I suggest taking the time to read the newspaper clippings hung up on swinging boards near the entrance to the Forevertron, since these give the most complete and intimate accounts of Every’s life and the Forevertron.  This PBS piece describes his transformation into “Dr. Evermor”:

“Every’s shift from wrecker to preserver of wreckage led to his “rebirth” as Dr. Evermor. Through this new identity, he would build the Forevertron. Dr. Evermor recalls this important period: “I became Dr. Evermor around 1983 when we started to build the Forevertron. I was a bit upset with the world, not so much the economic conditions as the judicial system and things like that, and I wanted to perpetuate myself back into the heavens on this magnetic lightning force field.”

Thus: Dr. Evermor’s Forevertron, a time machine with central transport compartment, a Gravitron (which lightens the traveler before traversing space), a telescope for skeptics to witness a traveler’s flight, and an elevated white wrought iron gazebo for the comfort of visiting royal observers.  The Forevertron is surrounded by an array of creatures and gizmos, and nearby one will find an army of hybrid animal/musical instruments and a garden constructed of pliers, springs, and bowling balls.

For a stuck-up city kid, it’s worth pondering how so much creativity packed itself into a tiny town in Wisconsin–Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin (Spring Green, WI was his hometown), Alex Jordan and his House on the Rock–and the Forevertron just hollering distance away in Sumpter, WI.  Three completely different lives and visions, in the middle of dairycow country.  It’s a little humbling, but maybe it’s all that wide-open, fertile space that allows the sort of large dreams that distinguished these artists’ work (or maybe it’s something in the cheese.)

Anyway, if you find yourself wandering Wisconsin’s Dairyland, stop by the Forevertron and have your mind blown.  And leave a donation–this is work from the heart, and the salvage store that hosts the Forevertron doesn’t charge admission (unlike the ungodly sum one pays to get into the broken-down House on the Rock.)  Adventurers, Away!