Get Lost in the Spectacular Sculptures of Paul Bobrowitz

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Embedded within a Waukesha County subdivision outside Merton can be found an extraordinary and whimsical property laden with over a thousand metal junk sculptures spanning nearly seven acres. These are the Spectacular Sculptures of Paul Bobrowitz.

It was the late 1980s. A carpenter by trade, Paul Bobrowitz was ready for a new hobby outside of building strictly functional and useful goods. Inspired by his wife’s art practice, he used his welding skills to start crafting metal art and it quickly became a passion that Bobrowitz has kept at for over 30 years now.

His first sculpture was Piano Man which still stands in his yard today. “I made him from a piano soundboard that I got from a barn I took down,” Bobrowitz explains. “It would’ve been well worth restoring that piano, but instead I repurposed it and cut it out with a disk added for the head and a spring for the foot.”

Tracing back to the moment where he realized that this was more than just a hobby, Bobrowitz recalls, “I had about 10 or 12 big, crude pieces along the driveway at the time and my wife encouraged me to talk to Tom Litdke of the West Bend Art Gallery. He looked through my photographs and then flipped through his calendar and scheduled a show of my pieces in their back lot. Then the museum scheduled a brown bag lunch tour here and I sold my first piece around that time. I wanted to sell more so I started going to art fairs and joined the Monches Artisans, then I started putting my signs out on the road that said “Sculptors Open House” - that was when I guess I had a collection.”

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Sculpture Spectacular

The name “Spectacular Sculptures” was coined by accident; a patron of Bobrowitz recommended that he throw a “Sculpture Spectacula,” but he misheard her. “She later told me that I ‘kind of’ got what she said,” he laughs.

Bobrowitz gathers and salvages junk that becomes raw material for his sculptures. Originally starting with old farm machinery, he eventually began using scrap metal sourced from local fabricators. The ideas for Bobrowitz’s sculptures are inspired by everything from dreams to things he reads to stories from neighbors to conversations with others. He frequently incorporates themes of Earth's creatures, the sun and humanity into his work, utilizing rocks as symbols of nature and glass for the vibrant colors.

The Spectacular Sculptures vary greatly in shape, size and design whether they be monumental, wall-mounted or kinetic. Bobrowitz’s crafting process involves welding, grinding, plasma cutting, drilling, torching, hammering and pressing. “Anything that I can fasten together, I’m willing to use,” he remarks.

Bobrowitz’s tallest sculpture Female Plumbing (name coined by Jill Mulhern) sits in his driveway and is 29 feet tall.

Across the property are humorous signs that say phrases like “No Mosquitoes Allowed” and “Don’t Feed the Mosquitoes.” There’s a comical story behind this; Bobrowitz shares, “Some years ago it was really dry, and we had no mosquitoes, but the next year was really wet, and we had a lot of them. There was a group of ladies who came through and they felt sorry for the starving mosquitoes, so they fed them (laughs). Ever since then, we’ve had a problem of people feeding the mosquitoes and I joke that I can’t get them trained to not bite anymore.”

Salvaged Faces

It is difficult to say how long Bobrowitz spends working on sculptures because he often adds to, restores and upkeeps them over time. “Whatever interests me in the moment is what I’m working on,” he elaborates. “I can be out in the yard weeding and see something that I don’t think looks right or needs work.”

One of the most well-known of the Spectacular Sculptures is The Collective, made from salvaged propane tanks fashioned into “faces” and fused into one big shape of someone’s head. “It’s an expression of the idea of the collective unconscious,” Bobrowitz explains. “Everything that influences us in life makes us who we are.”

The piece became the subject of controversy in 2019 when it was displayed in downtown Appleton’s “Sculpture Valley.” According to Bobrowitz, members of the community were upset by The Collective within 45 minutes of it being installed. “People were freaked out and disturbed by it and demanded that it be removed, and the city was about to rescind it but then everyone who loved the piece came out to show support and it made the paper and radio and everything. The city agreed to leave it there for a two-year period but said that in the future they’ll always consult the neighbors before they put any new sculptures there.”

The Collective was sold and is now located in Bozeman, Montana but a second version of it remains among the Spectacular Sculptures.

In addition to the Spectacular Sculptures, Bobrowitz has done many commissions for local businesses, schools, public institutions and private residences; works of his can be found at Lakefront Brewery (The Three Stooges fermenting tanks), Nicolet High School, University Lake School, North Lake Library and even McDonald’s franchises in Pewaukee and Menomonee Falls. Bobrowitz is contracted for a piece that will be going in front of Waukesha City Hall soon. He also has a number of public pieces displayed in Illinois (St Charles, Rockford) and Iowa (Davenport, Bettendorf, Ames).

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Cedarburg Art Museum is hosting a tour of the Spectacular Sculptures this Friday, July 14t from 3-6 p.m., complete with a bar and live music.

The Spectacular Sculptures of Paul Bobrowitz are located at N93W29174 Woodchuck Way, Colgate, WI, open to the public every day variable by time of year. Many of the Spectacular Sculptures are for sale—for the right price.