State Fair River Trash Sculpture 2011

2011 Sculpture

This year, artist Raina Belleau created a 500-pound, 15-foot tall eight-point buck with a pair of large herons nesting in its antlers. Belleau included herons in the work because she was saddened when the tornado that struck Minneapolis this spring also destroyed a heron rookery.

This sculpture is constructed out of rubbish collected from the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers including rusted car parts, headlights, pliers, a license plate, a jumper cable clip, a toy tractor, a rubber cement bottle, rebar, shoes, and assorted gears and scrap metal. The herons were constructed using tire tubes and more than five garbage bags full of plastic water and pop bottles.

The sculpture is also a tribute to more than 80,000 volunteers who have removed 6 million pounds of trash from public waters at 3,000 cleanups over the years.