On April 6, 2024, Bill Oberlander and I sat down to chat in real time about Oberlander’s increasing push into recycled metal and welding sculpture art on the northern plains. We arrived at a good spot for a future collaborative commission.

But equally intriguing was Oberlander’s handheld metal frog that he crafted and brought as a gift. When he started describing the origins of each recycled metal piece within the frog, it occurred to me that that — the narrative of the origin pieces — was where one of the many public interpretation components needed to go (once the piece was finished).

All of the metal came from agricultural or rural metal that was discarded or not being used. Or used up. It has an art of the rural, or art of the agricultural western Americana, to it. Thru and thru.

The frog eyes came from ball bearings of a combine. The back legs from a pulley that locks onto a shaft. A bicycle roller chain made up the back feet. Buckets of old nails on the farm were raided for the two front legs. And the body and mouth was made from the spades of a vertical till machine. More to come on future sculptures from Mr. Oberlander.