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Sculptor wants to turn old ammo plant into work of art

His 400-ton creation is among many proposals for Badger plant site

By Peter Maller
of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: July 25, 1999

Baraboo - Lesser men would beat the world's weapons into plowshares.

But the cigar-chomping creator of the world's largest sculpture built entirely of junk wants the world's largest ammunition plant to become the world's biggest sight gag.

Tom Every, a scrap metal dealer turned artist, envisions a corner of the 7,300-acre Badger Army Ammunition Plant harboring his giant piece of art, a record-holder in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Every, 61, who calls himself Dr. Evermor, claims he constructed the 400-ton sculpture - best described as resembling a cross between a roller coaster, Moscow's Kremlin and the Eiffel Tower with a rusty teahouse at top - as a working rocket ship.

Never mind that his spacecraft, the Forevertron, cannot fly and that Dr. Evermor claims he wants to ride it into the heavens for a face-to-face meeting with God. His plan has numerous influential backers.

Every's admirers include scholarly art historians and wealthy collectors. The Discovery Channel recently featured him in a documentary scheduled for its "Beyond Bizarre" series.

"This is not a pie-in-the-sky kind of thing," Every said. "This is reality. We will get the job done. You can bet money, chalk and marbles on that."

Every's dream of moving his sculpture from across the street to Badger Ammunition has been blessed by David Fordham, the civilian employee charged with overseeing the WWII-vintage site, recently declared government surplus property and closed since the end of the Vietnam War. Fordham's mission includes supervising demolition of Badger's 1,200 buildings and refereeing disputes between various groups that want chunks of the land.

"Dr. Evermor and I share the same vision for this property," said Fordham, a chemical engineer, as he ushered visitors through an airplane-hangar-size building. The structure was once used to manufacture nitric acid.

"Dr. Evermor wants the industrial history of this facility preserved, and so do I."

At Every's request, Fordham has taken the sculpture's future home, which contains 18 steam-driven compressors, each as large as semitrailer truck, off the inventory of buildings scheduled for dismantling.

The Ho-Chunk Nation also has expressed strong interest in acquiring Badger property, which tribal leaders say contains sacred burial sites. Environmental advocates, meanwhile, want the land restored to its natural prairie state.

"I don't want this becoming a negative sort of thing," Every said. "There's enough land here for everybody. I want to get along with everybody."

The General Services Administration eventually will decide appropriate uses for the property and how to divide it.

"Dr. Evermor has been offered $5 million for the Forevertron - and he turned it down," said Blaine Britton of Madison, a retired copywriter who helped start a non-profit foundation to support bringing the sculpture to the Badger site.

Every wants to mount the Forevertron on top of the nitric acid compressors. But that would come after he tears down the building, erects an earth berm around the machines and plants sod.

"The Forevertron would be right on top," he said. "So the compressors would give the illusion that they are powering it. It's a thing for people's imagination. That's what this is all about."

The Evermor Foundation, a non-profit group, has been organized in hopes of receiving the property as a gift and then managing it as a tourist attraction.

Every says the site also would serve as a museum of industrial design and a memorial sculpture park to the men and women who worked in America's munitions industry.

The Forevertron and several thousand other pieces created by Every are now in a densely wooded parcel across the street from the munitions factory on Highway 12, about seven miles south of Baraboo. Trees lining the road make it nearly impossible to see the sculpture from passing vehicles.

Only the most determined travelers find the area, where Every and his wife, Eleanor, who goes by the name "Miss Eleanor," have been producing sculptures since 1984. Their son, Troy, 19, also an artist, works in the same compound.

A steady stream of cars, often hundreds a day, arrives at the outdoor studio. The family sells about 800 pieces of sculpture a year from their hideaway. The artwork ranges in price from about $50 to several thousand dollars.

Their fanciful creations, made mostly from machine parts, are shaped to look like birds, mammals, insects and many less readily identifiable objects. Eleanor paints the pieces, brushing them with flaming pinks, hunter orange, lollipop purple and other circus colors.

Every spent 20 years demolishing 350 major industrial machines before turning them into art. He specializes in sculpting with abandoned machine parts because it pains him to see old objects destroyed.

"I deeply believe in making something out of nothing," he said. "That is exactly what Dr. Evermor is all about."