John Lopez, Large Animal Sculptures, Scrap Metal Parts

Sculptor John Lopez is a product of a place. His people’s ranches are scattered along the Grand River in northwestern South Dakota—not far from where Sitting Bull was born and died. John’s forte lies in gentling colts and perfecting their bloodlines—and he started his celebration of them by sculpting in clay. Capturing every nuance, every muscle, in this land where business is still conducted over a cup of coffee and “neighboring” is a way of life.

Somehow that way of life—where times seems to have stood still—has seen the transition from horsepower to mechanized vehicles. The rusted carcasses of discarded equipment stand testament to generations of labor. And the man who knows bloodlines has picked through them, choosing the elements of the past—the actual implements that plowed the soil or cut the grain or dug the dinosaur—and created the curve of a jaw, the twitch of a tail, the power of a shoulder.