Metal Arts Roadside Attraction, the Magnificent Mind of Mel Gould, and a Long Road Ahead

Cheyenne WY

Upon further reflection, August 1st will go down full-on as the most bizarre but heart-warming day of my trip. After the quirkiness of Alliance Nebraska came a very odd experience indeed. Two and a half hours drive away from Alliance, on a service road along I-80, just east of Cheyenne WY, is the wild world of Metal Arts Roadside Attraction. Not an actual attraction, per se, but a lifetime collection of large-scale metal industrial art, many with some sort of kinetic feature, created by self-taught artist and inventor Mel Gould. 

Many of the pieces are visible from the freeway, and it is likely that most travelers breeze right by with nothing more than maybe a comment about all that stuff out in the field. It was a scheduled stop on my trip, and I am so glad I stopped because it was its own trip into a bizarre and fascinating world, especially because Mel's adult daughter, Janet, happened to be on-site and was more than happy to spend time showing me around and telling me some amazing stories.     

I walked around and photographed many pieces without much context or understanding of what I was seeing, but when I headed back toward the car, Janet came up and struck up a conversation. She explained that the art was created by her dad and that she was back "home" from California, having recently divorced, to deal with some of her dad's affairs. He had recently passed away in March. I told her where I was from and that my roadtrip was partially about spreading my mom's ashes. That seemed to spark an instant kinship and she started telling me stories of some of the pieces and of growing up with a dad that built all of these crazy things. When I told her I grew up with a dad who was an old car guy, that pretty much cemented our new-found connection. 

Janet told me that before the "Wild Thing" piece was put on a tall tower, it originally sat ground-level and was attached to a motor that made it whirl around, and as kids, she and her siblings and friends would ride it like a carnival ride. Halfway through another story about another art piece, she stopped and said, "if you've got time, I want to show you something. Just let me go in the house and grab some keys." "Sure!," I replied. While she was gone, I did a time check and some quick math to determine whether I could make it to Boulder before dark if I didn't get on the road soon. 

As we walked toward a sprawling cluster of sheds with multiple doors, she explained that since her dad had passed away and someone wasn't around all the time, there had been some vandalism and theft, so they started locking up some things. She unlocked and opened a garage type door and inside was a purple vehicle that appeared to be a concoction of an old '40 Ford, a tractor, and a moon landing rover. Emblazoned with the words "Purple People Eater" across the back quarter panel, it also had a metal alien-looking being in the driver seat to complete the look. Janet explained that this piece was one her dad had built in the early 1960s and it had appeared on the cover of Mechanix Illustrated and had been in a museum in Denver for a while. On the wall in this room was a bulletin board that had a cover of the magazine and pictures of other projects Mel had created.  

In another area of the shed complex Janet unlocked a room which contained a red, three-wheeled vehicle named "Moonbeam" displayed with a stuffed female driver and a Scooby Doo dog on the front seat. Janet explained that this was an early piece that Mel had dreamed up while serving in the Air Force, stationed in Greenland. She showed me the initial drawings and the model that he had carved out of soap. In this room was another bulletin board with more pictures of his creations and other projects he had been involved with, including some works by the famous artist Christo. Mel had designed and machined the fixtures to secure some of Christo's large-scale landscape art. There was also a framed photo of a piece he designed and made for a friend who was a bicycling enthusiast and and Elvis fan.  

In addition to the massive metalworking shop in a metal airplane hangar that Janet showed me, Mel apparently also had a workshop in the basement of his home that he called Buryville, where he created original musical instruments, which seemed fascinating as she described them. Janet said she would like to show me that as well, but the house was in a bit of an upheaval because she had a lot of her own stuff that she had moved from California, and all of her mom and dad's stuff she was trying to go through. Her mother had passed away three years earlier. 

I myself had recently dealt with all the stuff following the death of a last parent. So. Many. Things. I thought back on all the stuff we got rid of 16 years early when my dad passed away -- the man had 18 carburetors in his garage, to say nothing of three old cars in various stages of restoration, and an endless amount of other car parts and tools. Then there was my mom's talk of everything else she had gotten rid of since, and yet still when she died, cleaning out her house and dealing with all of the financial and legal responsibilities was endless and exhausting. My experience was a mere fraction of what I knew that Janet was up against. 

I told her it was okay that I didn't get to see Buryville, because I needed to get back on the road anyway. She thanked me for stopping by. Thanked. Me. Floored by the generosity with her time and her willingness to share her and her family's life with me, I reached out and hugged a woman I had met a mere hour or so before. We both hung on a little longer than even old friends would. I thanked her and asked if I could take a picture of her and her dog. I got in my car and put the top down even though it looked like a storm was coming. I pulled to the end of the driveway, looked in my rearview mirror, and she was standing there waving. I turned around a waved goodbye. I knew that her road ahead was much longer than mine. 

If you came to this first through the blog, know that there are more photos on the related Facebook page

For addition information on Mel Gould visit: https://fredscruton.com/folios/melvin-gould/  and http://www.sixmania.fr/en/purple-people-eater-melvin-gould/

Google Album for these photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Mot8FLEN2Yru3pcCA