FARGO — Susan Jimenez said her husband was "always very proud" of his "Sodbuster" sculpture that pays homage to the region's farmers and prairie workers.
The sculpture, which has a "1/5" barely visible painted near the bottom of the artwork, shows it was the first of five scattered across the nation, said the Hondo, N.M., woman who visited Fargo on Friday night, Oct. 18, for the rededication of the artwork.
It's also part of another first, as it's the centerpiece in the first phase of the developing downtown Fargo Civic Plaza, which the city celebrated in a ceremony along with the rededication.
Jimenez, whose husband Luis died 13 years ago, said the sculpture of a muscled farmer plowing the prairie with an oxen is a "Paul Bunyan" type of myth for the Plains.
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However, unlike Paul Bunyan, whose sculptures adorn the countryside in the forests of Minnesota, the rest of the Sodbusters are scattered across the U.S. and owned by private collectors with one in Beverly Hills, Calif., one in Wichita, Kansas, and another on loan to the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas.
The Sodbusters are a small sample of Luis Jimenez's sculptures across the nation. Two of the most visible to the public are the 32-foot-high "Mustang" sculpture at the Denver International Airport and "Vaquero," a cowboy on a bucking bronco, in front of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
Luis Jimenez passed away while he was working on "Mustang," but she said she got it finished to "honor him."
Some of his other works include plaza alligators in El Paso, fiesta dancers on the Mexican border in San Diego and a firefighters memorial in Cleveland, Ohio.
Susan Jimenez didn't know how long it took her husband to make Sodbuster, but said it was a "labor of love" as he first drew the model for the sculpture then placed the clay and "painstakingly molded it" before casting it into fiberglass.
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"He was a traditional artist, but he used materials of our times," she said, referring to the fiberglass and acrylic paint. "He was a down-to-earth person."
In many instances, though, his work is treasured and she said the sculpture in Fargo is definitely an "exclusive" piece of artwork.
Besides the numbering on the sculpture, she pointed to some of the other "extras" that a person wouldn't see if they didn't get up close.
Some of it is simply part of the "autobiography of his work," Susan Jimenez said, as he added little touches to the sculpture. For example, there is a clay pot shard with corn coming out of it that she said he found when he was digging a septic system at their mountain studio and home in New Mexico.
She still lives in their home in the mountains, which is on the state and national register of historic landmarks.
There's also a small arrowhead, which she said was meant to pay homage to the Native Americans of this area, and there's a grasshopper, a nod to the area's farmers.
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"Although I have a feeling the farmers hate the grasshoppers," she said.
Once her husband finished the sculptures, they used to hook up the trailer, grab the children and haul the sculptures to their destinations.
"That was a bit old-fashioned, too," she said.
Sodbuster sat on the corner of Broadway and Main Avenue for 20 years. In 1991, it was donated by the city to the Plains Art Museum. The museum then cared for it before sending it to Ohio where it was restored with the help of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
As the new plaza opened Friday, Scott Bishop from Bishop Land Design, of Quincy, Mass., said he would present design ideas for another phase of the Civic Plaza at this Monday's Fargo City Commission meeting.
Mayor Tim Mahoney said the plaza would offer a gathering place for residents and visitors as the city continues to become "the bright star in the Midwest with one of the top 10 downtowns in the nation."
