WAUPUN — A total of five new outdoor sculptures have been purchased through the Waupun Sculpture Tour program in the three years since it began.
The Waupun Sculpture Tour program started in 2023 in affiliation with the Eau Claire Sculpture Tour program, where sculpture artists from all over the country would have their sculptures on display in affiliate cities, annually leased or purchased by local organizations.
Create Waupun—the organization behind the Waupun Sculpture Tour program—is run by a small committee with Jeni Maly as the founder and committee president. Create Waupun is the organization behind Waupun IceFest, which was a winter-themed festival that ran in February of 2024 and 2025.
The original idea was to bring five rotating sculptures to Waupun every year through this program. But after seeing what worked and what didn’t, Create Waupun has changed directions and will focus on fundraising for full purchases to permanently add to the Waupun sculpture collection instead of leasing rotating sculptures each year.
Four new sculptures have already been purchased for the permanent collection, which were originally discovered through the Sculpture Tour program.
This included: “We Can Do It”, also known as Rosie The Riveter currently on Main St in front of National Rivet; “Catching the Wind”, the kite girl currently in the Food Truck Alley; “Eddies and Etchings”, an educational sculpture based on the River River at Harris Mill Park; and “Oxbow”, the winding river sculpture that can be found outside Horicon Bank at 807 W Main St.
The sculptures were purchased with fundraised money at IceFest, donations, grants, and sponsorships from local businesses—with more planned for the future.
“‘Catching the Wind’ will be a permanent piece that will be donated to the City of Waupun as of May 2026, so that is very exciting,” Maly said in a statement to WPN. “Along with our purchase of ‘We Can Do It’, we have permanently acquired two bronze sculptures within the last three years with more to come. We are very excited to bring more sculptures to the City of Sculptures.”
Another bronze sculpture soon coming to town is “Rising Star”, a tribute to Mamie Redman, the 1950’s professional softball player from Waupun. The sculpture was purchased and donated by the Waupun Fine Arts Committee, having been announced last December. The order has been placed and it will be installed this summer at Jerry Medema Fields along Lincoln St at Field #1.
Not all sculptures in the affiliate program could stay in Waupun, however.
One of the prominent sculptures on rotation, “World is Her Canvas”, was leased as part of the Sculpture Tour program—not purchased for the Waupun permanent collection. This sculpture was in Waupun for two years and stood outside of Imagine That! Art Studio at 409 E Main St, but was picked up last month by Sculpture Tour affiliates for placement in another community.
Maly reiterated this isn’t the end for the sculpture—or her business.
“There’s potential that we might be able to purchase ‘World is Her Canvas’ again in the future,” Maly said. “It is still available to us. It is the same sculpture artists as ‘We Can Do It’, Lee Leuning and Sherri Treeby, who we have received information from about it. So our plan is to eventually get it back, but it’s just not here for now.”
A fundraising campaign has yet to be announced for this sculpture.
“As far as Imagine That! Art Studio, the doors of the downtown location have closed as of April 1st,” Maly said. “I would like to open up another location at some point, but I’m unsure of when. I am back in grad school and I am pursuing a master’s degree for art therapy and a general therapy license, so it could potentially come back to Waupun someday—it is definitely on the horizon of some changes—but for now, unfortunately, and tearfully, it has closed.”
Imagine That! Art Studio opened in October 2022, offering art classes for children and adults alike, with paint, ceremic, and even a splatter room to throw paint at the walls. Maly’s full time job is an art teacher at the Waupun School District.
“Waupun is a great community and is on the upswing with entreprenuership,” Maly said. “There’s a lot of excitement in downtown, and I would highly recommend being involved and opening up a business in Waupun.”
“I would also encourage any new business owners, or people wanting to get into a new business, to contact Envision Greater Fond du Lac because they have an entrepreneurship program for local business owners,” she said. “They can help you through the process so they help you through the process of starting up a business, and it was tremendously helpful for me to start up.”
Envision Greater Fond du Lac is the chamber of commerce for Fond du Lac county and nearby municipalities. The Waupun Business Alliance is an affiliate organization under Envision, located at 10 W Main St, Waupun.
