- These are from the World's Largest Ball of Paint and it's
layers and layers and layers of this history of ball
painting.
- Hi, I'm Dylan Thuras, co-founder of Atlas Obscura,
and welcome to Show & Tell.
This is a series we started during this time
when we were all stuck at home and thought maybe we
would reach out to people who are stuck at home with
interesting things and ask them to tell us about them. So
today, we're joined by Erika Nelson, who is this incredible
visionary artist, she's an educator, and she is the inventor
of the World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest
Versions of the World's Largest Things Museum in
Lucas, Kansas. So without further ado,
Erika, thank you for joining us here today.
- Hey Dylan, thanks for having me. I am at my home in
Lucas, Kansas. The expo that houses, normally houses the
collection is just a block and a half away, so the advantage
of living in rural Kansas in a town of 400 is that
I can walk to work and still use it as my studio space. But
today I brought some of my models here, and you can
see by the background I also live with a collection, usually
based on either roadside attractions or self-taught and
outsider art makers.
- So, I have to ask. What is the World's Largest
Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's
Largest Things? Like, what actually is that
and how do they come about?
- So, I travel the country seeking out anything with
a superlative, any sort of 'World's Largest,' and it's
usually a monument that says that about themselves like the
World's Largest Ball of Twine or the World's Largest Prairie
Chicken. So one of the rules I set up for myself was that I
have to actually go and see the thing, photograph it, and
gather its background story, find out who made it, why it
was made, when it was made, and then I produce a world's
smallest version of that world's largest thing. I usually
have anywhere from 150 models upwards, at one
time. This was one of my first small things, so this is a
tiny replica of a big badger found in Wisconsin and this was
one of the very first models that I made, and ended up being
an early postcard. But after three or four years, this is
what happened to those models.
- Oh no.
- Yeah, and it's fine one day, it's fine, it's fine, it's
fine, and then the next day you see that the clay has burst
through the skin of that little tiny model. Once a model is
retired because it breaks, I often make another one, unless
the world's largest thing is no longer relevant, because
sometimes, especially the rapidly changing ones like the
World's Largest Ball of Rubber Bands, the titles change so
much that, if I've not seen the current one, I sometimes
retire that model completely.
- Let's do this from the point of view of your objects.
So let's start looking at some of the things
that you have brought to share with us.
- In talking about the rubber band ball, too,
this is another one that didn't make it so those
were actual rubber bands, let's see if I can get a better
focus there. I used dental rubber bands, so they were
miniature rubber bands, that I made while in the presence of
the then-current World's Largest Ball of Rubber Bands.
After this model exploded in the window because the
rubber dries out, it's a really harsh environment, I
looked up to see if that was still the current rubber band
ball, but that one had been defeated. So I have not made a
new one to replace that, so that one is no longer on the
table.
- I love that this is all based on places you
have been, because it's also a collection of your life.
Like it's a collection on your personal adventures and
experiences and that's that's such a lovely thing to get to
share it.
- Right, cause otherwise you can just Google big things all
day and make small versions. But it's dependent on road
trips, so now that we've been stuck at home, I've been
having to sort of change gears a little bit. So these last
couple months I've been catching up on some model-making and
doing little tiny videos of Kansas's 'World's Largest.' So,
for example, I have the world's smallest version of the
World's Largest Wren from Topeka, Kansas, and then each of
those models gets their own title card, starting from
Lucas, the Giant Travel Plates,
Abilene,
- These are so nice!
- Topeka, oh here we go, that's where the wren was
from.
- Yay, that is, delightful.
- So in searching out these world's largest, I
always buy the souvenirs, so like, Randy's Donuts has the
mugs and the shirts and here's an image of Randy's so
you know what I'm talking about. But I usually also collect
other kinds of souvenirs so any time I go to Randy's I
ask them, I ask whoever's behind the counter to give me a
donut most like the one on top. So I have a series of donuts
that are sealed in these vitrines which I haven't opened
since they were sealed in. So this one is from 2012 so
there's a Randy's donut that, that clerk decided was the
closest to the Randy's donut on top.
- And no one has laid eyes on this donut since
2012?
- Right, I think the world needs mystery.
- (laughing) Yeah, I agree.
- Time capsules, when they're opened, are so anti-
climactic. They're gonna never measure up to old Rip the
toad that was found and one that was still alive. You can't
match that wonder, so I like that sort of sense of holding
something back. All of my souvenirs that I take are
non-invasive, but I do collect chips of paint. So from a
2015 trip to Minnesota there is a swatch of paint from Big
Ole's cape. They're usually laying there on the ground,
so anytime I'm seeing one I'm always hunting around for
little parts and pieces that also commemorate that
experience but again, non-invasively taken. I don't chip
paint. One of my favorites is the World's Largest Ball of
Paint in Indiana. Visitors can sign up for a time and
you paint the next layer and you get a certificate saying
what layer you painted and what color it was. And you end up
being a part of this record. But to keep it round the owners
started shaving off the bumps because when you paint things
there's always something that goes wrong or a drip, so to
keep it round they shaved their ball. That could be taken
wrong. But they also have these wonderful souvenirs
that are almost like Fordite, but these are from the World's
Largest Ball of Paint, and it's layers and layers and layers
of this history of ball painting.
- It looks like one of those thin-sliced rocks, you
know? Where you get this kind of beautiful cross-section
of a piece of geology. That's so nice.
- I test things out a lot. I see if things are true.
I did have to go see the thing to see if it was the amazing
thing, see what the build up to the thing was, and enjoy the
glory of the thing, and then am sworn to secrecy so you're
just gonna have to go see the thing to know what I'm
talking about with the thing. I had somebody else with me
who saw the thing who didn't think it was a thing, and was
very upset that I dragged him through the thing to see the
thing, but that's a whole other thing.
- (laughs) There is something so, incredibly fun and
playful about all of the work you do.
- By the simple act of telling a silly story or going
through with a seemingly silly idea that actually is rooted
in place and object, it frees people up to tell me their
stories.
- I'm still wondering about the thing that you have
to go through the thing to see the thing to know the thing
is the thing.
- Oh, they're billboards.
- Oh, oh! The Thing! Oh, you're talking about The
Thing!
- Yeah The Thing!
- Oh! Yeah okay.
What do you think the strangest thing you own is?
- The oddest one that I've made would also have been
for the cow hair ball. Cows lick themselves like cats do
but they can't hork it up, so in the slaughtering process
usually some sort of hair ball comes out of one of
the stomachs and their tumbled around and around so that
they're usually perfectly spherical and I just love that,
that object. It's a beautiful object about the size of a
basketball and little tiny short cow hairs so then the
model I figured needed to also be some sort of animal hair.
So this is made out of cat hair, that was cat hair
from a short-haired cat that I could still roll and roll and
roll and roll until I got a duplicate of a cow
hair ball, so that's probably the grossest model.
- I appreciate that you try to make the thing out of
the same thing. Do you ever think about starting another
museum?
- I have thought about doing the World's Most Average
Collection of the World's Not-So-Small Versions of the
World's Second-Largest Things.
- Are you familiar with the I think it's called
the Atomium? The giant atom that's in Brussels, it's like an
enormous ... and I was like that might be the world's
smallest collection of the world's largest version of the
world's smallest thing.
Thank you so much Erika for taking the time to talk with me.
I get so much happiness out of these kinds of places
and looking for those little stories and so I really
love all the work you do.
- Well thank you, thank you very much. And I
appreciate how much Atlas Obscura has done to unearth
these wonders because they really are all around you once
you relearn how to look.
- And do you have anything you wanna plug, do you
have anywhere people should go to look at for your work.
- Yeah, the titles that I was talking about,
Kansas collection of World's Largest Things, there's a small
snippet of videos that premiere every Wednesday on the
World's Largest Things Facebook channel, also on
@worldslargestthings Instagram and we do have a YouTube
channel that features the Wee Wonders Road Trip for Kansas
every Wednesday through June and July.
- Amazing. Well, thank you again and everyone go watch
the Wee Wonders, they are delightful.
Thanks for watching Show & Tell. If you have suggestions
for people we should consider talking to in these videos,
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