‘Nail’s Tales’ rises as new Camp Randall Stadium landmark

A 48-foot-tall sculpture by internationally acclaimed artist Donald Lipski will be installed this week as a finishing touch to the renovation of Camp Randall Stadium.

Called “Nail’s Tales,” the concrete, steel, stone and resin sculpture, uses the ancient form of an obelisk – a form similar in shape to the Washington Monument – from which emerges a towering pile of footballs.

“I tried to make it whimsical and at the same time have a sort of stateliness and elegance that I thought was in keeping with the bigger traditions of the university,” says Lipski, a University of Wisconsin–Madison graduate.

The work, commissioned by the Wisconsin Arts Board’s Percent for Art program, will be installed on its pedestal at Breese Terrace and Regent Street on Thursday, Nov. 3. Plans call for the sculpture to arrive by truck at the site at 7 a.m. and be vertical between 9-10 a.m. The artist plans to attend the installation.

Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, chair of the Wisconsin Arts Board, says the sculpture will add to the area, and to the game-day experience.

“We are delighted to have the art of UW alumnus Donald Lipski enrich an already lively public space, where Camp Randall and the Fieldhouse loom large on game day and in Wisconsin life,” Lawton says. “The Percent for the Art program strives to bring art to new places and compels the public to stop, look and enjoy. I hope ‘Nail’s Tales’ does just that on Badger Saturdays and beyond.”

One of Lipski’s inspirations was the venerable Camp Randall archway, at Dayton Street and Randall Avenue. The granite edifice has served for decades as a gateway to the stadium grounds.

“I thought of the arch as an entranceway to Camp Randall,” Lipski says. “I started to think of ancient symbols, and the Egyptians would use two obelisks as gateposts to their temples.”

As he mulled an entranceway at the opposite side of the stadium, Lipski blended the obelisk with a football theme.

“The thought came to me of a pile of footballs, stretching up to the sky,” Lipski says. “It’s me throwing out some images, and hopefully people will make their own metaphors. Maybe they’ll see a striving to get to the top.”

The work seems unfinished, in a way that Lipski intended as a way to capture the imagination of viewers.

“It almost seems like a geological thing, like the stone might erode away, leaving these footballs,” he says.

Lipski hopes the sculpture will become its own tradition, becoming a convenient and identifiable game-day meeting spot for football fans.

“At Yankee Stadium, there is this giant bat outside. If you’re going to be meeting somebody at Yankee Stadium, you just say, ‘I’ll meet you at the bat.’ I’m hoping people in Madison will say, ‘Meet me at ‘Nail’s Tales,'” he says.

The resin portion of the sculpture was fabricated at the Fast Corporation in Sparta, where there was a small link to Wisconsin’s football heritage.

“The craftsman in charge of the project used to be quarterback for the Colfax Vikings and the owner, Jim Schauf, played end for the Sparta Spartans,” Lipski says.

Lipski says he jumped at the chance to do a sculpture on the Madison campus, where he spent five years before graduating in 1970 with a degree in American Institutions.

“Anything that would give me excuses to go back and visit Madison would be worthwhile. The place is in my blood,” Lipski says.

As an undergraduate, Lipski recalls fun times at Camp Randall Stadium – but without the luxury of a lot of victories.

“In my freshman year, we’d go and chant, ‘Go, Go, Section O,’ because there wasn’t much of a team,” Lipski says. “When everyone was waving their hands back and forth and singing ‘Varsity,’ I’d get a chill.”