Artist: Charles Strain

Visionary, by Kansas City artist Charles Strain, was selected by M State in 2006 from designs submitted by a half dozen artists. Its purchase was funded by Minnesota Percent for Art in Public Places, which funds original art as part of the renovation or construction of state buildings. At the time, construction of Legacy Hall was underway to connect the Waage Fine Arts Center with other campus buildings.

The sculpture was created in a bronze foundry in the artist’s studio in Missouri.

College maintenance supervisor Harry Phillips and Warren Olsen, a retired English faculty member and curator of the college’s art collection, searched local fields for rocks with green tones to complement the sculpture; the rocks that surround Visionary are embedded in the concrete, with only about half of each rock visible.

They also placed rocks outside the adjacent window to complete the area and bring the outdoors inside. The original intent was to mount the sculpture in a pool of water with stones, but that idea was abandoned for maintenance and safety reasons.