Central Wyoming College (CWC) is building a new campus in Jackson. When students and visitors step inside the main building, one of the first things they'll see is a 70-foot whale made of Wyoming tumbleweeds floating above them.
The "Tumblewhale" is the brainchild of Jackson artist Ben Roth, who has been commissioned to create the piece through the Wyoming Arts Council's Art in Public Buildings Program.
Roth is actively collecting the 300 pounds of tumbleweeds he intends to sculpt into a life-size, movable whale.
"I plan to make it interactive," Roth told Cowboy State Daily. "A viewer can come up and pull some handles, and when they do, the whale will swim like a giant marionette.
The tumblewhale will be Roth's most ambitious project to date, but he's already excited about bringing it to life.
It's a rare opportunity for one of his pieces to have a permanent home in his hometown.
"There are lots of moving parts, figuratively speaking, with public art," he said. "I enjoy creating public art, but it is challenging to get those jobs. Getting to build this piece in Jackson is delightful."
Lifelike
Roth is experienced in creating lifelike animal sculptures from inorganic materials. His portfolio includes welded plants, a bike chain owl, fish, chameleons and penguins made out of steel screen.
He's also made several large-scale temporary sculptures using wood, metal and sand. The scale of the tumblewhale will be the ultimate test of his skills.
"I've made larger-scale sculptures with a bigger budget, but I've never made a single permanent sculpture like this," he said. "I definitely haven't made anything this big with tumbleweed."
Roth's previous sculptures in the tumbleweed medium include a Christmas tree he made for Hotel Terra Jackson Hole, and a hovering cloud that still hangs in the light well of a local physical therapist's office.
The idea of a "tumblewhale" is one that Roth's kicked around for years. He made a 10-foot miniature of his vision for Moonshot 5x5, an event that challenges artists to make unconventional sculptures to raise awareness for environmental protection, held in Jackson in 2023.
"One of the architects of the new CWC building reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in doing a full-sized whale for the new building," Roth said. "I proposed two ideas to the Wyoming Arts Council, and they decided on the tumblewhale."
Roth acknowledges that a whale sculpture seems out of place for any Wyoming art installation, but he believes it will be a poignant piece. For him, the whale evokes the state's past and serves as a reminder of what's at stake in the present.
"I've always loved whales, and I've always loved the ocean," he said. "The rocks across Wyoming tell us that our state was an inland sea in the past, and it looked a lot different a long time ago. And I see what's happening to our oceans today, and it worries me."
Considering the "sea monsters" that swam Wyoming's ancient seas, Roth doesn't think it's too far-fetched to imagine "whales swimming through Wyoming." And tumbleweed is a perfect medium for the sculpture.
Simplicity of Sculpting
Roth anticipates he'll need over 300 pounds of tumbleweed for the tumblewhale. He's already been collecting as much material as he can before Jackson gets covered in snow.
"I'm scrambling to collect my tumbleweed so that they're in good shape when I build the sculpture next summer," he said. "When they're under the snow, they start to mold, so I rented a friend's pole barn and sectioned off part of it with chicken wire. They'll be outside but undercover."
Roth enjoys the "simplicity of sculpting" with tumbleweed. The bothersome plant has several qualities that make it easy to work with.
"The inside of the tumbleweed is sort of like Styrofoam," he said. "I can slide the stem onto a pin covered with epoxy, and it glues really well. (The shape) creates volume, but it's very light and renewable, and it's invasive, so no one minds if you collect them."
The tumbleweeds will be attached to a skeleton made from thin-gauge steel rod, bent into a shape that's evocative of a whale while also providing the best structural support for the sculpture. Roth is already studying whale skeletons to get an idea of how to shape the steel into the most lifelike shape.
What's the best tool for sculpting tumbleweed? Scissors, according to Roth.
"Once you get the rough shape, you just sculpt with a pair of scissors," he said. "We'll attach the tumbleweeds to the skeleton with epoxy to get the rough shape, suspend it off the ground, and then you just trim off the tips of the branches to get the shape you want."
The steel skeleton will be painted the same color as the tumbleweeds, making it almost invisible inside. That will focus attention on the sculpture as a whole rather than on its parts.
"The illusion is that it'll look like the entire whale was grown as a giant plant," he said.
Wyoming's Lightweight Whale
Roth has been told to be ready to assemble the tumblewhale inside the new CWC building in July 2026. He's already collecting tumbleweeds in anticipation of starting the project in earnest in January.
"'I'll start with a template, probably made out of newspaper, and lay it out on the floor in the building to see what scale fits best," he said. "It'll probably take four or five days to build it on-site when they're ready for me to move it in."
The engineers building the CWC building will assist with anchoring the rigging Roth will need to suspend the finished tumblewhale. They'll also be crucial in helping keep the whale safely suspended as it moves, which is one of the aspects that excites Roth the most.
The finished tumblewhale will be between 60 and 70 feet long and weigh around 400 pounds. When finished, it will likely be the lightest whale in the world.
One unexpected benefit of this project is that Roth's studio is less than a mile from the construction site. Roth said that will "keep my carbon footprint small," in keeping with the environmental message he hopes to communicate with the tumblewhale.
"There will be very little waste in this project," he said. "The whole thing is elegant in its simplicity."
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
