PRESQUE ISLE COUNTY, Mich,. (WPBN\/WGTU) – – In Onaway, an industrial artist has turned scrap metal into a celebration of creativity and community.<\/p>\n
Awakon Park is filled with towering sculptures and bold designs, all built by Tom Moran, founder of Moran Ironworks.<\/p>\n
For decades, Tom Moran has been known for his massive industrial projects.<\/p>\n
But thirty years ago, a few friends and coworkers encouraged him to do something different to turn his leftover steel into art.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral people over the course of the first 10 or 15 years suggested that I keep all the sculptures usually fourth of July I give them away or donate them to different nonprofits. It certainly wasn’t my idea I thought it would be like a junkyard, and in maintenance is a big issue so the idea came over a number of years from a lot of different people,\u201d said Tom Moran- President Ceo And Founder Of Moran Ironworks)<\/p>\n
What started as a small idea grew into Awakon Park, a free outdoor sculpture garden that\u2019s become a point of pride for the city of Onaway.<\/p>\n
For Moran, building it wasn\u2019t just about art, it was about giving something back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell actually, I believe it’s a responsibility more than, I think we all have a responsibility to give back somewhere, within our means to our communities and into the world matter of fact, so I think it’s a natural thing I mean something I always thought that I should do,\u201d said Moran.<\/p>\n
Maintaining the park is no small task.<\/p>\n
The sculptures are massive, taking 800 to one thousand hours to make and the upkeep following comes with a big price tag.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also thought that it would cost me about $60,000 a year for about three or four years to get the park kind of where I wanted it. Well took about $120,000 a year for about ten years and it’s still not where I want,\u201d said Moran.<\/p>\n
But Moran says the effort is worth it and he\u2019s not done yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that’s a plan is for the park, continuous improvement. But I have I have quite a few things that I haven’t done. There’s still challenges out there things that I want to do so yeah, I have plenty on my plate,\u201d said Moran.<\/p>\n
Awakon Park is free and open year-round in Onaway.<\/p>\n
Moran says Awakon Park will keep evolving as a place where art, industry, and community all come together.<\/p>\n
You can get more information on Awakon Park .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PRESQUE ISLE COUNTY, Mich,. (WPBN\/WGTU) – – In Onaway, an industrial artist has turned scrap metal into a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-260080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}