Free Range

You can see it from the road, spelled out in foot-high ceramic letters on the side of the old red barn  – a Tibetan Buddhist prayer, “May happiness and well-being arise in all sentient beings, equal to the sky.”

The striking signage often makes passersby stop for a closer look. Russ Vogt is used to it. “We’ll hear a car just all of a sudden slow down, back up, and come into the driveway,” says the painter and sculptor, who lives and works on the 10-acre former farm in Plymouth, Minnesota, with his wife, Suzanne Rooney.

Once on the property, visitors find themselves in a wonderland: an acre and a half of gardens, dotted with more than 200 of Vogt’s totem-like ceramic forms and fanciful mosaic animals. In the warm seasons, the sculptures live in harmony among the flowers and vegetables; in winter, they pop out of the snow. The couple calls it their art farm.

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