Torn Notebook (Sheldon Sculpture Garden)

A giant spiral notebook with pages that seem to blow away stands where the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus meets downtown Lincoln. It is the work of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, who specialised in colossal versions of everyday objects.

According to the university, the artists drove from Kansas City to Lincoln and jotted down observations on the way. Coosje wrote lyrical phrases, while Claes noted the names of things such as "barbed wire" and "roller skate". Back in their New York studio they decided a sculpture about collecting observations suited a university, and the final design drew on Claes's habit of tearing his spiral-bound pocket notebooks in half. Some of the artists' own words appear on the pages, including "Wind clouds straws in the sand."