Grim Reaper
1996

BIOGRAPHY

Ellis Nelson was born in 1928 in Iowa County, Wisconsin, and attended school through the eighth grade in Muscoda, Wisconsin, where he still lives. He married in 1960 and raised two children. He has had a wide range of work experiences, including employment with the Milwaukee Road Railroad, cutting veneer in a veneer factory, erecting television towers, and doing repair work on electrical machinery, eyeglasses, guns, and automobiles. Between 1960 and 1988 Nelson ran or shared partnership in two service stations, by his own estimate repairing some 18,000 cars during that part of his worklife. In 1985 he decided to use auto-body scraps lying around the station to build a large metal dinosaur based on the Sinclair Oil Company logo. Immediately after he erected it in front of the repair garage, the dinosaur drew such attention that he was bombarded with requests and commissions for other pieces. A few years later he retired from car repair and has worked full-time as a sculptor ever since.

BOOKS

The End is Near! Roger Manley. Illustrated. Bio.