An interview with Tom Every (Doc Evermor)
 First published in The Bottlecap, vol. 1, issue 2 (Summer 1998)

Dr. Evermor (Tom Every) began building the more than 200-ton (now estimated at 400 tons - August, 2000) Forevertron in 1983 following his early retirement from the large-scale wrecking and salvage business. He remembers being depressed at the time and wanting to convert a destructive process into something constructive and uplifting. He has since developed an elaborate, park-like setting with numerous satellite pieces around the Forevertron which rises from the Sauk Prairie between Baraboo and Madison, Wisconsin and ranks as the world’s largest sculpture made from scrap metal. It is also worth noting that the following interview was conducted on a recent spring afternoon in one of Dr. Evermor's several open-air gazebos, where just above his head a mother robin attended to the needs of three hungry nestlings.


Jeffrey Hayes: Your name at birth in 1938 was Thomas 0. Every. Now you are called Dr. Evermor. When did you become Dr. Evermor and why?

Dr. Evermor: I became Dr. Evermor around 1983 when we started to build the Forevertron. I was a bit upset with the world, not so much the economic conditions as the judicial system and things like that, and I wanted to perpetuate myself back into the heavens on this magnetic lightning force field.

JH: But why call yourself Dr. Evermor? Would you explain a little more fully who Dr. Evermor is and why you became him?

DE: A psychiatrist would probably say it is an alter ego or something like that. It just kind of evolved.

JH: What exactly is the Forevertron - would you briefly review the history of this project?

DE: Yes. The Forevertron was conceived with the idea of a professor or scientist who in the time frame of about 1890 thought that he could perpetuate himself inside a glass ball, inside a copper egg, back into the heavens on a magnetic lightning force beam. That’s the crux of the concept. Of course today we’ve made all these rockets, but a century ago they would have done this with electricity and its powers. So this is a conceivable thought that a professor could have had at that time. The Forevertron is totally designed not only with the component parts from that time frame, but also with that historical mindset. In it you can see examples of wiring and every other kind of electrical part or mechanism that I salvaged from powerhouses, factories, and other sources. In fact, a lot of people come here just to study aspects of the engineering technology from that time. Dr. Evermor really is a character who could have been a professor around 1890 working on an experimental means of flight to push some sort of vessel into the heavens.

JH: What makes you want to be propelled into the heavens? What is your motive? What are you after?

DE: I don't know if I'm after anything. I did go through this bout of inhuman treatment that our society insists on putting us through, and maybe that was the start of it. Since then, I've gained a different thought pattern and look at it a little more humorously. But when you get trapped by some of these things there seems to be no wisdom or anything of human interest, and you get kind of stagnant and upset with the human race. So that was probably the triggering point for this project, but since then I’ve just been happy putting one little piece next to another and building these things. Still, the entire project up here is fundamentally centered around the Forevertron and perpetuating oneself back into the heavens, wherever that might be. Every piece that’s around here correlates with that, including the Celestial Listening Ears; the Graviton because Dr. Evermor is a burly guy and he has to be de-watered, the Jockey Scale which is another sculptural thing coming out of England so he could weigh himself before he made the trip; the Overlord Master Control which is kind of like today's computer at NASA controlling the gyronic flight of the capsule; and the Juicer Bug which is a back-up lightning force that will be connected into the Overlord. And this is a very festive happening so we have the Epicurean where you can be served food and then we have the Olfactory which is a popping popcorn stand, and you have to have an orchestra, so we are building a Bird Band that will be playing when Evermor goes back into the heavens.

JH: So, as we move from past to present considerations, would it be fair to say that much of the original motivation for starting this project stemmed from your frustration with society on ethical or emotional grounds rather than from any artistic inspiration per se? But now it seems that the artistic end of it has become your primary concern, right?

DE: Yes, I would say you're a 1,000% on target. I think that humans wear many different hats, and I never looked at the Forevertron or any of the other things I was building as art projects. It's the scholars who came along and said this. I was just building these things that involved historic material in their creation, so I had not calculated that any of it was of an artistic nature. It may end up being so, but it was never directed or calculated that way.

JH: That takes care of the past. Can you say a few words about what lies ahead? Is the project largely completed, or is there a lot more work to be done?

DE: Even after I finish the Juicer Bug and Overlord Master control later this summer (1998), there will still be quite a bit of work left to be done on the Forevertron. I hadn't completed that work because I thought I was going to move the whole thing to another spot. You see, the Forevertron is a kinetic sculpture, and I wanted to have - if not the fact – at least the illusion of the egg taking off so I still have to put some things in so it can go up and down, and I want to drape cables in downward curves and then wrap them with fiber optics. And there are bridges over there that I need to put the decking on. Two of those bridges bring it into the form I wanted to have in this mechanical fantasy or whatever you want to judge it as.

JH: Does the Forevertron have a practical or philosophical application to the world at large -- in other words, is there something going on here that you feel we can all learn or use, something that is perhaps missing in present day society, or is the Forevertron a purely personal matter?

DE: I don’t think it’s a purely personal matter. It includes philosophical thoughts about what society is, and it’s also there so that people can look at all of its historical and mechanical aspects. And it does have very good form and balance to it. I don't know how it came out that way, but it does. It’s all done in curved arches and circles, and in formal series of 3, 5, 7, and 9. It’s a whimsical, mechanical fantasy which serves Dr. Evermor’s plan to perpetuate himself back into the heavens, but I think if also has a lot of messages. It certainly brings an awful lot of joy to people. It is not a satanic piece. It’s something that has a different kind of aura that I can explain.

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