Imagine trails through a vast forest interspersed with cast-iron sculptures amid towering oaks, fragrant pines and limestone ledges. Billowy clouds move across an azure sky.
That’s the scene at Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum in Greene County, a free outdoor museum with 220 sculptures along three miles of trails. The works of art are created on site by metal workers who come from around the world to transform molten iron heated to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit into elaborate pieces of art.
The open-air museum, which is open every day from dawn to dusk, is a place “where sculpture meets fire,” according to its website.
A private art show
Gerry Masse, founder and director of Sculpture Trails, set the first sculpture in place back in 2002. It was one of 11 along the initial one-mile loop.
Masse grew up in a house on the property where the outdoor sculptures are displayed. Back then, it was deep woods full of deer paths, not a place to display art.
After graduating from IU’s Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, where he majored in furniture making and sculpture, he got a master’s degree and taught at the University of Kentucky. As he was making metal sculptures, he realized he didn’t have a use for them.
His mom, Dianne Masse, often walked on their land, so he decided to display his work for her.
“She loved walking the trails, so it was kind of a private art show,” Masse said.
Stone and iron installations at the Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum near Solsberry, Indiana, June 16, 2026. Credit: Laura Lane/FPI News
Twenty years later, ‘an overnight success’
The outdoor gallery has evolved into an arts destination that has attracted people from all over to eastern Greene County. Families, bus tours and senior-citizen home residents are among those who have visited.
New pieces are added as some established ones age and are removed. Some artists retrieve their work, while some bolt their pieces down to stay forever. Some sculptures are dismantled and reused, with the metal turned into molten liquid and used for new pieces.
The sculpture trails aren’t a secret, Masse said, but more people are discovering the place more than two decades after it started. “It seems like people are just now finding us. I’ve been saying it took 20 years for us to become an overnight success. You have to hear about us to find us.”
Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum is near the town of Solsberry in eastern Greene County. Learn more.
Some days, the museum sees just one or two visitors, sometimes none. “Then tour buses from Chicago show up, or we have a group from a senior citizens’ home in Bloomington. We want more people to come, and we’re working on our trails to make them more accessible.”
On a 90-degree day this month, Stonebelt instructor Jane Reeves chaperoned 10 students with disabilities on a field trip there.
Reeves, a former middle school art teacher in Bloomington, said it’s vital to introduce students to the outdoors to explore nature. The sculptures were a bonus.
“There is this three-dimensional world and out there, these pieces of art that you have to walk around to see from different perspectives,” she said. “There’s a special sensory experience.”
See artists work on site
Every July, two dozen metal arts interns converge on the property to make sculptures at the site’s iron foundry, often after dark to avoid the summertime heat. The museum is collecting 30,000 pounds of cast iron that the artists will turn into heavy sculptures.
On July 25, the museum will host its annual Fire@Nite event, where the public is invited to watch artists create sculptures. For a fee, you can make your own relief sculpture or cast an iron bowl at the event.
FPI News, a nonprofit newsroom, is funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations. Sign up for our free newsletter.
FPI News reporter Laura Lane covers the people and issues of rural Indiana. Reach her at 812-760-1540 or laura.lane@fpinews.org.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
