The word WHOA! actually came out of my mouth when I walked into the huge studio at Blue Rhino, a company in Eagen, MN, that designs all sorts of real-life sculptures for museums and commercial spaces. (They do a lot of dinosaurs…) Tim, the owner, is a friend of a friend, and I’m so grateful for the chance to meet the awesome people who work here and see their amazing projects.

It’s very loud in the studio, and masks also make it hard to talk. I didn't want to disrupt the workflow too much, but I did manage to chat with two of the 15 people who work in the shop.

Kevin has been at Blue Rhino for 16 years, and he explained that while most of the workers have a specialty area, everyone is pretty good at a little of everything. "I get to be the hero of my six-year-old self,” he added when I asked him why he liked his job. "Look at this place!” He is working on a pteranodon, which is a flying reptile, not a dinosaur and not a bird. Look it up, they are fascinating.

That seems to be a popular sentiment. Carmen is the newest in the shop, having been there for a year and a half, and she still says, "I can't believe I work here. I didn't realize this was a real job for real people.”

Carmen has a background in art and museum studies, so this is a perfect fit. She and the other artists consult with paleontologists as they work, and Carmen told me all about the teeth of the tyrannosaurus head she was working on. Seriously, what a cool freaking place.