Chris Navarro is an award-winning artist who thinks outside the box. Best known for his bronze sculptures that feature everything from cowboys to T-Rex. His latest project is a wind fence constructed from vintage wind turbine blades at the entrance to the 355-acre Wyoming Rescue Missions Recovery Ranch in Esterbrook, Wyoming.

Navarro calls the sculpture “Wall of Renewal”, an appropriate title because it will keep a wind turbine out of a landfill by giving it a new purpose, which mirrors the stories of many people who come through the mission’s doors as they struggle with homelessness, joblessness, and drug addiction. The wind fence is 120 feet long and eight feet high, and is a functioning wind fence that keeps snow from blowing on the nearby road.

 

 

The turbine was donated by Vestas, a Colorado company that manufactures the turbines and cut one of them into 12 pieces before sending them to Wyoming. “It took us three days to dig the ditch and install the blades in November,” Navarro says. “In July, we’ll paint the blades white, which will take a couple weekends.”

Following that work, which will be helped along by volunteers from the mission, Navarro will start work on the project’s final touches. The back of the fence will be a mural using the handprints of mission members. “Every handprint says, ‘I was here. I helped. I matter,’” he says.

The front will be a mural of more than 30 mustangs racing across the blades. “Mustangs are the spirit of Wyoming—untamed yet capable of being guided,” Navarro says. “Recovery is like that—strength harnessed, not broken. Like mustangs that find new paths and new work, people rediscover dignity, direction, and belonging.”

 

 

Navarro’s vision, he says, is his belief in the power of art and sustainability. “The blades are arranged so each one supports the others, forming a protective wall,” he says. “Both prove that value does not disappear; it only needs a second chance to be revealed.

“Similarly, the men who helped build it are part of a community where mutual support is the foundation of healing and progress. No one stands alone—and strength grows when people rise together. Just like these blades, people sometimes feel discarded but, with support, purpose, and belief, they rise again. This sculpture is a tribute to strength found in renewal.”