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Every work of art is filled with symbolic meanings. So, what are the symbols that Claes Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen chose to include in Lincoln's "Torn Notebook?" The first choice the artists made was what would the overall form of the sculpture be? They considered a field of popping corn, a giant hot dog, or roller skates -- roller skates inspired by waitresses on skates at a local restaurant. A few Lincolnites feared (and …

…ll Runza. "L-Bow" refers to the sculpture of "The Sower" on the top of the Capitol. Van Bruggen's sentence fragments include a reference to buffalo, which she took from her reading of Willa Cather. There are also references to "barbed wire," "falcons atop flagpoles," "wayward winds," "straws in the sand," and a "Goose." "It's a way to pull history into your work (while) at the same time making it a vision of now," she said.