Artist John Cerney’s gallery is the great outdoors. He creates his own brand of commercial, billboard-sized art that adorns farm fields throughout California’s fertile Salinas Valley and beyond.

"It wasn't until I painted my first mural and when you're painting on the side of the highway, you start getting recognition," he says. "People stopping or honking, there's something intoxicating about that."

Some of Cerney's highway art looms 20 feet tall. His odyssey with giant plywood people and storefront art started 20 years ago with a random knock on a farmer’s door, persuading him to let the side of his barn be the canvas for a rural scene. He creates commissioned pieces by taking 50 or 60 photographs of real people and places to get just the right look. The giant cut-outs are prepared in sections and then joined to form the people. This modest man doesn’t even think of himself as a true artist. Still he's passionate about what he does.

That passion is leading to more and more installations in other western states and the Midwest. One of his most eye-popping is in a field in Arizona: a huge baby bent over a tractor. It's right off Interstate 10, in a farm field that's quickly being surrounded by houses as Phoenix grows by leaps and bounds.

Kathleen Duncan, general manager of Duncan Family Farms where the giant baby sits, says she fell in love with Cerney’s work on a trip to Monterey County, California. And she just had to have some. But something is missing from the “Big Baby” scene. Turns out she was the model for the mother figure in the scene which was recently stolen. The plan is to replace her one of these days.

Theft and vandalism are two of the drawbacks of displaying this kind of art. But those hazards didn’t stop Duncan from commissioning a number of pieces from Cerney. She wanted them to add a whimsical touch to the educational farm she husband Arnott opened for kids back in 1992.

That’s all that’s left to see at the Duncan Farm, which had to close its doors to visitors in 2002. It was too close for comfort to Luke Air Force Base and the flight path for warplanes packing heavy-duty munitions. The Duncans still hope to relocate the farm and bring their “farm art” right along with them. And who knows? John Cerney may be pressed into service once again.

Over the years time and weather have taken their toll on Cerney's supersized sculptures. Even so this ag artist says he’d still rather place his creations on farms and in the fields instead of inside some stuffy gallery. His joy comes from sharing them and perhaps soliciting a few smiles from passersby as they journey through the heartland.

So if you see a giant baby hovering over a tractor off Interstate 10 near Goodyear, Arizona or some other strange sight, keep your hands on the wheel and don’t worry. It's only art!