 This work was somewhat autobiographic, but humorously so.By the early 1980s, Onofrio was creating outdoor installations, influenced in part by regional Midwestern attractions such as the Dickeyville Grotto in Wisconsin and Grotto of the Redemption in Iowa.These large-scale outdoor installations led to events such as "fire performances" in at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1984 and Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1985, pieces in which wood-and-paper pyramids laced with gunpowder were set alight.