Maker

Thin(k) Ice

A chilly reception for Minnesota’s Art Shanty Projects. By Mike Haeg

A lopsided tin shed creeps along the surface of the frozen lake. Inside, a handful of rosy-cheeked passengers are pedaling their hearts out. The shanty’s skipper keeps the little icehouse on its snowplowed track by manipulating a rudder-like steering apparatus. His first mate is feeding small pieces of cedar shake into the miniscule wood-burning stove that warms the shanty’s passengers and brings a snow-packed teakettle to whistle.

The Mobile Home Shanty circumnavigates the 2008 Art Shanty Projects, a curated community of 20 artist shacks humbly populating a small section of Medicine Lake, just outside Minneapolis. Along its route, the mobile shanty passes a monolithic shanty comprised of inward-facing refrigerator doors, a shanty with clear plastic walls insulated

40 Make: Volume 17

with castoff stuffed animals, a menacing 20-foot robot shanty, an ice museum, a radio station, and a camera obscura.

At the heart of this makeshift community is a small, piecemeal shack sporting a bold, red letter A and a sign proudly exclaiming Auto Ethnographic Guide Service HQ.

Inside is Peter Haakon Thompson, who started the Art Shanty Projects together with fellow artists David Pitman, Kari Reardon, and Alex DeArmond with a single shanty back in 2004. The idea: to transform the traditional ice-fishing shack into a public art space. That year, the team had about 30 visitors, mostly friends and other artists.

The following year, the team was awarded an art show through the Soap Factory gallery, involving ten projects created by 20 different artists on the

Photography by David Pitman