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
