While patterns form on one side of the surface, they appear as shadowy outlines through the concrete. These optical fibers are spread evenly through the concrete and are visible on both sides of the block. The Soap Factory in Minneapolis will remount the Art Shanty project next summer in its gallery.Translucent concrete is based on the concept of ‘Nano Optics,’ where optical fibers act as slits to transmit light from one side of the surface to another. "I grew up in Oshkosh Wisconsin near lake Winnebago and there was always this world but I never really cared much about it but now that I see the whole shanty town and so on, it's fascinating - it's almost like finding my roots again!"įor those who can't bear the thought of walking on ice, or looking at art in the cold, there's hope. Lilian Rand convinced her husband Howard it was worth the trip, and so they spent an afternoon happily tramping from one ice house to the next, peering in. In addition, the Art Shanty Project has drawn some art lovers to get out of the city and out onto the ice. It's outside and there's kids and dogs running around and snowmobiles." "So I think people are more willing to come and look at stuff if it just doesn't have that quiet gallery atmosphere. "Part of the idea I think for us is that this is not an intimidating gallery environment," says Thompson. Thompson says he'd like to know what the snowmobilers think of the art, but they tend to drive by at night, stopping briefly at each shanty before zooming off across the lake. Thompson says they did this deliberately, because they didn't want to take up good fishing territory. The art shanties are clustered together into their own makeshift community, but they are hundreds of yards away from a much larger village of more traditional ice houses. And I have to say they've been incredibly great about getting this all lined up." "I was envisioning that I'd be taken off the lakes in cuffs but that didn't happen. "Two sheriffs deputies walked up and asked if they could see my event permit and I didn't have one and I didn't know anything about it," says Thompson. But he has had one brush with the law evidently if you're going to invite the public out onto the lake you need an event permit. Thompson says building codes on frozen lakes are relatively lax, giving artists more freedom than they have on public land. While Thompson's hut is only eight feet square, it was still able to fit 12 students. Within just a couple of days one painting was knocked over and broken into several pieces others may melt on warmer days. In one picture a woman holds a frog with five legs in another a man holds up a strand of pearls. "I'm sort of playing with the idea of the magic and mystery of what you might pull out of the lake." Sort of like trophy fish, but removing the image of the fish and adding something else, another found object or image," says Hoyt. "Mostly I've been working with just a series of people that have caught fish. Then he stands them up and the sunlight plays with the colors. He paints figures onto sheets of translucent plastic, secures them in a box frame and covers them in lake water until they've frozen into large ice panels. Lindberg was one of several artists who responded to a call by the Soap Factory gallery in Minneapolis to come up with their own unique designs for ice houses.Ī few yards away, Mike Hoyt is creating an ice painting.
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