Imagine an icy, windswept lake. A village of shanties signals the presence of parka-clad fisherfolk in camp chairs, eager to escape the bustle of family and, if they’re lucky, bring home a walleye. Unless, of course, those shacks are actually art.
Years ago, this reporter was one of many annual visitors to Minnesota’s Art Shanty Projects, then on Medicine Lake near the Twin Cities. The project was cofounded in 2004 with a shanty made by Peter Haakon Thompson and David Pitman. In the two decades since, it’s become a four-week event on Bdé Umá/Lake Harriet in Minneapolis with hundreds of artists, performances and more than 27,000 visitors.
For the past five years, the same idea — on a smaller scale — has popped up in Brattleboro. The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center and Retreat Farm will host about 15 to 20 “Artful Ice Shanties” from February 15 to 23 this winter; aspiring shanty builders can register online through December 16 to participate.
What exactly is an art shanty? The definition is broad, though the space can be little. Usually it’s an outdoor structure that fits at least one person at a time; one of last year’s projects was a repurposed vintage phone booth. According to the museum’s press release, other past incarnations have included “a shanty that doubled as a working camera obscura, a shanty in the shape of a giant fish, a translucent shanty that used recycled lenses to simulate the experience of the northern lights, an enormous black die with moon-shaped dots, and Namaskônek, a shanty inspired by the Algonquin ancestors of the region.”
When Haakon Thompson built his first shanty in Minnesota, he was interested in art that takes place in small spaces outside the gallery. In a video describing the project, he said, “Just having the experience of people coming into your shanty and saying, ‘Well, what is this thing?’ and telling them it was art — and seeing them have this realization that Oh, this is art, also — was amazing to me.”
While some artists make projects that act like sculpture, many are also participatory — think tiny karaoke lounges and cozy huts full of knitters clicking away. In Brattleboro, prizes for inventive and thought-provoking shanties are awarded by a panel of judges including artists and ice fishing enthusiasts. In 2023, Matt Neckers built a shanty with an adult-size tricycle attached, a nod to how one actually pulls an ice fishing hut onto a lake.
The Brattleboro art shanties mostly stay safely on Retreat Farm’s lawn. Across the street, Retreat Meadows — the shallow body of water where the West River empties into the Connecticut — has been used for ice fishing for generations, and artists who make functional ice fishing houses (and have a fishing license) could choose to place them there, according to museum director Danny Lichtenfeld. But given that artists already need to get their creations to Retreat Farm and keep them intact through nine days of February weather, it’s better if they don’t also have to worry about rescuing them from the river bottom.
When asked what he’d tell artists looking to create a shanty, Lichtenfeld spoke to the visitor experience: “Build something that’s fun or meaningful to you, something you would be delighted or intrigued to encounter if you hadn’t built it.”
“Artful Ice Shanties,” on view February 15 to 23 at Retreat Farm in Brattleboro; outdoor awards ceremony, February 22, 2 p.m.; registration deadline, December 16. brattleboromuseum.org
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This article appears in The Winter Preview Issue 2024.
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