Art Shanty Projects

Art Shanty Projects (ASP) is an artist driven temporary community exploring the ways in which the relatively unregulated land of the frozen lake can be used as a new and challenging artistic environment, inspired by ice fishing shanties that dot MN lakes in the winter. I co-founded the Art Shanty Projects in 2004 with artist David Pitman and retired in 2012. Through 2012,  ASP took place on suburban Medicine Lake (where I grew up) with shanties on the ice for 4 weekends. Typically involved about 20 Shanties that were designed around participatory activities from knitting to karaoke to letterpress printing. The 2012 season saw 18,000 visitors on the ice of Medicine Lake in Plymouth.

The project grew from one Shanty I built with friends and casually programmed for the winter of 2004, to a handful of Shanties  and sculptures open to the public in 2005 with the help of the now defunct Soap Factory in Minneapolis. As the Soap Factory was located in a former factory without heat, ASP filled out their programming which previously only took place in the warmer months.

Medicine Lake was our starting point, in part because I was familiar with it from growing up next to the lake, but also ice fishing shanties (which the project was modeled on) were not allowed on Minneapolis city lakes. However hosting the project in suburban Plymouth also served to bring artists into contact with an audience they may not normally interact with through the gallery and art scene in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

My initial interest in creating a Shanty grew from my interest in small spaces (boats etc) and how everything needed fit into a small space. I was long fascinated and curious about fishing shanties, and the idea of free land that existed for only a part of the year. I was not interested in fishing so thought why not build on to serve as a clubhouse/art studio.

The first year we were open to the public, opening day came and shockingly the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press both had front page Metro section articles about the Art Shanty- leading to hundreds of people coming across the ice to see the Art Shanties on one of the coldest days of the year.

The following years we solidified our structure, created a jury process, wrote grants for funding and learned on the job what it was to manage and run the Art Shanty Projects. We decided that we were not interested in simply getting bigger, but added programming and events to the interactions provided by the Shanties themselves. One of the things I loved so much about those first years was the experience of folks coming into my shanty and asking- what is this? And I would reply, “art”. Artists getting to interact with their audience and vice versa was one of the most amazing characteristics of the Art Shanty and shaped how I thought about art functioning in the world and I believe influenced the direction of participatory and socially engaged art in Minnesota.

Today the project continues on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis as a non-profit and continues to allow audience to participate with art and artists.

Art Shanties on National Public Radio in 2012

Art Shanty mention in the Star Tribune

A 2005 story from Minnesota Public Radio about the Art Shanties

Art Shanties in the New York Times in 2024