Gallery • 7 Photos

Marlee Baron

From the shore, the Art Shanty Project doesn't look like much. But many of the shanties took a lot of time and effort to make. Sadly not as much effort was put into the content of these shanties.

Art Shanty is a series of shanties, little buildings on the ice similar to ice fishing huts, each with a different art exhibit inside. In theory, it sounds really cool, but the execution of Art Shanty on White Bear Lake, was unsatisfactory. This is Minnesota in the winter; no one is going to want to stay outside for very long unless it is for a good reason. Art Shanty was not a good enough reason to stay outside and the entire time I was there, I wanted to leave.

The first thing I did when I got to the Art Shanty Projects was climb up on the top of the information hut to look around. Each hut looked interesting and although I was already starting to get cold, I excitedly forged ahead to the first hut. On my way to the first hut I saw a lot of cool stuff. People were being pulled around in cool sleds with chairs on them, riding bikes that looked like animals, and riding a see-saw that claimed to also be a Ouija board. All these things were really good and it was a good place to people watch, if it hadn’t been freezing cold out.

I got to my first Shanty, from the outside you couldn’t really tell what was inside, but I was cold so I decided to go in. It was much warmer in there, maybe it was because the wind wasn’t hitting me anymore, but the more likely explanation was because there were about twenty people crowded into a room about the size of a walk in closet. If you’ve ever seen Tiny House Hunters on HGTV, this was small than the first floor in most of those. There were too many people for me to even see what the art was; all I could tell was that it involved tea. So my first shanty was a bust. Still I ploughed ahead.

While deciding which shanty to try next, I heard a familiar sound. “The snow glows white on the mountain tonight…” The music was perfect for the setting so I decided to go to the shanty playing Let it Go by Idina Menzel from the Disney Movie “Frozen”. So since I’m not Elsa and the cold was bothering me, I went in. I was very disappointed when I lifted the flap to this shanty. I was expecting some sort of art to be inside but instead I was greeted by a crowded room of people dancing. It wasn’t a show though; it was literally just random people dancing around. I’m not really sure how that passes for art. I also don’t think a tarp covering plywood counts as a shanty, but oh well. With low spirits I kept going.

The next shanty I passed was a small box with big windows. It was designed for passerbys to be able to watch artists at work. I was pleasantly surprised when I looked in. There was actual art! Although I had seen a lot of art in the construction of the shanties themselves, this was the first time I was actually seeing art inside any of the shanties. The artists inside this shanty were making beautiful art and seemed very happy. Maybe it was because they were inside instead of out in the cold like I was. But there is only so long you can watch someone paint while standing out on a lake with the wind in your face, so I moved on.

The next shanty I got to had a line, because of the cold I had been skipping most of the shanties with lines, but this one looked really cool. The northern lights are one of the most beautiful naturally occurring things in the world, and this shanty claimed that inside their little hut in the middle of the day, I could experience the northern lights. That seemed really cool, so I got in line. After waiting my turn, I went inside. This shanty was probably the biggest disappointment of my day, and there were many. Who ever put this shanty together must have never even seen a picture of the northern lights, because what they claimed looked just like the northern lights, were Christmas lights behind a bed sheet. Needless to say, I did not stay very long in that Shanty.

The next shanty I got to was the data lab. There was no line so I just walked in, however they made up for not having a line, by being so crowded that I could barely see anything. It was extremely uncomfortable, so although it looked very interesting, I left.

I decided to try my luck once more, and go into another shanty. I choose a shanty that was adorable from the outside and had no line. I walked in and while it was a little crowded, it wasn’t too bad. But I quickly found out why it wasn’t as busy as the other shanties, it had no point. Unlike some of the other shanties, the point wasn’t just poorly executed; it was simply non-existent. Inside the shanty there were a bunch of weird knickknacks and a table with materials to make valentines. Although it was a cute idea, I can make valentines at my own house, I don’t need to be on a lake to do that.

Finally I was at the end. I was freezing and altogether disappointed. While many of these shanties were good ideas and very cool from the outside. I didn’t see the point of most of them, and I definitely didn’t get why any of them needed to be on a lake. In the end, although the Art Shanty Project is good in theory, it was poorly executed, I will not be going back and I will definitely not be recommending it to anyone, unless they are looking for a way to waste time in the freezing cold.