Interlochen Summer Camp Floating Sculptures

Sculpture Exhibition on Green Lake.

This past summer (2011) I taught a High School Sculpture class at Interlochen Center for the Arts. It's a summer camp dedicated to music, dance, and visual arts. 

My class was called "Sculpture: Welding and Construction Techniques". It was a three week crash course in welding. I wanted to do something a little off-the-cuff after all that serious welding.  The lake the camp was next to was so pretty, I thought it would be a shame not to use it.  I assigned the class to make floating sculptures. This was the last assignment and they had only about three days to make something that could float and be sculptural. The pulled it off and we got into canoes and launched them into the Green Lake.

I fabricated these little hardcore anchors and tied them to each students' sculpture.

Myself with assistants Harrison Tyler and Christina Quinlin, best assistants ever!

Rosie's kinetic  floating sculpture spun like a pin wheel.

A view from a canoe.

Emily's was a re-purposed painting easel.

Harrison made one too. 

Another canoe shot of the spinning Rose.

Markus made two that were tied together.

Brittney's Sea Monster.

Brittney's became a turtle habitat, can you see it?

While teaching a sculpture course and being the Studio Technician, I didn't find a lot of time to make my own work. I have to say that seeing these sculptures on the lake gave me the same satisfaction as if I had made some work. I said to myself, out on the canoe, "this is why I got my MFA".