Last year, on a sunny winter Saturday, Andrew Arlt (Science teacher) and I (Jen Goepfert, English teacher) took a small group of students out to Medicine Lake in Plymouth to visit the Art Shanty Projects. The students absolutely loved the shanties. As they ran (or shuffle/skated) from shanty to shanty, making banjos out of cracker boxes and creating post cards to mail from the post office on ice, Andrew and I looked at each other and said, "We could totally have our students make one of these." And so this year, thanks to tireless effort and energy on Andrew's part and immense student involvement, we are preparing to install our own art shanty out on the ice next weekend.
Students in Andrew's Eco-Arts class have been working over the last few weeks to construct an eco-friendly building that uses at least 85% recycled or reused materials. The outside of the cube will be covered in chalk board walls, which will serve as passive solar heating for the structure, and will also be a vehicle for community conversation. Students will post questions for visitors to answer in an effort to create a public space for diverse voices on thought-provoking questions.
Inside, the cube will contain magnetic walls where visitors can interact with a magnetic poetry set that the students in my creative writing class have been working on. Our hope is that we will bring a unique voice to the ice this year--that of the urban alternative student. We plan to staff our shanty with students from both classes throughout the installment.
So far, the students have been having a great time getting ready for the project. With only one more week to go, we are scrambling a bit, but I have faith in our students and in Andrew, to pull the shanty together and to bring a unique experience to art shanty goers this year.
Hope to see you out there!
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