Art in Winter: Return of the Ice Shanties
This year, there’s a giant soup can.
Readers of this blog may know that the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center is a hands-down favorite of mine. Artful has covered a number of its exhibitions over the years, from the ArtLords, a group of Afghan artists the museum invited to re-create banned public art , to Keith Haring’s subway drawings, to Glasstastic, the semi-annual event in which kids team up with local glass artists to imagine and create whimsical glass sculptures with invented biographies. And then there is the champion live-action, world’s longest-running domino event.
And now February brings the return of the Artful Ice Shanties (no relation to this blog except for the name), an annual exhibition that is quintessentially Vermont in winter: ice fishing shanties bedecked and bejeweled, and/or cleverly designed and repurposed. Below is an edited version of BMAC’s recent press release. I am especially intrigued by the giant soup can that has inspired a sudden urge for a grilled cheese cut on the diagonal. Read on:
BRATTLEBORO, VT — Artists, winter enthusiasts, and builders of all ages and experience levels have been working for weeks in garages, workshops, and backyards to design and build their inventive entries for Artful Ice Shanties. The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) and Retreat Farm invite the public to see the results of this creative labor during the annual outdoor exhibit from Feb. 15 to Feb. 23, 2025 at Retreat Farm.
Now in its fifth year, Artful Ice Shanties has become a signature Vermont event celebrating artistic talent, creative ingenuity, and New England’s rich ice-fishing heritage. Each year, thousands of people visit the exhibit of imaginative ice shanties created by groups and individuals.
“Artful Ice Shanties started in 2021 and quickly became a Brattleboro wintertime favorite,” BMAC Director Danny Lichtenfeld said. “A wonderful mix of two Vermont passions—art and outdoor recreation—this fun event spotlights the delightful possibilities of winter in New England.”
Admission to Artful Ice Shanties is free. The exhibit is open daily, dawn to dusk. At an outdoor awards ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 22, at 2 p.m., prizes will be given for notably artistic, inventive, fun, or thought-provoking shanties.
Shanties range from the traditional to the conceptual, from functional to whimsical, from the scientifically-inspired to those that feature culture and history. Among this year’s shanties are a dome-shaped “Cosmic Energy Portal” created by Brattleboro artist Cynthia Parker-Houghton as a place to meditate and connect with nature. . . Parker-Houghton appreciated the challenge of making a large-scale piece that can withstand Vermont’s winter weather. “It feels like this is the beginning of a new artistic path for me, and I’m excited about making more of these types of structures,” she said.
Other Artful Ice Shanties will include an ocean-themed shanty built using repurposed household plastic, PVC pipe, playground structure pieces, and other found plastic; a rainbow-inspired shanty that resembles a circus tent; a cozy toadstool home highlighting the important role that fungi play in forests; and the “Soup Shack,” a shanty in the shape of an oversized can of tomato soup. (Somewhat Warhol-esque, perhaps?)
Will any of them rival a past entry—a shanty that doubled as a working camera obscura?
(Photo, top: "Shared Visions Near and Far" by Zea Mays printmakers from the 2023 Artful Ice Shanties outdoor exhibit. Photo credit: Kelly Fletcher)
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.