A new sculpture is doing double duty as a bike rack at the Cook County Higher Education North Shore campus at 3rd Street and 3rd Avenue West in Grand Marais. Local artist/metalsmith Don Hammer was commissioned to create the steel structure, and a dedication celebration was held October 13, 2010. (L-R) Don Hammer, Cook County Higher Ed Executive Director Paula Sundet Wolf, Superior North Outdoor Center owner Mark Spinler, and bike enthusiast and Superior North employee Jerry Hiniker.
What has six roots that look like they’re standing on tiptoe, is made of 2,000 linear feet of steel, and weighs about 300 pounds? A bike rack, of course!
Thanks to an Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Art for
the Bikes
grant, Cook County artist and metalsmith Don Hammer was commissioned by Cook County Higher Education to create a functional piece of outdoor art.
“CCHE [Cook County Higher Education] works with many low-income students who walk or bicycle to the campus to attend classes,” Executive Director Paula Sundet Wolf said. “Thus, when CCHE students began leaning their bikes up against our new North Shore Campus building [on 3rd Street and 3rd Avenue West in Grand Marais], we swiftly realized we could incorporate an artistic image with functionality to meet a physical need.
“…Cook County is known for its strong dedication to the arts and artists, so it made sense to approach a local metalsmith to see if he would be interested in designing a sculpture for the North Shore campus.
Top: Cedar trees like this one were the inspiration for Don Hammer’s steel bike rack sculpture located at Cook County Higher Ed’s North Shore Campus in Grand Marais. Above: The process of creating the bike rack sculpture involved a beauty of its own.
“We were fortunate to have the opportunity to individualize our project by working with Don Hammer…who has experience creating fun, innovative, and functional sculptures.”
Hammer and Sundet Wolf, also an artist, got together to come up with a design. They wanted something that didn’t look commercial, Hammer said at a dedication celebration on October 13, and both started thinking about a circular design. Then Hammer thought “root ball,” and “it just started to morph.” What it turned into was the trunk and roots of a cedar tree.
All the bending of the steel was done by hand without heating the metal. Hammer measured his own bike in order to figure out what the dimensions needed to be. He engineered the structure so it would be strong and able to withstand stress.
The sculpture is intentionally asymmetrical. “I knew I would have to take some liberties with reality in order to make it work as a bike rack,” he said. He did not want to try to make the sculpture look completely realistic, either. If he had, he said, he would never have gotten done tweaking it.
“I encourage people to run their hands on it, to feel it, touch it. Thecedar tree is such a beautiful piece of nature,” Hammer said.
The sculpture will eventually rust, but it won’t rust through for decades, Hammer said. It could be sandblasted and painted or treated with a chemical to take off the rust, however. By the time it needs replacement, he said, “I’ll be long gone.”
Hammer talked about what it’s like to work with the people who commission him to create works of art. Higher Ed was great to work with, he said. “Half of the job is who you’re working for. I believe in this organization. It was easy to get up in the morning and go out to the shop and work on it.”
Hammer put in a bid of 80 hours for the job, but he spent more like 120 hours with help from other local metalsmiths.
The first Higher Ed student to use the bike rack was Courtney Johnson, Sundet Wolf said. He walked into the building and said, “I just parked my bike there. It is
a bike rack, isn’t it?” She said yes. “He was thrilled.”
Hammer would like to see more public art throughout the community, and he would like to see local artists commissioned to create art for the new community center to be located in Grand Marais. “Why not decide right now we’re going to make it unique and iconic?” he asked. “We have such an artistic community.”
“Art as a bicycle rack is a new concept that is quickly taking hold across America,” Sundet Wolf said. “[Talking Heads lead singer] David Byrne and David Bibelhauser are two metalsmiths who are gaining a reputation creating fun, artistic metal sculptures that also serve as bike racks. Byrne’s innovative, brightly colored bike racks of squared steel tubing create outlines of familiar shapes such as a guitar, a shoe, a dog, and even a dollar sign and were installed in New York City from Manhattan to Riverside Park in August of 2008.
” “Bibelhauser’s work creates abstract elements with functionality. The Kentucky artist uses heavy steel tubing and shapes it into loose coils that stand alone or are combined with cement sculptures that say ‘art’ first and then serve as a bike rack.”
Sundet Wolf hopes other organizations and businesses will be inspired to commission additional artistic bike racks throughout the community.
Hammer holds a bachelor’s degree in art from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and has extensive experience building motorcycles and cars. Fourteen students have taken metalsmithing classes from him through Cook County Higher Ed.
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