Home is where the art is

It had been a while since the dogs and I had walked through Lakenenland, a sculpture park tucked into the woods off M-28. Tom Lakenen, the sculptor, had added quite a few new pieces, but the old favorites were still there. Tom's rules for his park are simple, because there are none. It's always open, there's no fee, and on display are 60 or more sculptures made from scrap iron. You can walk through the park, or ski, or snowmobile, or, once the spring thaw is over, drive through in your Maserati or 4-wheeler or Chevy Impala. Tom doesn't really care, as long as you have fun.

It's the local government he has trouble with, but without that trouble, which forced him to move his sculptures from his home, the park probably wouldn't be here in the first place.

Tom's sculptures run the gamut from whimsical beasts to local, national, and international political statements, taking on such subjects as war, corporate greed, and unions, past and present. Tom is a union man, a family man, a construction worker, and an alcoholic. But once he quit drinking, he has said, he began creating. And what he has created in Lakenenland is an extensive welcome mat to his world, where scraps of vision weld with scraps of steel. Tom calls it "junkyard art." To many, it's treasure.

Once a friend and I skied to Lakenenland. When we arrived, Tom and his wife and kids were there as well as a few snowmobilers (the park is on snowmobile trail #417). A bonfire was roaring. Tom offered us hot dogs and hot chocolate. We sat at a picnic table to rest, eat, and talk.

Tom always keeps plenty of logs on hand for a fire. There is an open shelter that protects maps, a guest book, glass cases that display the articles written about Lakenenland and business cards left by visitors, a crate for returnable cans and bottles, a suggestion/complaint tube, a donation tube, and old Christmas decorations. There is a cupboard stuffed full of crackers, donuts, coffee, sugar, instant soup, napkins, mustard, and snack mix. Today, after I had signed the guest book, made note of the various places others had recently come from (mostly the Midwest, but also California, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Ontario, Canada), a group of snowmobilers pulled in off the trail.

"What? You didn't start the fire for us?" one asked as he pulled off helmet and gloves.

"I didn't know you were coming," I said.

They had come from several miles east, where it was colder, they reported, and had brought their own hot dogs and buns.

"You've been here before?"

"Oh, yeah, we always stop here." The group was from Ohio and lower Michigan and proceeded to make themselves at home in Lakenenland.

Lakenenland's official Web site is: lakenenland.com

Google "Lakenenland" for other reviews of the park. I also found an "unusual-rare" jigsaw puzzle of Lakenenland on eBay. Small world, eh?