Saturday August 6, 2011-Dan and Karen's house continued

This was the second thing we did today. Dan and Karen had told us about the junk yard that they wanted us to see and we were just about to give up on it when we found it. It is in the tiny township of Chocolay, which is just south of Marquette Michigan.

The story is that a man named Tom Lakenen that has built a drive-thru sculpture garden on his property. He is a welder by trade and when he found himself with time on his hands after he quit drinking, he began to build figures on his property. Apparently the township council took offense and Tom was ticketed many times for various infractions. The story is that he was contacted by a local attorney who agreed to take his case in defense of his right to express himself and won. If you care to read more about this, begin HERE. Apparently there is a little-known law that allows for a land patent on property to prevent trespass and investigation of violations on his property. I haven't checked into all the aspects of this case, but I applaud him for standing up to the government and winning. He has named his property Lakenenland and does not charge for entry onto it, although he does take donations.

More photos of his sculpture can be found HERE.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

All of his work is done with scrap or junk metal.

Some of it is kind of disturbing.

In the dark, I might take a shot at this thing.

flying saucer

Pink airplane

An owl in a nest made of metal with a metal fish carcass on the rocks below.

astronomer

Large metal spider

Metal sunflowers.

Man on an old big-wheel bicycle

A cowboy chasing a blue bird.

Tribute to the United States.

Slot machine.

Stainless steel lion/tiger

Railing against corporate greed.

Notice what the pig is doing to the American worker?

Even some bowling ball art.

A tribute to September 11, 2001. It is difficult to see in this picture, but it is a scrapyard replica of the twin towers.

A weird figure on a motorcycle going through a flaming hoop.

A scrapyard snow motorcycle.

Scrapyard tractor pulling large log.

A cute climbing apparatus for the kids. No, I didn't climb on it!

A scrapyard metal dogsled team.

A weird three-wheeled motorcycle/helicopter. This guy has quite an imagination!

Two huge lumberjacks sawing a huge log.

Another huge logger with his axe.

Apparently Tom was not on the property today so I didn't get to meet him. I am in awe of his imagination and skill as a fabricator and welder.

I thought you might be interested in this place. If you are ever in the UP near Marquette, stop in and look. This was not even half of the photos that I took. I hope you enjoyed them.

So long.