One of the entries in the 2024 edition of BMAC’s Artful Ice Shanty contest. Entries for the 2025 contest are now being accepted.
Rachel Boettcher
One of the entries in the 2024 edition of BMAC’s Artful Ice Shanty contest. Entries for the 2025 contest are now being accepted.
Arts

Artful Ice Shanty contest open for entries

BRATTLEBORO-Artists, ice-fishing enthusiasts, and builders of all ages and experience levels are invited to enter the 2025 Artful Ice Shanties outdoor exhibition, presented by the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) and Retreat Farm.

Now in its fifth year, this signature Vermont event celebrates artistic talent, creative ingenuity, and New England's rich ice-fishing heritage by displaying creative ice shanties designed and built by groups and individuals.

Artful Ice Shanties will be on display Feb. 15–23 at Retreat Farm in Brattleboro. The exhibition coincides with the town's famed Harris Hill Ski Jump, which will take place Feb. 15–16, just a short distance from Retreat Farm.

Admission to Artful Ice Shanties is free. The exhibit is open daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A panel of local makers and fishing enthusiasts will award prizes for notably artistic, inventive, fun, or thought-provoking shanties at an outdoor Awards Ceremony at Retreat Farm on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, at 2 p.m.

Shanties may be built by individuals or by groups of friends, family members, classmates, work colleagues, or any kind of team. They can be traditional or conceptual, functional or wacky, permanent or temporary, but they must be artful.

"Artful Ice Shanties started in 2021, and it quickly became a Brattleboro wintertime favorite," BMAC Director Danny Lichtenfeld said in a news release. "Shanties have ranged from the traditional to more whimsical or conceptual designs. We love how this event spotlights the delightful possibilities of winter in New England."

Past Artful Ice Shanties have included a vintage phone booth, a shanty that doubled as a working camera obscura, a shanty in the shape of a giant fish, a translucent shanty that used recycled lenses to simulate the experience of the northern lights, an enormous black die with moon-shaped dots, and Namaskônek, a shanty inspired by the Indigenous ancestors of the region.

Lichtenfeld said each year thousands of people visit the exhibit, which typically includes about 15 to 20 shanties created by people of all ages and experience levels.

"We even had a shanty built by third and fourth graders that displayed animals' winter survival strategies," Lichtenfeld added.

Artful Ice Shanties 2025 is generously sponsored by The Marina and Berkley & Veller Greenwood Country Realtors.

The deadline to register an artful ice shanty for inclusion in the exhibition is Dec. 16. Registration forms and details are available at brattleboromuseum.org. There is no fee for entry. Interested parties are encouraged to register soon, as space is limited.


This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.

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