Pete Driessen

2019 Mid-Career Project Grantee | $10,000

Northern Pacific Roundhouse Sculpture

For his mid-career project, Pete Driessen created RoundHouse: Pivotal Turntable Tactics, sited at the Northern Pacific (NP) Rail Yard in Brainerd, Minnesota. Abstract, monumental, and participatory, the sculptures echo the former 1875 rail architecture at the historic site. An artist talk, workshop, sound composition, and opening day performances accompanied the installations.

Created with red and white pine wood and metal hardware, RoundHouse: Pivotal Turntable Tactics was a public art project consisting of two large, site specific installations, RoundHouse Wedge and Turntable Dock. The installations reflect the architectural structure of the former rail yard spaces, reference empowering locational identity, and use ideas of affective stimuli, physical embodiment and rural vacancy.

The exterior Roundhouse Wedge, an abstract, pie-shaped, train garage stall, rested on the original rail tracking foundation of the former NP roundhouse site. The wooden Roundhouse Wedge illuminated a bay of the circular space used for servicing and repairing railroad locomotives and train cars. Referencing imagery from the Crow Wing County Historical Society & Museum, Driessen recreated the daily working ecosystem of the former NP roundhouse and turntable sites. Standing over 316 feet wide, the former Northern Pacific Roundhouse complex was more than a modern football field in diameter. Nestled within the center of the NP Rail Yard as a living symbol of perseverance and resilience, the past working structure lasted for more than one hundred years. Viewers were able to walk through the abstract installation.

The interior movable Turntable Dock was an abstract installation, rotating on casters, that reflected a traditional turntable docking system used during the height of the railroad industry. Using the NP Boiler Shop as a process studio space and independent alternative gallery space, the TurnTable Dock contained a traditional turntable aligned with the architecture of the former work site. The sculpture illuminated how the former collective pivoting system would maneuver the large train engines, coal cars and rail assemblies. Viewers were able to both walk on and push the abstract train docking platform.

The installation included a unique sound work composed by sound artist Eric Anthony Frye which reflected on a range of personal railroad-based experiences from his rural Illinois childhood.

Two additional galleries accompanied the Turntable dock site, including a welcoming mud room with a rotating exhibit of NP rail detritus, and a station master office containing artist models, drawings, notes and ephemera. A children’s Roundhouse Empowerment Workshop with artist Heidi Jeub/Tiny School of Art & Design took place during opening day. A choreographed movement composition by Sullivan & Co. dance troupe accompanied both works on opening day and night. The exhibit also included a self-published catalog with critical essays by curator/art historian Sheila Dickinson, writer/educator Susan Smith-Grier, and the artist. Both writers, along with the artist, held a talk beginning at the interior Turntable site that toured on foot to the outdoor Wedge sculpture. Turntable Ale, a special, limited edition beer brewed by the local Roundhouse Brewery, complemented the exhibit opening, artist talk, and show run. A series of postcards, limited edition wallpaper, and a short print run of signed, limited edition posters printed on engineer paper were also available.

The Northern Pacific Railroad yard is a large historic grouping of twelve brick and wooden beam buildings that sit on a 47-acre plot of land in Brainerd, MN. The massive industrial site contains the aesthetic atmosphere and former physical workings of the past turn-of-the-century railroad era. The old railroad Blacksmith Shop building is 75,000 square feet, with 20-foot high sidewalls, an 80-foot wide cross-span, and concrete floors. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a former EPA Superfund site, the NP setting is located near the geographic center of the state, where the Mississippi begins its curl to the headwaters. Both the industrial rawness and the monumental scale of the Northern Pacific site and its former roundhouse space reflect Minnesota’s architectural history and our current need for regional public arts. The site has high potential and possibility as a future site for contemporary public arts, curating art fairs and museological programming.

Collaborative production artist Joel Sisson worked on the NP Roundhouse installation, taking lead on the build of both sculptures, and helping the artist maneuver through the process. The sculptures were finished early and open to the public for over six weeks. Along with the long production process on site, as well as both the outdoor and indoor gallery hours, the project had strong visibility within the Brainerd Lakes community. The artist was quoted in the annual Labor Day Progress edition of the local Brainerd Dispatch newspaper on the importance of the NP site. Driessen met with and interviewed many attendees to the National NP Convention, and was present for the local History Day events. Anyone parking within the NP complex or using the four NP event centers experienced the outdoor RoundHouse Wedge sculpture.

The McKnight Foundation generously enables Forecast to provide Professional Development Grants for mid-career artists seeking to expand their work in the field of public art. Forecast mid- and early-career grants are designed to support independent projects, leadership development, professional development, risk-taking, multidisciplinary approaches, and collaborative problem-solving in the field of public art.