The Fish Factory

Sturgeon, lake trout, walleye, northern pike, gar, and lake herring—six species of freshwater fish spool themselves into an orderly column rising and unspooling into the open expanse of the Shedd Aquarium’s new entrance. The Once and Forever Lake Michigan sculpture by artist David Franklin hangs suspended above visitors who are awestruck by the sheer number of fish swirling above them–1600 in all.

How and where could an artist create so many beautifully detailed ceramic fish? Introducing the Kohler MakerSpace.

In 2023 Franklin traveled to Kohler, Wisconsin, from his home in Indianola, Washington, to become the inaugural Kohler MakerSpace resident artist. With him, he brought an enormously technical, resource-intensive public art commission from the Shedd Aquarium. As Franklin himself notes, “Being able to work in this factory is the only way a project this large can even get done.”

Kohler MakerSpace is an invitational and proposal-based residency for artists and designers to explore and create projects like The Once and Forever Lake Michigan. Artists have the capability to create work on a larger scale in a unique workspace using industrial materials and equipment. Kohler's factory setting is particularly well-suited for this type of exploration.

As a two-time Arts/Industry residency alumnus, Franklin was familiar with the rhythms of the Kohler Pottery and more important, the skill and knowledge held by the Pottery artisans. He approached Kohler with his winning proposal for the Shedd’s entrance, part of its multimillion-dollar renovation.

This project truly brings Franklin’s history with Kohler full circle. In discussing the inspiration for Once and Forever Lake Michigan, he recalls a turning point in his work after a conversation with Ruth Kohler, who, along with her brother, Herbert V Kohler, Jr., founded the Arts/Industry program. He notes, “When I finished my first residency, Ruth Kohler said that I should do artwork . . . that reflects something that's really personal. One of the things I love to do the best is go fishing with my wife Joanne on Puget Sound.” Franklin credits the idea of creating schools of fish, both in his second Arts/Industry residency and on a much larger scale for the Shedd, from Ruth’s advice.

The relationships Franklin developed with people working on the factory floor also significantly influenced the installation he proposed to the Shedd. While the work in his second Arts/Industry residency focused on saltwater fish along the coast of Washington, carts of ceramic fish moving through the factory kilns opened his eyes to the importance of fishing and freshwater natural resources within the local community. Franklin remembers, “Everybody started coming up to me and showing me Grandpa's sturgeon or this bucket of bluegills that they caught.”

Years later as he conceived of the project and imagined building it, Franklin thought local species made sense as a subject for an aquarium located on the shores of Lake Michigan just south of Kohler. For Franklin, much like Ruth Kohler, art is ultimately about community and bringing people together in the making and in the experience of that work. He believes, “It just creates a sense of community ownership and interaction with the project. And that I think really is what kind of gives it some of its power.” One can’t help but hear the echo of Ruth’s own belief in “all the arts, for all the people.”

The Kohler MakerSpace residency, unlike three-month Arts/Industry residencies, flexes with the needs of the artist and their project. Franklin—often with his wife, Joanne, and their son—labored for eight months together with Pottery artisans and alongside the continual crafting of toilets and sinks on a daily basis.

Describing the experience, Franklin only half jokes when he says, “What do you do as an artist in a factory? My idea really was to turn it into a fish factory. You can make lots of multiples.” And, in fact, with support from people who slipcast day in and day out, adjusting the process intuitively as humidity fluctuates with Wisconsin’s weather, you can make 1600+ multiples.

The process of taking just one fish from idea to a glazed, highly detailed ceramic piece is more complex than one might imagine, and 1600 is beyond ambitious. Another artist may approach the work differently, but for The Once and Forever Lake Michigan, Franklin began by simply observing the fish in their element–how they move and interact. Each of the six larger species has two poses in the sculpture, with the smaller cisco having seven poses, so he perfected a sketch for each of the 19 before transferring each to an individual block of wood that he then carved.

Franklin apprenticed with a master carver for ten years early in his career, and carving remains a primary element in his process and final art. The wood for each of the fish came from a single section of a western red cedar about 700 years old. It had been sitting unused, a leftover piece from a totem pole project created with a Port Gamble S'Klallum tribal member and friend. Franklin said it was just waiting for the right project.

Once the carvings were finished, production at Kohler MakerSpace began–make molds, fill molds with casting slip, remove fish from mold, carve additional details, dry, glaze, and send through the kiln. The support and expertise required for each step of such an enormous undertaking is what Kohler MakerSpace is all about.

Franklin captures the sense of specialization inherent in any factory, but perhaps especially the Pottery. “There's so many art forms involved in making these things.” He notes slip casting, like wood carving, is his wheelhouse. However, the people in Vitreous Manufacturing Development made the molds prior to Franklin’s arrival. As for glazing, a retired glazer, John Beuter, returned upon request to glaze and hand spray some of the fish. “We've been calling him the Gandalf of Glaze . . . he's very, very good at it,” Franklin laughs.

The deep significance of this sculpture for Franklin is multilayered. As a public art installation, its purpose is not only to represent the Midwest and the Great Lakes but also to teach and inspire people to care for this incredible system of fresh water and the fish that inhabit it.

Perhaps The Once and Forever Lake Michigan captures most effectively Franklin’s personal beliefs about art and collaboration and what matters. He doesn’t subscribe to the idea of individual genius in art. Instead, he sees this work as a collaborative piece, saying, “I hope that all the people who have worked with me on the project really understand that it's also their project. And that's really the beauty of doing something like this—the sense of ownership that goes out into the community.” That is the magic of Kohler MakerSpace. And the power of art.