Northerly Island Campground and Public Art? Are they Compatible?

According to recent news, ecological restoration is to begin this fall on Chicago's Northerly Island: a 91-acre peninsula located next to Soldiers Field and the Adler Planetarium. Plans are for the projected 4.3 million dollar park to become a new urban camping hub for families, children and at-risk youth.

I want to know whether the current extraordinary steel 20' sculptures now gracing the park (shown below) will stay, or are they on their way out only to be replaced by a 5'7", 150 lb. statute of Mayor Rahm Emanuel?

This summer as my plants were drooping from drought, we escaped the yard once again and went bike riding along Chicago's lakefront. At Northerly Island we enjoyed the winding paths, prairie landscape and dramatic sculptures entitled "Daphne Garden" created by artist Dessa Kirk. Kirk's sculptures are made out of recycled old Cadillacs.

I thought it was rebar when I first saw it, but no, it's just good old car parts. If readers want to replicate this and make a similar art piece for their own gardens, I suspect you might have to get a few welding classes under your belt to learn how to handle a blow torch. Where you get a 70s Cadillac I am not sure.

Kirk is also responsible for creating the public art sculpture at Congress Parkway and Michigan Ave. (See below pictures)

Installed in 2004, Kirk says the city told her the first artwork located on Michigan Ave. would be kept there until 2005 and after that she didn't know where it would go. Well, it's 2012 and still standing so the city either forgot it was there, can't afford the annual rental storage space cost, or actually likes it.

This brings me back to tents and public art and whether these lovely ladies will have a home even after the campers invade the grounds.

Is camping compatible with "Daphne Garden"? Gee, I sincerely hope so. It would be a shame to lock them up in some dirty warehouse where they might well be forgotten. Just in case, if you're in the area, get over and see them, fast!

P.S. Dessa has moved on from living in Chicago and appears to have hung up her blow torch to instead make surf boards in LaJolla, CA.