Hidden in plain sight: the metal artwork students miss

By Nicole Wadkins
Staff Reporter

Scattered across the halls and walkways of LCC are works of art, although some are easier to miss than others. Tucked inside a stairway of the Gannon Building is a series of steel sculptures. Due to its location between the second and third floors, the work can easily be overlooked while students go to class.

The sculptures were designed by Vern Mesler, a former welding instructor who worked at LCC for over 40 years. Mesler was a steel fabricator who worked on many steel projects throughout Michigan. He spent 34 years at Douglas Steel Fabrication in Lansing, contributing to the construction of highway bridges and steel structures.

The designs for the sculptures were originally created as homage to Dr. Philip J. Gannon’s vision for an industrial center on campus. “I submitted a design to the dean of technical careers, Bill Darr, that I thought would be in keeping with the industrial center that President Gannon was planning for the third floor of the building,” Mesler said in an email. “I was honored that he selected my design and chose me to lead the project.”

The sculptures were specifically created for the third floor stairway because the area was originally planned to become an industrial center where Lansing businesses would be represented. According to Mesler, Gannon envisioned the space as a connection between the college and local industry. However, Gannon retired before the project was fully completed, leaving the Mesler’s works as one of the remaining pieces of that vision.

The project started during spring 1989 and included five sculptures representing different parts of Lansing as well as the Michigan industry. One piece outlines the shape of Michigan, while another is a 10-foot-tall map of LCC’s service district as of 1989. It is created by using bent square tubing to symbolize roads leading to campus, and small steel plates represent different communities within the district. “Because of space limitations, not all of the communities could have their names attached to the plate that represented their community,” Mesler said. “This did create some friction within the LCC faculty.”

The other pieces on the wall reference the history of Lansing’s industry. The sculpture includes a reference towards the three Eckert Power Plant smokestacks on the bank of the Grand River. “Many Lansing Community College instructors either worked there or had a family history of employment there,” he said. “I was drawn to these immense structures and felt they were right to represent the business and industry of the Lansing Community College district.” There is also a sculpture showing the former Gannon Tower, which was an industrial air ventilation shaft for the welding lab and machine shop. This ventilation no longer exists, as the welding lab and machine shop moved to West Campus around 2006, and the ventilation was replaced by the Granger Clock Tower in May 2017.

Mesler said his favorite piece is the sculpture inspired by the Michigan State Capitol dome. During restoration work in the Capitol in 1980, he had the opportunity to explore the hidden iron framework inside of the dome and was able to walk through the trusses and metalwork from the nineteenth century. “I tried to design and fabricate the dome sculpture by creating it with the minimal amount of material but representing the important features of the structure,” he said. The sculpture was finished during the fall of the same year.

Although Mesler designed the sculptures and completed much of the welding himself, the project was a collaboration with the Construction and Engineering Technology Physical Plant. LCC instructors Bill Eggleston and Cathie Lindquist assisted Mesler with welding and fabrication, while a machine shop instructor, Fritz Smydra, contributed to machine work.

Today, the sculptures are still tucked away in their original installation location within the stairwell of the Gannon Building, though they remain unnoticed to many. But behind the steel structures is a piece of Lansing history built into the walls of LCC.

 

An archived Open Line newspaper clipping shows the installation process of Vern Mesler’s sculptures in the Gannon Building during 1989. Photo courtesy of Vern Mesler.