A Modest Cabin

Memories are fallible. We remember things not as records of the past but as impressions of the last time we thought of those things. People from earlier in our lives either fade away or become mythological characters in our personal cosmologies. My grandfather is one of the latter. Born in 1904 he seemed impossibly old when I was a child. He died a few months before my tenth birthday so I never knew him as an adult. I remember him as a generous and curmudgeonly jokester. Looking back he was more like a time traveler. 

In the 1950s my grandfather and his brother built a cabin on a small lake in northern Michigan. A section of the cabin was built by recycling an old concession stand from my mother’s school. This is amazing in retrospect as my grandfather did not appear handy. I remember that he seemed to repair everything with wire and tape. As such the cabin was a ramshackle affair but stood for decades. Around 1970 my grandfather retired from Buick. He and my grandmother moved permanently from their home in Flint to the cabin. A few years later, but before I was born, my grandmother died. Virtually a fictional character by comparison, her star in my universe is entirely fabricated from stories and a few photos.

My memories begin with a very old man haunting a little house on a lake. The cabin was probably only about five hundred square feet. My grandfather mostly lived in the kitchen next to a potbelly stove that was as old as he was. He never learned to cook and at some point around 1980 someone in the family bought him the first microwave oven I ever saw. The odor of sulfur-y well water permeated the house along with wood stove and cigar smells. A large bay window faced the lake. When it rained he would set buckets on the floor to catch drips from the leaky roof. There was an attic accessible only from outside. I never went up there but once my cousin did and he came crashing through the ceiling. My grandfather’s house was funky and odd but cozy. In my adult life I have rarely seen homes of such modesty and character. He was easily the least materialistic American I ever knew. Maybe because he was born before social media, television or even radio he was not easily tricked into arbitrary desires and artificial needs.

By the end of the 1980s, after my grandfather’s passing, my uncles had torn down the ramshackle cabin. I do not have a complete photo of it. In some old pictures I can see a blurry side or a corner of the front porch poking into the frame where stand my ancient grandfather, young mother and even younger self, frozen, smiling for the camera.

These sculptures are drawn from my memories. Some are earnest attempts to reconstruct my grandfather’s house in miniature. Others, with distorted proportions and exaggerated features represent what the cabin could have been or exist independently as formal explorations of the original concept. In order to reflect the bricolage construction of the real cabin they are built exclusively from found materials using few tools. Along with my memories these sculptures represent the modest aspirations of the working class; a little place up north next to a small lake under starry skies for relaxing and dreaming. These are blue collar spaceships.

CV:

Born in Flint Michigan. Formative years were spent in Northern Michigan.

Bachelor of Fine Arts University of Michigan

14x14 Group Show, WSG Gallery, Ann Arbor MI. 2024
A Modest Cabin, solo show, Spotlight Gallery, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor MI. 2022
Many Voices: The Fine Art Of Craft, Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, Birmingham MI. 2022
Constructing Memories, two person show, Center For The Visual Arts, Wausau WI. 2021
The Moon Was A Stone's Throw, solo installation, Aquarium Gallery, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor MI. 2019
Heat Wave, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor MI. 2018 Solo Pop Up Show, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor MI. 2018
Additive/Subtractive Works by Helen Gotlib & Dylan Strzynski, Ann Arbor District Library, Ann Arbor MI. 2018
Niceland, Tiny Buddha Space, Ann Arbor MI. 2017 
Refractive, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor MI. 2015
Allegorical Space, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor MI. 2015
No Plan B, Chelsea River Gallery, Chelsea MI. 2013
10 Under 40, Chelsea River Gallery, Chelsea MI. 2012
Apocalypse Poacalypse, CAID, Detroit MI. 2012
The Gallery Project, Ann Arbor MI. 2011
A Show Of Sculpture And Installation by Kendall Babl and Dylan Strzynski, Galerei Pot & Box, Ann Arbor MI. 2010
Winter Doldrums Part 4, Forth from It's Hinges Warehouse, Ann Arbor MI. 2010
Winter Doldrums Part 3, Elevated Works, Ann Arbor MI. 2010
Water StreetGallery, South bend Museum Of Art, South bend IN. 2008-2009
Off The Beaten Road, Columbia College A&D Gallery, Chicago IL. 2008
Bu Con Presents: Earth World, Detroit MI. 2007
Place, Chicago City Arts Gallery, Chicago IL. 2007
Between The Lines, Water Street gallery, Saugatuck MI. 2007
Group Show, 212 Miller, Ann Arbor MI. 2007
Gallery 109, Saugatuck MI. 2005
The Print, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI. 2003
Group Show, 555, Ypsilanti MI. 2003
Group Show, 555, Ann Arbor MI. 2002
University of Michigan School of Art and Design, Sixteenth Annual Art and Design Student Awards Exhibition,
2001 University of Michigan School of Art and Design, BFA Show, 2001

Experience

Regular award winner at street fairs around the country 2003 - present. Freelance commercial projects ranging from illustration to murals. Orthopedic Network News, Ann Arbor MI., regular contributor of medical related illustration 2004-2007.