Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Fadel.
Michael, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m a mechanical sculptor that loves being on the water–conceptually, fluids in my practice reference transience. I’m half Lebanese and half American, I don’t feel ‘home’ as being a single location so being on a boat allows me to be transient.
The idea of an artist residency on a boat evolved about 15 years ago when I realized I could combine my art, passion for the sea, and enjoyment of teaching/sharing the art making process onto one vessel. When I finally found an appropriate vessel in 2021, I then found a donor, a place to keep it, and had the time to start the buildout. I built the shop/studio down below first, as my tools needed a home before I did. Then the slow construction of the living spaces ensued, and is still ongoing.
A second donor facilitated the project to get most of what I needed: the non-profit status, a large solar array, all of the building materials to make the cabin house, etc. After meeting my partner and first mate, we began the journey as we kept building out the boat, finding ourselves spending a couple years in Charleston SC to work and escape harsh New England winters before travelling again, up to Baltimore this year to spend some time and make some friends!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Living and working on a boat at the same time definitely has its challenges… We were initially sleeping on the floor of the shop downstairs, the place is a palace now compared to our early days.
Being a steel boat, we constantly have to keep after rust chasing, something that keeps me up at night sometimes.
Storms can be pretty bad, we rode through Hurricane Helene down in Charleston, that was a long night. Here in Baltimore we got indirectly hit by lightning, luckily no real damage to us, but the boat right behind us lost all their electronics. Steel boats dissipate the lightning much better than fiberglass or wood hulls.
Winters, even in Charleston, are pretty rough–but I’ve developed an allergy to being cold so maybe for others it isn’t as bad.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
As a mechanical sculptor, I typically work with a fluid, an object, and a mechanism. The fluid references transience, the object empathy, and the mechanism, ego. In the case with adriftproject, the fluid is the sea, the mechanism is the boat, and the object is us. We’re basically a living part of my artwork. The transience is a product of being in the diaspora, having left Lebanon at 5 months old due to the war, and since living in many different places.
I typically use steel, wood, and other mechanisms to create the machine that facilitates an interaction between a found object and a fluid. Before Covid I showed my work in San Francisco, Phoenix, Tucson, NYC, and even in Dubai once. It was towards the end of Covid that I found the boat and started the project which occupies pretty much all of my time. However, now that most of the construction is completed I will be redirecting some of my energy to make art again.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I guess deciding to become a sculptor in the first place is a risk. I started in high school and haven’t looked back, I have a BFA from Winthrop university and an MFA from University of Arizona. And of course putting all of my eggs in one basket with this project is risking everything, literally and metaphorically.
However, I know that I would have made basically the same decisions. If it weren’t this boat, I would have eventually found another one.
I don’t really see these as risks though, as I try to be as thorough as possible in planning. Of course you can’t foresee all the problems…
Pricing:
- Residencies start at $600 a week, but we have work study options as well
- People can also charter us if scheduling works out, starting at $600 for 8 hrs
- We always take donations as a 501c(3)!
- You can also sponsor artists to join, or even a session with 2 artists.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.adriftproject.com
- Instagram: @adriftprojectresidency
- Facebook: Michael Fadel
- Youtube: adriftproject
- Other: https://www.fadelsculpture.com
