Ice Creature

Ten seconds into our phone conversation Tim Browning starts teasing me. “Are you too chicken to join us on the lake?” I assure him that I do indeed intend to join him, to watch him install his annual art work on frozen Lake Monona. He then offers some advice: “Dress warm. Whining is not allowed. Everyone on the lake knows it is cold.”

Sure enough, it’s cold when we meet on the lake the morning of Jan. 14. The temperature is 10 degrees Fahrenheit but the wind chill makes it feel well below zero.

Browning has been “decorating” this same spot on Monona — about 100 feet off the shore from John Nolen Drive near the Monona Terrace — for 20 years. Today, he is wearing a Green Bay Packers stocking cap, hooded winter coat and a pair of black jeans covered in patches. His yellow mustache is frozen.

Kneeling on the ice, Browning hammers pieces of his wooden statue together with a mallet. “Oh shit,” Browning suddenly yells in disgust. “I just broke a head.” He stops and looks over the remaining polka-dotted pieces of wood lying around him. “Well, I ain’t stopping,” Browning finally says. “It’s too goddam cold.”

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