Hal Stein Sculpture

Artist's sculpture garden relocating up north

Charlevoix, MI -- Sculptures that have intrigued and delighted neighbors and passersby in Plymouth Township for decades are on their way to a new home in the Charlevoix area.

The abstract concrete sculptures, some of which incorporate found and everyday objects, are the works of the late Hal Stein, who placed them in his yard on Ball Street, south of Ann Arbor Road, over the years, inviting neighbors and the curious to take a look.

"He was always happy to have people come in and look at the sculpture," Stein's daughter, Kathleen Stein, said of her father's sculpture garden. "It's sort of a landmark in the area there."

Stein, who had a career as an art teacher and retired from Wayne Memorial High School, died last December at the age of 93. His wife Dorothy, a retired mathematics teacher, had died in 2001; they had purchased the house on Ball Street in 1956.

Former student Cal Kemppainen, an artist who owns a commercial sign business, had arranged to take most of the sculptures to his home near Charlevoix, and last week was putting them on pallets and readying them for the trip.

Even though their styles are different - Kemppainen is a representational painter, while Stein worked more in abstracts - his former teacher was an important mentor and influence, Kemppainen said.

"I always came to see him to talk to him and get his points of view on things," he said.

Kemppainen owns a 140-year-old Gothic revival farmhouse, which he restored, on 30 acres near Charlevoix. He plans to set up the sculptures - there are 23 major works, and about as many smaller ones - on 10 acres at the front of his property and open the sculpture garden to the public.

He's honored to be able to get the sculptures. "I knew someday this would come and something would have to be done with them," he said.

Kemppainen said Stein used a pit in his back yard to make the sculptures, taking sand and clay to make forms, into which he poured the concrete.

Kathleen Stein said her father also wrote poetry and meditations, took photographs and painted.

"He was just one of those people who creates just like breathing," said Kathleen Stein, an instructor in art history at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. He especially liked "assemblage," she said, that is, the use of found and commonplace objects in three-dimensional works.

She said her father's abstract sculptures were an expression of spirituality. "He really believed in the spiritual in a very strong way," she said.

Kemppainen said Stein's works represented his search for creativity. "His whole idea was to try to figure out what creativity is," he said.

Kemppainen remembers Stein's Wayne Memorial art classes as going beyond drawing technique to include lessons about Andy Warhol and the art movements current in the 1960s.

"To get that kind of an education, you would really have to get a college-level class," he said.

Kathleen Stein is planning to get to the Charlevoix area next spring to help Kemppainen with the placement of the sculptures. Kemppainen he plans to build footings for the works in order to make their installation as permanent as possible.

He's using a 52-foot trailer, borrowed from a friend who has a trucking business, to take the art home, Kemppainen said.

Kemppainen's sculpture garden will be near the intersection of Ferry Road and U.S. 31, about six miles south of Charlevoix.

Kathleen Stein, an only child, said growing up with her father's creativity was "magical." She's happy the sculptures will continue to be displayed and in Kemppainen's care.

"My father's works will continue to be teachers," she said.