MANKATO — Tim James and Aidan Demarais know just about every facet of Mankato’s CityArt Sculpture Walk, from creating pieces that have been displayed, to helping take down and install the new works every spring. And they have even gotten young people involved in their roles as educators at Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton High School.
It started, they said, when James, who was an art teacher, found some cast off welded build up pads in the garbage from Demarais’ classes. He felt they would work well in a sculpture he was creating.
Soon, he and Demarais, who still teaches industrial technology, were combining their talents on sculptures they submitted for CityArt consideration. Together, they’ve had at least eight sculptures in the Mankato display, with the combined art and industrial tech classes providing at least seven.
The Advanced Metal Sculpture class of about 15 students turns collaboration, creativity and steel found objects into pieces like this year’s Weldigo, based on the mythical creature or evil spirit. James and Demarais combine their varied skills into more polished works, now power-coated for another layer of visual appeal.
James said he got involved early on the recommendation of Hope Cook, the late director of the Carnegie Art Center.
“Mankato is doing this new thing, sculpture walk,” he remembers her telling him. “You should enter that, and there’s sculpture walks coming up. So, I did and got in. Ever since, like the next sculpture, I pulled Aidan in and got us together.”
Their designs often begin with a James sketch shared with Demarais who, as the person who does most of the actual construction, might make suggestions for welding it together. This includes what is needed to provide the strength needed to support the metal materials.
“We’re great friends and we’ve always gotten along and that kind of stuff,” Demarais added. “But his brain and my brain are on different wavelengths. His vision, I have no idea how to do that.” He joked that James may do that in his sleep. But when he sits down with a pencil to draw his ideas he is wide awake to artistic possibilities.
“Yeah, and that’s why we make such a good team, because I’m more towards the aesthetic side and he’s toward the structural side,” James added. “We just bounce ideas off of each other, and it always seems to come together in the end.”
The two of them submit completed original pieces for consideration in Mankato sculpture walk, and others to Minnesota cities with sculpture walks, including Hutchinson, Bemidji, Fergus Falls and Red Wing. They also have had pieces in Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin and South Dakota. Some places also have purchased works.
When it comes to the Advanced Metal Sculpture class, however, they submit the idea for a sculpture that comes from a couple of days of student brainstorming in addition to individual work. Then it’s up to students to not only complete the piece on deadline, but to be sure the final product matches the design they said they would be doing, they said.
“But if we go too far away from that design, then the people that are nice enough to accept our piece, then they say, ‘Well, that didn’t look anything like that,’” Demarais said. And that can decrease the next year’s class members’ chances.”
One of the students who participated and benefited from the class and experience was now-graduate Shane Witts. He said he has found a passion he will continue with.
“I’ve always had a creative spark, but never really found something to put it towards because I was bad at drawing and just the regular art stuff,” Witts said.
“The metal sculpture class helped me find another medium that I could put that creativity towards, and Demarais was always my biggest supporter and he always helped find ways to maybe enhance my sculptures.”
That encouragement continued when Witts wanted to submit his own sculpture for the walk.
“That had to be one of the best moments of my life … and none of this would have ever been possible if it weren’t for Aidan Demarais.”
The teacher credits the students.
“I give all the credit to the kids, as far as that goes,” Demarais continued. “They impress me every year with the stuff that they can come up with and the stuff that they can accomplish. It’s amazing what these kids can do.”
One of the reasons school administrators are eager to make the class happen, they surmise, is because it brings together two segments of the school — art and industrial tech — who wouldn’t ordinarily interact this closely. With James retired, A. J. Seibert has taken his role.
“They learn to work together even though they’re not usually in the same social circles,” she told The Free Press during the May 2025 installation.
Several years ago, the pair took over the physical aspects of the April takedown and installation the next month. While they call it just doing what they’re told, the work they do in preparing stone bases and update of works damaged by weather or traffic conditions help keep the sculpture walk a tourist draw all year. Demarais still continues in that role.
Both credit organizers such as Twin Rivers Council for the Arts, the Downtown Partnership of Mankato-North Mankato and Kato Moving & Storage, where many of the works are stored on a short- or long-term basis and which serves as the hub for installation. The cities of Mankato and North Mankato provide loaders to move heavier pieces and welders to attach sculptures to bases.
Their work with the regional sculpture walks that coordinate the movement of sculptures between locations has created a network of friends and fellow creatives that has personalized their work, they said.
“The time with the others, other artists, is valuable,” James said. “(You get to) bounce ideas off of each other, give each other some help on different things, some different techniques, you get to hang out with them. And you make so many friends,” like Dale Lewis of Hastings, who has had them at his home for barbecues.
Finally, they’ve started bringing some of the students in to help with the deinstallation and installation of pieces in the spring. Some, they said, come back after they have graduated to continue the experience they enjoyed in school. Some have even submitted their own sculpture ideas.
“The collaboration is really, really cool to see kids that, you know, have different personalities collaborate and come together and make a sculpture,” James said.