Arcana Workshop Creates Some of Vermont's Iconic Sculptures

If you’ve spent any time in Vermont, chances are you’ve stumbled upon at least one of the Arcana Workshop’s creations — though you might not have known who was behind it.

The Barre studio is responsible for the cartoonish Volkswagen buses inside the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, the replica of the first plane to fly over Lake Champlain inside Burlington International Airport, and the M-shaped benches on the streets of downtown Montpelier, among other familiar sights around the state.

Mike Turner started Arcana in 2015. He honed his fabrication skills at Advanced Animations in Stockbridge, where he worked on animatronics for Universal Studios theme parks, including the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida, California and Japan. The 50-year-old Northfield resident has since created larger-than-life sculptures and interactive games for some of Vermont’s most iconic businesses and organizations.

He remains amazed that his funky art — which can cost clients from $10,000 to $150,000 — pays the bills.

“So for, like, a month, we’re gonna just sculpt a big chicken,” Turner said incredulously, referring to a 6-foot sculpture of a chicken holding a creemee he made for Vermont Eclectic’s Woodstock store in 2020. “That’s hilarious. Yes, yes! We’re gonna do that.”

He carved the approximately 50-pound chicken out of foam, then spray-painted the structure with a liquid that hardens to form a durable plastic coating. Other Arcana projects have involved materials ranging from fiberglass to papier-mâché.

Despite his outlandish creations, Turner’s look doesn’t exactly scream “eccentric artist.” On a recent Thursday afternoon, he sported short grayish hair, a goatee and a black zip-up hoodie with jeans.

He has one full-time employee, 38-year-old Dan Flanders. The pair work out of a 4,000-square-foot studio with enough art supplies to rival a Michaels craft store, including giant blocks of foam, 3D printers and what Turner described as “every kind of ruler you could ever buy.” The orange walls display whiteboards covered in to-do lists, with tasks such as “Test molds + casts of teeth.”

The team typically works on a project for about four months, prototyping with 3D printers before constructing molds and casting the real thing. Beyond aesthetics, Turner must consider which materials are most durable and whether he’ll need to assemble huge sculptures piecemeal so they can fit through narrow entryways. Planning ahead is key, and Turner usually does a good job of it. The worst he and Flanders have had to do is remove a door from its hinges to help their creations pass through.

Over the past decade, their work has included a plane replica for the electric aircraft company Beta Technologies, a claw machine game that teaches kids about recycling and composting for Casella Waste Systems, a towering 13-foot robot for Wonderfeet Kids’ Museum in Rutland, and 7-foot-tall syrup and cheese sculptures for Dakin Farm and Cabot Creamery.

For out-of-state clients, the workshop has made props and backgrounds for Enchanted Fairies, a photo studio for kids with roughly 40 locations around the U.S., and 3D interactive exhibits for museums across New England. Currently, the duo is working on transportation-themed boxes that will adorn the walls of a well-known children’s institution in Boston, though Turner can’t reveal the details until the project is complete. The pair is also constructing a replica of the head of Bruce, the shark from Jaws, which will be displayed at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Massachusetts to mark the film’s 50th anniversary.

“You could fit right in the mouth,” Flanders quipped to a visiting 5-foot-tall Seven Days reporter.

Turner grew up in Colchester and attended the now-defunct Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where he studied industrial design. Two weeks after graduation in 1997, he moved to Los Angeles, where he took freelance gigs at various theme parks and museums. Two years later, he moved back to Vermont for the job at Advanced Animations.

Turner takes care to craft replicas with meticulous attention to detail and has been known to kneel on the floor to get a child’s-eye view of his sculptures designed for kids. Bruce from Jaws, for instance, is not just any shark. His head alone is six feet long — bigger than a real great white’s — with sharp, intimidating teeth and visible scars. Those nuances can transform a generic shark into a recognizable character.

“I butt heads with people I worked with in the industry who maybe didn’t care as much. But it’s not just a T. rex. This is the T. rex that’s in Steven Spielberg’s movie,” Turner said. “And they just roll their eyes like, All you art department guys.”

But Turner has never let an eye roll stop him from going the extra mile. While constructing the plane replica that now sits inside Burlington’s airport — a Burgess-Wright Model F biplane built in 1911 — he spent hours poring over grainy photographs of the real thing.

In 2023, the Sullivan Museum and History Center on Norwich University’s campus in Northfield asked Arcana to design a landscape around a restored World War II-era Jeep. The Arcana team studied archival photographs to come up with a historically accurate backdrop, down to the kinds of trees common in Europe in the early 1940s. The result: a floor that resembled a dirt road and a mural depicting a field with the road running through it, designed to look as though the Jeep was driving out of the wall.

“I think we actually captured a lot more people and students who were walking through and may not have typically stopped in our museum,” said Amber Wingerson, curator of exhibits and collections at the Sullivan Museum. “It brought in a lot of excitement.”

Arcana’s first major project, in 2015, involved constructing life-size dinosaurs for Ark Encounter, a creationist Christian theme park in Williamstown, Ky., known for its large-scale model of Noah’s Ark. Turner got the commission through a former teacher at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, who was art directing the exhibit. Using fossil evidence to ensure anatomical precision, Turner built seven dinosaurs, including a birdlike dinosaur called an archaeopteryx that sports turkey and goose feathers cut to size, airbrushed and applied by hand. (The broader exhibit, which promotes the pseudoscientific idea that humans and non-avian dinosaurs coexisted, is less faithful in its commitment to historical accuracy.)

Turner said he now has the luxury to be choosier about which projects he accepts. For instance, Arcana recently received a request to create 500 bronze-cast statues of President Donald Trump with his fist raised, a reference to his pose after the assassination attempt last July. Turner said no.

“Not only do I not want to touch it with a 10-foot pole because of political reasons, but I don’t want to make 500 of anything,” he explained.

Crafting custom pieces instead of churning out mass-produced items keeps the work exciting, he said. It takes him back to his youth, when he was obsessed with Star Wars and watched a significant number of TV specials showing how the magic was made.

At Arcana, the line between work and play is blurry. Turner and Flanders thrive on their teasing interactions and lighthearted jabs. Turner said he enjoys his job so much that he frequently comes into the studio on weekends, bringing his dog along, turning on the radio and sipping a beer.

“It’s a different vibe. No clients are calling. Dan’s not asking me questions,” Turner said.

Flanders laughed. “I’ll be sure to call you on Saturdays,” he shot back, deadpan, before sarcastically asking an irritating question: “What do you think I should wear?”

Their playful rapport extended to a UPS delivery driver, who dropped off a package while Seven Days was visiting. The driver joked that he’d like to work at Arcana when he retires.

“You got a project, just call me up,” he said, pausing to admire a sculpture of a treasure chest on his way out.