The Bodgery

06/19/2026

MMSD made a fantastic video featuring the Shabazz students and the boat they made at the Bodgery.

Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-_x6iM5Y6M&authuser=0

06/18/2026

Gail Leinweber created these beauties at a Bodgery Encaustics workshop. She describes them as, "Collage, but with 🔥"

06/17/2026

Emily Hoyt-Weber worked on a welded coop project with her son to shelter his ducks at night.

06/16/2026

Here are photos from the Shaboat (the boat students from Shabazz High School made at the Bodgery) launch recently. One of the Bodgery instructors, Jay Larson says, "The students named her Pitch 15, which is based on overcoming difficult challenges. Thanks again to all of the instructors for teaching the kids, the daytime users for working around us, and the board for your significant support of this endeavor. And yes, the boat floats!

06/12/2026

"Foundation Piece"
ceramic-mixed media sculpture
30'" x 24"
2026
Artist: Tom Oele

Artist Statement:
My grandfather ran and lived on the Michigan Veteran's Facility grounds in Grand Rapids, Mi. I grew up around those buildings, now torn down and replaced. I played in the creek that ran through it with my sister, explored the veteran's cemetery with so so many faceless names. I watched those who came back whole and I watched those who came back almost. When I started this piece I wasn't reaching for metaphor, I was reaching for the ground I came up on.

The large white stone is from Mockingbird Hill, an overgrown part of the Milwaukee Veteran's Hospital grounds. A foundation piece. Discarded. Somebody decided it wasn't useful anymore. A feeling so many of us veterans are also accustomed to. The rock leans into an ambiguous figure now, one meant to hold every gender that walks through the doors of these places. The system that breaks you is the same one you end up leaning on.

The rough black ceramic body is one piece, fired solid. It represents every broken warrior I have watched walk through these places. Myself included. The head is open, an empty vessel where speech and sight used to live. The wires are the multitude of repairs. Dense on one side, simpler on the other. Different injuries get patched differently and you do not always get to choose the medic.

That figure is still standing. Broken. Healing.

06/11/2026

Students from Shabazz City High School, Innovative High School, and Madison Country Day School have been busy designing and creating a variety of projects while learning real world skills.

Madison Schools - MMSD Madison Country Day School

06/10/2026

Dave Haldiman describes his recent project, "A recently finished candle holder made from a cherry branch with some burl on it, a couple of cherry off-cuts, and lime Jello. Okay, the Jello part isn’t true."

06/09/2026

Gail Leinweber recently took a fused glass pendant class. She is having fun and made these beauties. She turned some of her pendants into earrings.

06/05/2026

The Bodgery has partnered with Shabazz High School for a while now and most recently the students built a boat!

MADISON, Wis. — Shabazz students are learning woodworking, problem-solving and design skills by building a boat through a hands-on class connected to rocks, rivers and ropes.

06/04/2026

Hayden Elza made this great chair. He reused some Cedar 4 x 4s he had from a previous project. He used a 1950's pattern, but to make the chair project easier, he imported the pattern into CAD so he could cut hardboard templates on the laser cutter.