The Turtle Factory – Jim Miller-Melberg and Form, Inc.
Throughout his time on earth, Jim Miller-Melberg learned about how life, meaning, and the creative process draw from the tension of opposites. Carnival is followed by Lent. The Phoenix rises from the ashes. Black ink fills the void of white parchment. Failure opens onto opportunity. Just as Miller was becoming most discouraged in his short teaching career at the University of Michigan, the play sculpture business came almost out of nowhere, an “accident” as he once put it. Even the first of Miller’s playground sculptures were wedded from the Sacred and the Profane: Hollow curved shapes inspired by the spiritual energy of Henry Moore, cast in molds made by a local septic tank company.
Form, Inc. Yard and Delivery Truck (Courtesy Brent Jurrjens)
Miller’s playground sculpture business drew on his two complementary sides: the trained pattern maker with engineering prowess and shop skills, and the Parisian-trained artist with passion and imagination. He was also wading into the world of concrete, which was the stuff that made Detroit. Architect Albert Kahn (with his brother Julius) had invented a new way of reinforcing concrete with rebar, leading to his building revolutionary Detroit factories such as the Highland Park Ford Plant (1909), the Packard Automotive Plant (1911), and the Ford River Rouge Complex (1917). The cars coming out of these factories travelled on the ribbons of concrete that expanded in all directions, culminating in the Interstate Highway System’s acceleration in 1956. Concrete is sand, gravel, limestone, clay. Miller’s new material, true to the dreams of his European mentors, reached into the past, into the earth itself, to craft art that would last well into the future.
Clay Model of Porpoise (Courtesy Brent Jurrjens)
When Miller was given Robert Nichols’s flagging playground company [See article on Prehistory], he left his teaching position and set up shop in a big barn on the family property in South Lyon Michigan. It was 1960. With some significant later expansions, the barn housed Miller’s new business Form, Inc. To those who worked at Form, Inc., the place was called the Turtle Factory.
Form, Inc. Delivery Truck (Courtesy Brent Jurrjens)
Mold for Dinosaur Play Sculpture (Courtesy Brent Jurrjens)
Several fiberglass sections were held together with vise grips and positioned upside down. The concrete components were carefully weighed and put into a special mixer that Miller had imported from Germany. A special high-density cement was used to ensure long life. Miller’s precise designs provided remarkable manufacturing efficiency: One turtle took exactly 1.5 bags of Portland Cement. Cured sculptures were flipped by an overhead crane attaching to pipes on balance points of the mold. After the molds were removed, the sculpture would be “patched,” filling any small air holes, parting lines from the molds would be filed off, and after being sprayed with a sealant, cranes moved the pieces to the yard where trucks awaited.
Form, Inc. Yard (Courtesy Brent Jurrjens)
Delivery to anywhere in the U.S. was included in the price. Form Inc. had four 20 foot trucks with attached cranes. Full-time truck drivers would be gone for a week delivering and installing pieces for their lucky new owners. At its height, Miller established a second Turtle Factory in Newport Beach, California to handle demand throughout the country.
Miller's Study and Drafting Table (Courtesy Brent Jurrjens)
It has been said that Miller was changing the way children play. And Form, Inc. was a huge success. But employees remember Miller as “stressed” and a somewhat reluctant boss. Miller later said that he was “never cut out to be a businessman.” Eventually, rising costs of liability insurance as well as risks of personal injury lawsuits hastened the end of the Turtle Factory. Miller also was ready to devote more time to his own artistic work. In 1981, Miller called it a good 21 year venture, and sold Form, Inc. to Wausau Tile in Wisconsin.
The sale created the precast concrete division at Wausau, and Miller did some design work for them in the years after the sale, even creating a few more beasts such as the elephant and gorilla. But Wausau ceased almost all of its playground sculpture business by 2010. The company does still sell the distinctive 160 inch 3800 lb. curved Hansen basketball standard designed by Miller.
A happy accident had handed the idea of play sculptures to Miller, and he forged timeless and enduring monuments out of the earth. Ironically, during his lifetime he was one of America’s most famous sculptors, but few knew his name. Fame and anonymity were a final pairing of opposites in his life. But we do know him now, and we thank Jim Miller-Melberg for making people happy and for making the world a better place.
Jim Miller-Melberg in Petoskey, MI, 2008 (Courtesy Brent Jurrjens)
[Sources: Miller-Melberg, Bogart, Curry, Deming, Hocking, Jurrjens, Minton, Tietz. Details in Sources Page]
