ENTER WITH CAUTION: The reading of this article may cause cartoon swirly eyes, nonsensical verbal outbursts, or involuntary fits of grinning.
Tucked away in a nothing-special neighborhood of an odder-than-average Iowa town sits a boxy, lime-green, three-story home with an unusual sign out front. It’s not very large. You might miss it if you aren’t paying attention. “FUN HOS,” it spells in neon spray-painted letters made from segments of a dropped tree branch.
This is the house that Tom built. And you’d hardly suspect. There’s something inside that’s waiting to blow your mind.
Through the front door and past some (other) projects in progress, you’ll climb a white staircase that leads to the second floor. As you begin to hear the churning, grinding, and whirring of this bite-sized museum’s mechanized features, you might start wondering just what you’re getting into. Horror film? Or family fun? Rest assured, a few steps more and your thoughts will shift from What? . . . to Wooooow.
If color is your jam, Fairfield’s Immersive Art Fun House, created entirely by Tom Lassota, is the jammiest of them all. Two floors of the house he built at 702 S. 5th Street in Fairfield lay claim to a complex installation of Day-Glo, almost radioactive exuberance. Every inch of Tom’s museum of marvels is filled with art, sculpture, twirly-gigs, and spinning dingle-doppers that have been elaborately adorned with specialty neon-bright paint specifically designed to come alive under black lights—lights that illuminate the place from just about every angle in shades of kelly green, cobalt, and sunset red. The glow factor is, like, whoa man. And the visuals, top to bottom, are pretty phenomenal.
From eight-foot spin-art spirals and intricately patterned panels to windmill-like spinning gizmos, floor-to-ceiling rotating columns, revolving geodesic spheres, and even a fully dressed dummy whirling overhead like a superhero caught in a ceiling fan, the total effect is definitely one of superlative fun.
Even though Lassota has an art degree (and also one in sustainability), the creator of this Wonka-like wonderland hesitates when I ask him if he considers himself to be an artist, and offers instead, “I’m an inventive person.”
He explains, as he tours me around the place, how the recurring themes in his house of fun, now 10 years in the making, are inspired by a wild myriad of interests. Ancient civilizations and his early fascinations with architecture are evident. Notice the gentlehearted Egyptian Sphinx hovering over the central space in shades of red and gold. Observe the carefully carved, stipple-colored Easter Island-style head dominating the far corner of the second floor. Marvel at starry, spray-stenciled designs adorning the staircase—patterns inspired by Islamic mosque windows. And scan a series of Vedic Mandalas at your feet in shades of vermilion.
“When my mom took me to New York as a kid,” Tom recalls, “an insurance company had a mock-up of the Sistine Chapel. That’s the first art I ever saw. Very complex. It has all these different messages in it. Another huge influence is the Alhambra Palace in Grenada—I love that stuff. The ornate.”
“I fancy myself as a monk in the Middle Ages,” he adds. “I used to use my art as a meditation tool—making these very ornate things.”
Inside the Fun House, Tom’s “Eye-Full Tower,” shaped like the iconic Parisian fixture of course, is decorated with multiple sets of googly eyes, adding another flavor that’s hard to miss.
“I like humor in art,” says Lassota. “But my emotional affinity is color. Like Matisse.”
Tom’s love affair with color may stem from a lifelong fetish for ’60s-style psychedelic-rock poster art and album covers (think Ravi Shankar’s In San Francisco, Jimi Hendricks’s Axis: Bold as Love, and the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine)—swoopy graphic styles and vibrant color schemes that have fed his creative life for a considerable number of decades and continue to inspire more intricate works of art not shown at the Fun House. I ask him why he doesn’t mount them here, and he explains they’re too small, too delicate, whereas nothing here at the Fun House is too pristine to play with or too precious to touch.
Sprinkle in elements of a National History Museum model dinosaur, New York City skyscrapers, and features you might find in a South Jersey fun house on the boardwalk—all among the earliest influences for this former East Coast boy—and you’re just about there. Finish off the sacred silliness with some strategically placed reflective surfaces that make you feel like you’re gazing—or falling—into the center of another planet. Strange portals glimpse at the far reaches of both outer and inner space—from nebula-like spattered paintings to a comical three-dimensional interior view of the human brain.
“Finish off” is a strange thing to say about this art space, because it never will be truly finished; Tom is in constant process of adding new features for an ever more impressive, fully packed experience. Similarly, you could spend hours in the place and still only grok a small percentage of what’s going on. But you’ll have to leave eventually, because at some point it will be dinnertime.
When I asked Tom what he would choose for the title of this article were he to write it himself, he said, “Local Artist Makes Theme Park Out of Used Materials!” And while I didn’t title it that (sorry, Tom!), it is definitely worth mentioning that the features you will see here were largely created from stuff that was discarded, foraged, or found—from donated motors, fans, and treadmills Tom cleverly adapted to make some of his larger sculptures spin, to the sturdy, jigsaw-sculptable foam no longer needed by the local university—a stockpile so large Tom incidentally also used it to “outsulate” his home.
Tom’s creativity seems boundless, and his works are rarely preconceived. He makes art with whatever’s sitting in front of him. “When I pick up the jigsaw,” he says, “I just go at it. I don’t care if it’s perfect. I think people kinda like that. It’s all something anybody could make if they wanted to.
“I try everything,” he explains. “I pick things up at Habitat for Humanity—Oh, that’ll look great if I paint it!” Watering cans, basketball hoops, and flower pots get turned into eye-popping props. A discarded iron becomes the face for “Iron Man,” in a hoodie, flying the friendly skies. And gloves, compact discs, and Buddha heads are adapted into relief sculptures. The only objects I saw that didn’t get black-light painted were a handful of plush toys that “children love to discover and play with,” says Tom. A fuzzy pink unicorn and two fluffy Elmos are rarely found in the same location twice. Your kids might even spot Buzz Lightyear on a bicycle seat, or Stuart, the monocular “Minion.”
Iowans of all ages have traveled from various parts of the state to see Tom’s museum. Traffic at the fun house is slower in the summertime, he explains, “because everybody wants to be outside,” but on cold days or long weekends, the place makes for a great day trip or a fun spot to bring the kids so they don’t go bananas cooped up inside. Instead they can go bananas here, “playing hide and seek,” says Tom, or taking silly portraits of friends and family posed behind the large portable blue frame he created for just that purpose. Honestly, it’s impossible to take a bad digital picture anywhere in this place. And the experience is definitely not just for kids.
How big is this space? “Each floor is about 1,400 square feet,” says Tom, “but if you count the walls . . . I think you’re looking at about 4,000 square feet of fun.” And if you want to take some of the fun home with you, pick up a spin-art T-shirt, made by Tom, of course.
Travel photographer Brian Abeling published a piece about Lassota’s project last year on the Iowa Road Trip website. A few days after it hit the net, Lassota arrived at the Fun House to find people, and cars, lined up around the block, waiting for him to open the doors. “It was spontaneous,” beams Tom, “I had no idea that was going to happen!”
That said, if you’re planning a visit to Fairfield’s Immersive Art Fun House, be sure to check the Facebook page for visiting hours—or call or text Tom in advance. And don’t feel weird about doing it. “I don’t consider it an inconvenience,” says Lassota. “It’s a joy for me. Most people don’t have access to something like this.”
Though he’s had a heck of a lot of fun doing it—that much is clear—Tom built this thing for you.
A final note for the adults in the room. You may or may not have friends who’d be tempted to “take something” before they visit the Fun Hos, but believe me, they just won’t need it. Come and have some wild and silly fun under the influence of art.
Fairfield’s Immersive Art Fun House is located at 702 S. 5th St. in Fairfield. Visit Facebook.com/Fairfield-artfunhouse or contact Tom Lassota at lassota.tom@gmail.com or (641) 451-4124.
