Minneapolis neighborhood has a bizarre annual tradition and it involves a gigantic No. 2 pencil
Residents will gather Saturday in a scenic Minneapolis neighborhood for an annual ritual — the sharpening of a gigantic No.2 pencil.The 20-foot-tall (6-meter-tall) pencil was sculpted out of a mammoth oak tree at the home of John and Amy Higgins.
The beloved tree was damaged in a storm a few years ago when fierce winds twisted the crown off.Neighbors mourned.
A couple even wept.But the Higginses saw it not so much as a loss, but as a chance to give the tree new life.The sharpening ceremony on their front lawn has evolved into a community spectacle that draws hundreds of people to the leafy neighborhood on Lake of the Isles, complete with music and pageantry.
Some people dress as pencils or erasers.Two Swiss alphorn players will provide part of this year’s entertainment.
The hosts will commemorate a Minneapolis icon, the late music superstar Prince, by handing out purple pencils on what would have been his 67th birthday.In the wake of the storm, the Higginses knew they wanted to create a sculpture out of their tree.They envisioned a whimsical piece of pop art that people could recognize, but not a stereotypical chainsaw-carved, north-woods bear.
Given the shape and circumference of the log, they came up with the idea of an oversized pencil standing tall in their yard.“Why a pencil? Everybody uses a pencil,” Amy Higgins said.“Everybody knows a pencil.
You see it in school, you see it in people’s work, or drawings, everything.So, it’s just so accessible to everybody, I think, and can easily mean something, and everyone can make what they want of it.”So they enlisted wood sculptor Curtis Ingvoldstad to transform it into a replica of a classic Trusty brand No.
2 pencil.“People interpret this however they want to.They should.
They should come to this and find whatever they want out of it,” Ingvoldstad said.That’s true even if their reaction is negative, he added.
“Whatever you want to bring, you know, it’s you at the end of the day.And...