In a residential Minneapolis neighborhood, an unusual summer ritual has gained ground, one that doesn’t include parades or concerts but attracts visitors from around the U.S. and abroad. The activity? The ceremonial sharpening of a 20-foot high wooden No. 2 pencil statue.
Each June, the front lawn of John and Amy Higgins becomes a celebratory party ground, where onlookers watch in awe as the giant pencil is shaved away using a behemoth 100-pound sharpener. A tongue-in-cheek local activity, this has now grown into an international celebration with music, costumes, and camaraderie.
“Some guy named Rachel was sharpening a pencil on his lawn and this is what occurs? Yeah, I’m going to be part of it. How can you not? Life is too short,” stated Chicago resident Rachel Hyman, who traveled in for the event dressed from head-to-toe as a pencil.
From Storm Damage to Symbolic Sculpture
The history behind this tradition goes back to a storm in 2017 that knocked down a 180-year-old oak tree in the yard of the Higgins. Rather than throwing away what was left, they converted the loss into something beautiful.
“We didn’t want to do the classic carved bear or something woodsy,” said Amy Higgins. “We wanted something people could immediately relate to. Everyone knows a pencil.”
Why a pencil? Everyone uses a pencil,” she went on. “It’s well-known by everyone. You see it at school, you see it in people’s work, or on drawings, everything. So it’s so accessible to everyone, I think, and can so easily mean something, and everyone can do with it what they want.
They hired Minnesota sculptor Curtis Ingvoldstad to turn the fallen log into a gargantuan replica of a vintage Trusty brand No. 2 pencil.
A Ritual of Renewal
Ingvoldstad constructed the giant sharpener employed in the yearly ritual as well. “It’s roughly four feet in size and takes a hundred pounds,” John Higgins explained. “We lift that up and spin it around a few times and the pencil gets sharpened.”
As the sharpener moves back and forth along the tip of the pencil, it whips off a few inches — a few more every year. Depending on the situation, 3 to 10 inches are given up to make the point appear new again. But the couple is not concerned with having no pencil soon.
“We don’t know answers to that, and we’re okay with that,” John Higgins said. “But today, for this moment, we’re going to work with what we have and enjoy it.”
To Higgins, sharpening is not mere spectacle: “We tell a story about the dull tip, and we’re going to get sharp. There’s a renewal. We can write a new love letter, a thank-you note. We can write a maths problem, a to-do list. And that chance for renewal, that promise, people really seem to buy into and understand.”
Ingvoldstad seconded this opinion: “Like any ritual, you’ve got to give something up. So we’re giving up some of the monumentality of the pencil, so that we can give that to the audience that comes through, and say, ‘This is our gift to you, and in good will to all the things that you’ve done this year.'”
Pencil Power: More Than Just a Gimmick
What started with a handful of interested bystanders has grown into a big town celebration, and they come in the thousands. This year, the audience was treated to alphornists brought in from Switzerland, and a special Prince tribute Minneapolis’ own music legend with purple pencils distributed on what would have been his 67th birthday.
“People are going to interpret this however they choose. They should,” Ingvoldstad said. “They should approach this and take what they want out of it. Whatever you want to take with you, you know, it’s you ultimately. And it’s a good space. It’s good to have elements that do that for people.”
From a fallen tree to a beacon of creativity and connection, the Minneapolis pencil event reminds us that sometimes the smallest things, even a humble writing tool can sharpen joy and community spirit in unexpected ways.
