Photo by Joel Koyama
Shanty of Misfit Toys
It was a raw January day with a biting wind. David Pitman couldn't have been happier.
The fifth annual Art Shanty Projects on Medicine Lake in Plymouth had been on thin ice -- or off it, actually -- because of an unprecedented run of above-freezing weather. Many artists had bravely set up on the beach, their shacks mounted on runners, ready to be pushed onto the lake.
So Pitman was gleeful as the weatherman predicted snow.
He and fellow artist Peter Haakon Thompson co-founded the event, an idea that sprang from a quintessential Minnesota tradition, ice fishing. Only instead of having a hole in the floor and a pole and a six-pack, artists could go wild with their own ideas of what an ice house could be.
The event began five years ago, when they each put up a shanty. It went official the next year, with sponsorships and some grant money, and now includes about 15 shanties and 50 participants, some from as far away as Chicago.
In Pitman's shanty it was warm and toasty, with enough room for the necessities: a space heater; a trestle table; a laptop (wired to a battery inside a wheeled cooler); a sleeping loft where he'll stay through the event, and a mike set up for K-ICE, his ultra-low-watt radio station (you can hear it at 97.7 FM, if you're close enough). As station manager and DJ, he'll roam the shanty community, airing live events such as karaoke contests and storytime at the Shanty of Misfit Toys.
One first-timer this year is the OurBrr Shanty, a plywood structure with the mandatory blue DNR license posted by the door. An intoxicating piney odor greets you in the dark, low-ceilinged entryway that leads into a small and magical light-filled bower covered in branches scrounged from discarded Christmas trees and filled with tweets, chirps, hoots and what sounds like an occasional chimp howl. The animal sounds are produced by visitors, who can record their impression and hear it looped into the soundtrack.
Other shanties offer visitors the chance to tell a story for a pastry or a hot drink, knit a communal scarf or mail a letter from the lake.
The organizers' worries seem far behind. Still, their days on the lake are numbered. Everything has to be down by Feb. 17.