I don’t love Minnesota winter but I do love Minnesota winter art. My hate of cold and love of unusual art are in conflict this year. The Art Shanties are ice houses on Lake Harriet design and created by artists and accompanied by musical and performance artists doing popup shows on the frozen lake. This year the event was postponed by a week due to warm weather. Then we went into a deep freeze for 10 days. And now we’re hovering back to mid-30s, early 40s.
Art Shanties opened today but it’s anyone’s guess for next weekend. My pro tip for you? Get out to the lake on Sunday Jan 28.
The lake actually felt safer than I was anticipating, if I didn’t overthink it. I was wearing serious boots (Sorrels) and Yak Tracks. That helped a ton. My favorite shanty, hands down, was the Hot Box Disco Inferno. A dozen skinny people (maybe 6 big ‘uns) are welcome into the shanty for a disco with lighted floors and awesome music. And so much fun to hear young people (and I’m talking 20s) thinking that “hot box” is a reference to a sauna. I didn’t have the heart to give any other context. I say hands down – but then I look back at my pictures and remember Northern Star Film Studios (You too can be a star!) and the literal bright spot of Time. Light. Color.
For “events” we saw Klezmer on Ice, Lake Harriet Winter Kite Festival and Taiko on Ice. All were super fun. We saw frogahhh: yoga for the planet and the people and what we saw was people on the ice doing yoga. I applaud the; I do not join them. (Check out the schedule.)
There are also people dressed up as polar bears, penguins, just in great colors and more.
Mostly Minnesota 