Snow Sculpture from the Vermont State Snow Sculpting Champions

So – we won the US National Champioships! Woohoo!

We won entrance into an event in Italy, but it was cancelled due to lack of funds… so we are headed back to the Nationals to defend our title!

Of course, since none of the plans worked out, we are funding the trip ourselves – and being that we are all fairly broke artists – we need your help! You can click on the button to the right and donate – or come to a party we are having a party! Click here for details! Hope to see you and thanks for your continued support!

Trying to figure out how to work on snow sculpture ideas in the approach of warm weather is a bit tricky. So we work – I got a new office – let’s see – launched Ed Adrian site this week – and that is good.  Pics coming soon of my new office!

So things are getting back to normal after out big national win. We got a bit of press here at home and even got TEAM VERMONT day declared by the mayor! Woohoo!

I have been in touch with the organizers of the Italian Alps competition and they say they won’t know the theme until probably a month before the competition – so that is pretty alarming. A- we never worked within a theme – B- we usually think things out a couple months in advance. But ah well – that’s the way the canolli rolls I suppose!

Doing a lot of work – some site build outs – did a nice theme makeover for this Vermont Advertising Agency  that I thought was pretty cool looking – and then the LocalvoreToday.com project has been taking up some time too – links to that soon! Still under wraps! See you soon!

Ladies and Gentleman – after 4 days of enduring questionable weather conditions, we finished our piece with the thinnest lines we dared. The puzzle piece inside was made of ice and it stood for 2.25 hours before collapsing.

But that was plenty of time for the judging of the competition – and we ending up WINNING THE NATIONAL TITLE!!!!!

SEE MORE PICTURES HERE

I know this is the first time that Vermont has taken the National title – and it marks an awesome point in this 12 year odyssey -  started as a bit of a lark and all the way to nationals champs!

What’s next? With the weather there ain’t nothing happening in Vermont. But we got a travel stipend and an invitation to an event in the Italians Alps – so I think our next goal would be an International prize of some sort…

Holy Crap – I can’t even believe I wrote that last sentence!!!!

Check out this video we made to try and raise money for tools on Kickstarter – we are 65% there so far – and would love your help.

If you can help out financially, that is great! If not, maybe you can spread this kickstarter link around to your networks that would be wonderful!

Here is the kink to the kickstarter!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1037253806/snow-sculpting-tools-for-team-vermont

So Alex, Brooke and I are headed back to Lake Geneva Wisconsin to compete in the US National Snow Sculpting Competition in late January of next year. We had a lot of good ideas, but this ‘vortex’ I had been talking about for a while now, translated by Brooke, was the clear winner. We wondered extensively about what to put inside the vortex – there was budhha, a figure, a word sculpture, a tiny tiny tiny village, an “In case of emergency break glass” box made of ice with who knows what inside, a classic snowman, a vase of flowers, etc. We were toying around with a peace sign, or maybe a hand in the peace sign shape, but then Alyssa suggested a puzzle piece, and it just clicked. Finding Inner Peace is a puzzle, of sorts, for everyone, in their own way. So the three of us will have to find ours in the furious three and half day sculpting marathon coming up in January. We hope you like it.

It will be about 12 feet tall. That puzzle piece will be about six feet tall.

Will the people get it? Will the other sculptors get it? Who knows!

Will we get?

Hopefully!

Here is our final piece. We didn’t win the event- Mexico did- but it sure was a great time out here.

Sorry for the lack of updates! Very busy! Here are some pics- write you own captions!!

Hanging in the condo getting the model tight and prepping tools. Trying to make some time for a swim. Gonna meet the other teams at the Gold Duster tonight at 8 for an unofficial howdy do!

Today is turning out to be a great travel day! We had a little bit of a day leaving the bitter cold of Burlington, but we met Leslie in Chicago right on schedule and are right now winging our way to Denver. The car service in Denver already called me because our flight number was incorrect but now that is all straightened out.
As we were headed to the gate in Burlington I saw the TSA going through our bag full of chisels and knives and scrapers. Hopefully they all made it through. Taking tools on planes is weird. Not to mention the clay model. I put big signs in the luggage this year saying “VT state snow sculpting team. caution. Sharp tools” and maybe that helped with the clarity. We’ll see!!