Snow Sculpture from the Vermont State Snow Sculpting Champions

Day 2 Sculpting – Slept till lunch – carved all afternoon – on way to dinner – Alex has photos soon! Slushy but workable conditions!! The shape is getting realized to what degree we can make it. The snow cylinder was about a foot less then we thought it would be due to meltage!

So – less then ideal – but we are forging ahead. Check out the Facebook page for pics!!!

There is also this live webcam - I hear you gotta refresh the page a bunch to get it to work.

Met the other teams last night in the beautiful Bella Vista Suites Vista room – much like Brigadoon where a town reveals itself once a year, we see the teams from all over the US we have met many times before, and add some new teams to the mix.

The weather is downright warm. It will probably play a big part in everyones piece. But what can you do about the weather?

Live webcam!!!

http://walworthcountytoday.com/weblogs/video-today/2010/feb/03/lake-geneva-area-realty-winterfest-web-cam/

Want to get the inside scoop on carving giant snow sculptures in an International competition? Check this documentary out by our friend Peter. He had some serious cameras out there and did an awesome job capturing the zeitgeist of the event.
From his website – “It reveals not only how these enormous sculptures are created but what drives these artists to endure such harsh conditions to create this extreme art form.”

Click the pic to go to his site!

Best part? We are in it. We speak and everything!

We have been kicking around ideas for new pins for a while now, but this one came to me this morning and it seemed like a real keeper. Special nod to Sarah for editing excellence!

While I haven’t had the need to even get the blankets out of storage yet we have been busy dreaming up ideas and trying to plan what events we are going to try to go to.

AND – check out this awesome trailer for this documentary that our new friend Peter shot as part of last year’s competition. It catches the grandeur and the marathon like nature of the event so well!

Woke up feeling great – gonna go to the Blue Moose for breakfast!

Here we go. Two kids playing Marco Polo.

Ok – it’s Halloween and that means we have almost firmed up all our plans for 2011 – Halloween might mean something else for you all.

One thing is this – we need some money. It has become known to us over the years that our tools suck. The best tools we have are one I have “borrowed” from other teams. I have known this for a while, and just tried to get by with what we have, but it really doesn’t seem to be the best interest of making the best sculptures. We really do struggle with the bad tools every year – the thing is that framing chisels and the other chisels everyone else has are seriously expensive. We usually just get by – everyone on the team being artists and usually I spend a lot that I don’t have… well – you get the idea. We want to buy some new tools. We need money for airfare. We have some serious expenditures – grid boxes – clay – lumber for the frames – my snowboard bag ripped because I carry saws in it so I need to buy a new one to carry the saws I guess… and did you know they charge for luggage? We have a good 150 lbs of tools….

Alex got us some sort of 501(c)3 umbrella through his arts organization, so we sent some letters out – Kombi has always been great about sending us gear, and now Switchback Brewing gave us some funding… but we still need some more.

So I made this donate button on paypal – Maybe you can help? I will send you something!

Thanks -

Michael

Monkey versus Robot

Well. We got together Saturday night and hashed it out. Honestly, I think I was feeling pretty nervous (or what passes as nervous for me). We had never really not reached a consensus this late into the process – but there we were – sitting around a table with a bunch of clay and sketchbooks (and a few brewskies) with no real clear idea. There were a few on the table and there were debates as to the merits and non-merits of one, then the other. Then all the other ideas fell away as this new idea came into play.

Monkey versus Robot. As many of you know it’s a song and an album from Burlington’s own super musical star James Kolchaka Superstar. In it he sings about the age old battle of our animal natures versus technology. We’ve listened to Monkey versus Robot and Hockey Monkey many many times when sculpting, so its sort of weird that we didn’t come up with the idea of sculpting something in that vein before.

In doing a little research there are many artists who touch upon these two icons to symbolize the tensions and torsions of our human natures in opposition to the technological advances of the modern age. Adrian had even said earlier, before we sat down to discuss the sculpture, that this was the theme of the Fantastic Mister Fox, a movie they had seen earlier that day. There is even an Iphone app! I do not know how my animal nature knows how to even deal with an Iphone app that pits technology versus animal nature!

So the sculpture now shows the robot with his ray-gun hand and the monkey with his banana-ray-gun. We will attempt to build the rays between them and the blast – where the two rays meet. At least that is the intention. So far the concepts that we have will not be possible at all if the weather is less then 75% perfect and I might even be lenient on that. There is also a bit of a snow moving job that goes along with this, utilizing the full scope of the 12 foot radius we are allowed to build out of the 8 foot diameter cylinder we get.

I’ve been pretty stoked to go and execute before, but I got to say I feel really excited about this one. Sarah got me a monkey belt buckle for Christmas and I see it as sort of a sign that the timing is right.

Well… it’s been two years since we have won the Vermont State Snow Sculpting Championship – so I guess we were due. I have a longer story about the event itself and the changes it has gone through in the years – and how it have been an ice carving event for the past three years – but this year the weather was compliant and the UVM team that now puts the event together worked it our with Parks and Rec to build three snow blocks on the top of Church Street.

I was particularly stoked to get the topmost block, as it gave us the mostly uninterrupted photo opportunity for the sculpture with the big Church at the top of Church Street – an iconic image for the town, and here was our chance to play with it. So that chose the orientation of the sculpture for us.

The weather was good. 5 or so until Saturday (judging at 11am) where it started warming up to the 40s. The snow was very very dry and airy, but packed to perfection by Parks and Rec. They really went all out for us – not one pocket of popcorny snow or anything.

There were only two other teams. One made a big train – which was quite immpressive – but did not incorporate any negative space – and one was called “And they say there is no life on mars” which had a ball with some reliefs of animals on it. Definitely conceptual! But again – we were the only ones who put some air between the snow.

So we won. I feel great about making an awesome piece – but I would have to say the competition this year wasn’t really all that competitive. And I look forward to challenges – so…

Lake Geneva, 2010 here we come!