Snow Sculpture from the Vermont State Snow Sculpting Champions

Possible?

So we have kicking a bunch of ideas around as to what to make for 2010 US Nationals. The deadline is looming, so our heavy regular schedule of procrastination, laziness and other lifely duties has really been paying off for us – in reverse.

This could be something. I had the idea of a guy with a home-made jet pack and things going wrong, so we whipped up this model to see how it might look. His kid is there too – with a remote – becuase if you are going to build a jet pack you should trust your 9 year old with the remote controller. And I through that little doggie in there too because every sculpture should have a dog. (It’s a great photo opportunity when real dogs come up to it).

Adrian has some other ideas so we need to do rock-paper-scissors (or the snow sculpting equivalent, which is saw-scraper-chisel. (chisel smashes scraper, saw covers chisel, scraper cuts your fingers – so be careful when choosing that one.)

So maybe this will never get made into a real sculpture of maybe it will be tweaked to the point of near-recognition – we just don’t know yet! I am open to the possibilities that we haven’t thought of yet!

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!

Here are the three blocks. It’s like 5 below!!! We get about 26 hours!!!

Here it is – more soon. The long and short of it was that Dave “the ripper” Rothstein, Brooke “the secret weapon” Monte, Alex “whatever it takes’ Dostie, Zach “the eliminator” Landis, and Michael “the captain” Nedell rocked it out all night long, withstood the weather and the party-like atmosphere of Breckenridge and completed the peice titled “Blown Away” just as the ‘tools down’ countdaon began. More pics soon.

Blown Away Snow Sculpture

Here I am screwing around as we head into the long Friday night

My Iphone WordPress plugin doesnt seem to work, so here is the recap. It’s too warm but the temps should be dropping tonight for the rest of the week. We are working hard and we are on schedule to be roughed out tonight so Friday and Saturday is all detail. The pics here don’t show much. Our sculpture will pop most likely tomorrow at noon or so – in – hopefully – the snow.