I read about the 1999 Vermont State Snow Sculpture Competition in Seven Days - Burlington’s Weekly Arts and Entertainment Guide. It was under the “call to artists” section. I called and they sent me an application form. I asked my friend’s Genese Grill and Adrian Tans to be on my ‘team’. They both said yes.

I don’t have any pictures of the first snow sculpture we made, but I remember eating breakfast that morning with Adrian and Genese and drawing the idea out on a napkin. We were at the Oasis diner. The Penny Cluse was not yet to be.

I drew out a woman lounging on a big tortoise. She was supposed to be riding the big tortoise into the lake. I wanted to hint at some sort of mythology, yet come close to none.
I had some borrowed shovels, some ice cream scoops and some tools I had bought from the dollar store.

We came in second, winning the Mayor’s Award. The first place team, who had won a trip to the National Competition in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for some reason, did not want to go.

I said, “Heck... we’ll go!”

And we did...