My final thought on our snow sculpture Exhilaration, carved at the 2010 Quebec Winter Carnival is one of overall perseverance and disappointment. I’m disappointed in the piece as we were not able to fully realize my artistic vision. I am grateful to my team’s overall perseverance for working through the night in the clumpy ice block that was trying to impersonate a snow block. We were not able to tunnel through under the arm or in the snow curl as there were large structural cracks. Also, the ice was too unpredictable on how it would chip off. In a regular block of snow this would be repairable but not in this icy chunk. The ramming of ice chippers against the block to painstakingly bust pieces off so that we could reveal our overall design quickly used up our time. There was no extra time to repair anything or add any refining touches. As it was, it took several hours to patch the large holes throughout the front of the snow sculpture in order to have a reasonable looking, finished piece. So, my concept of the sunlight reflecting through the snow curl or the sledder looking almost like they were flying was frozen to a cold death in this body bruising, hard iced block of man made snow.
I was prepared to battle the elements to create my snow sculpture but I was not prepared to battle the raw material, an ice block, with no power tools. So I modified my idea to suit the block we were given. I remember when I first started snow carving at the Quebec Winter Carnival what a thrill it was to carve a large snow sculpture out of real snow (a plentiful Canadian natural resource). Quebec used to be one of the best natural blocks of snow to carve and was well worth the cost of the airfare and lost wages. Now, it seems the real snow has been passed over for manmade downhill ski snow that is dense and hard enough to hold a ski’s edge, but not made for a sculptor’s hand tools to manipulate.
After all the time and money spent on preparing an event like this, it would just make sense to factor in the chance of rain spoiling the blocks before the event begins. The price of a tarp seems like a very small price considering the whole budget for the snow carving event and the possible returns in the sculptures would be well worth the extra cost.
Theressa Wright
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