Art Is Where You Find It -
Ice Sculptures
Ice may never have been a medium you would have considered for art, but it’s definitely found its niche, not only in outdoor art but indoors as well. Ice sculpting has risen
to a high art form in recent years, commanding innovation and garnering honors along the way.
Festivals
Many outdoor festivals, like the First Night New Year’s Eve celebrations, often host ice carving contests or engage ice sculptors to create beautiful art for their events. In
more northern places like Grand Forks, North Dakota, these ice lovelies often last throughout the winter, though in recent years warm winters have shortened their lifespan. These
sculptures range in size from 3-foot high fish to Vikings the size of a car. They are cut with chainsaws, chiseled with hand tools, and smoothed with water. All done in frigid
temperatures, often with a brisk wind. But the efforts of these amateurs and semi-professionals is well worth the fleeting beauty they create.
Some cities also hold specific winter events that showcase ice sculpting. Downers Grove, Illinois, hosts an annual Ice Sculpture Festival in January. This ice carving competition
is open to professional carvers only. Large ice sculptures are on display at the Main Street Train Station and smaller, individual sculptures are installed throughout the city and
at the Downers Grove Museum.
In January and February, St. Paul, Minnesota hosts its annual Winter Carnival. It has been held for almost a century and a quarter as a response to a newspaper reporter’s comment
that Minnesota was just another Siberia, unfit for human occupation. In addition to outdoor sledding, skiing, and other winter sports events, there is music and various other
entertainment and a city sponsored ice sculpture exhibit. Here, though, the exhibit takes a wholly different turn. The exhibit is housed in a giant Ice Palace.
Contracted in 1886 for the first Winter Carnival, a gigantic structure was created by two builders from Montreal. They had agreed to come to Minnesota because a small pox outbreak
had canceled Montreal’s Winter Festival. This ice building was made with 20,000 ice blocks taken from the Mississippi River and brought in from neighboring states, some as far away
as the Dakotas. It measured 180 feet long by 160 feet wide and was 106 feet tall. It was literally a palace made of ice. There were ice sculptures installed inside and even ice
stairways that led to the ramparts on top.
The 1888 ice palace, however, was even bigger 195 feet long by 190 feet wide and 130 feet tall. This structure was bigger than many buildings in downtown St. Paul. Ice sculptures
were placed outside the palace as well as inside. Some of them were carved into the very walls of the palace. They included a life-size polar bear, a man in snowshoes, a skater, and
a curler. There was even a maze inside the palace and a giant 2,000 foot long toboggan slide attached to the building.
The biggest ice palace to date was constructed for the Super Bowl in 1992. It was 248 feet wide and 166 ½ feet tall, with a rainbow lighting system that was synchronized to music
during special light shows in the evening.
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