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Showing posts from February 3, 2013

Snow Sculpting

Sculpting something that is larger than yourself requires a complete engagement of mind and body. At the Quebec Winter Carnival, I was lucky enough to have the chance to represent Ontario in the snow sculpting competition, along with two teammates. The days before the event had above-0 temperatures, which resulted in the block being mostly ice by the time we started. It required, first, a lot of hacking with axes, to remove large chunks of the 3.6m x 2.4m x 2.4m block. Then, finer work could be done with the same axe, just held higher up the handle. The tool shed provided by the Carnival was a great asset, since we had no tools of our own. We found rough plates of nails and screws to scrape the surface, finer stiff brushes for polishing, long-handled metal scrapers, and saws. I was focusing so much on the form that when I closed my eyes, my mind still followed the curve of the wing of our 'snow angel'.