This sculpture was carved by myself and Erik Cantine at an ice sculpting world championships in Luleå, Sweden. We earned the People's Choice award for the sculpture, titled "Bearer of the Universe."

*updated 12/22/11



In the past, I’ve heard many complaints that some organizational leaders in our industry concentrate to much on ice carving competitions and too little about the other aspects of ice carving. There’s even been at least one attempt to form a new organization to address perceived shortcomings of current organizations. Well, that’s an ongoing argument and you can’t make everyone happy. From my point of view, I believe that competitions are a very important part of ice carving and whatever can be done to hold more and better events should be done, because it’s good for ice carving in general.

To start with, competitions push carvers to new heights and encourage innovation. Competitions also expose this innovation to public view. Notwithstanding one carver’s attempts to keep his techniques secret by carving inside a tent, many useful innovations made their pubic debut in competitions. Two prime examples are aluminum welding and the ice lathe. Many carvers first found out about aluminum welding when Mike Palumbo (sorry if my spelling is wrong, Mike) used the technique at a National Championships. I can’t recall if he or Erik Cantine first used it at another event, but that’s what sticks out in my mind. Aaron Costic’s primitive lathe showed up at another event and quickly made its mark. Lathes are rarely used in competition now (in many competitions, they're against the rules), but they've become a essential tools for high tech ice sculpting companies.

Competitions also bring carvers together from around the country and occasionally, the world. Sometimes there are bad feelings, but this isn’t the norm. More often, a nice camaraderie develops from the shared, challenging experience. You also get to meet people that before, you only heard about. Some of the talented carvers that I only met because I was at a competition include Junichi Nakamura, Maurie Pearson, Steve Brice, Kevin Roscoe, Peter Slavin, Naomi Hamamura, Steve Brice, Heather Brice, Dean Carlson, and on and on and on. Without competitions or some kind of similar gathering, I never would have met these people and never would have gotten an opportunity to learn from them. Many carvers work nearly by themselves, often isolated in a freezer. I feel the interaction offered by competitions or seminars is vital to grow as an artist and as a person.

Finally, competitions sometimes result in fantastic ice sculptures that can inspire carvers for many years after they have melted. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at photos of the Thor sculpture created by Mark Daukas and Scott Rella at the Olympic event in Hamar, Norway. I even taped a copy of it to the front of a small sketchbook to inspire me. More recently, my favorite ice carving book is by Junichi Nakamura (find it at www.icecrafters.com) and it’s full of amazing ice sculptures that make me want to get back in the freezer to see what I can do. Maybe someday someone will look to one of my sculptures for inspiration.



You might also find photos and info related to this entry on the ice carving secrets facebook page and you can comment there as well as below. Thanks!

Earlier comments

The following comments were on the original blog entry. After some technical difficulties etc., the blog was reconstructed, and this was the only way to keep the original comments. Unfortunately, the hyperlinks from the original comments are gone in some cases. You can add your own new comments at the bottom.

Anonymous

Dawson,

This is a great site you've put together. I can't agree more about competitions. I just went to the last one of the season last weekend and now am a little bummed there aren't anymore this year. NICA does have a new "Tour of Champions" that has just started. It started this year and consists of 3 of 5 Individual scores kept in a database with the year winner getting a cash prize. The timeline runs from National Championship to National Championship and one of the competitions needs to be a National Championship. Greg Butauski has all the details. Perhaps I'll see you on the competition circuit!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - 05:22 PM

Anonymous

The competition scores were just posted for 2006 and 2007 on the N.I.C.A. site under the member area.
Friday, August 31, 2007 - 07:33 AM

Dawson

Regarding the above comment, it's nice that the results from recent competitions are posted on the NICA site, but the downside is that you can't see the results unless you're a NICA member or have access to a member's login info.
Friday, August 31, 2007 - 01:49 PM

Tags: competitions