This is one of my very early Ice sculptures and I made it along with my countryman Niall Magee. We seized a chance to partake in the International Ice sculpture competition in the Siberian Arctic city of Salekhard.
It was a hell of a journey from little old Dublin to this frozen city. I have never felt it so cold in my life -36 centipede and having to spend up to 12 hours outside working without the right equipment in it was a very special experience.
Being so far north and in the depths of winter also meant that we had very limited day light. This was only around five hours of a strange dawn and dusk combined.
The sculpture we chose to do was simple enough in concept but translating it to a material we didn't have much experience with was another matter. We worked the ice like we it was wood and joined many pieces together to form the globe which represented the earth. Now of course we know that the earth is indeed flat. 😉
As I said at the beginning I will upload a video soon explaining all. Niall and myself, with great difficulty decided that as well as sculpting we would make a documentary of our experience. It was a major challenge as our camera froze and the audio equipment broke meaning some MacGyvering to turn my headphones into a microphone.
After Months of editing on my home computer it was finally finished and luckily bought by Irish TV station TG4. It also did the rounds of a few Documentary film festivals. So we were quite proud of it.
I'll post if very soon so please tune in.
The above picture is of a monument they have in Salekhard to show where the Arctic circle begins. We saw this one our last day but I feel it had some similarities to our sculpture.
Thank you for joining me on this journey as I look back on my work as an ephemeral sculptor. There are many more to come in both sand, snow and ice.
Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Adam and Eve go Shopping - sand scullpture
A dragons tale - sand sculpture
The Kiss - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon.
