I have not had the time nor energy to write a post these last few weeks as I have been crazy busy trying to install a back boiler stove in my house before winter. This is not an easy job as I have to learn lots of new skills to make it happen. I have learned how to Plumb, how to build a fireplace, line my chimney, tile with stone slabs and lots of other things that I have no experience of. YouTube is an amazing resource for all these skills and I finish every evening learning how to do the next step. I really feel like Neo from the Matrix, downloading how to fly a helicopter. It boggles my mind how my father built this wonderful house and everything in it without a formal education or YouTube. I am nearly there (I hope) and I have also tried to document the whole process to make a video series for those wanting to undertake the same. With fuel prices set to rise having the option to burn wood cutoffs from my work makes me feel like a prepper for the coming apocalypse.
But tonight I have a bit of energy and thought I would at least start on this post I had sitting in my drafts. I still have a lot of content waiting in my drafts. I just wish I had the mental energy to craft them into posts and put them out there. I am still around curating every day and trying to keep up with the latest scandals around the blockchain but the energy to post is just not there at the moment. Maybe by getting this one out there, I will get kick-started again.
That said, this will be a short post. It is just to document a one-day sculpture I made in the town of Cashel, Ireland for an arts festival. I had been there twice before with the last time making a sand sculpture and I was happy that they wanted me back, albeit, just to make something in ice for one day.
This was in September 2017 and it was hot hot hot. Not the best weather to make an ice sculpture. Ice is a nice material for these types of gigs but logistically it can be a pain to get it to the location especially when you are working by yourself. Each block weighs around 125 kg or 275 lbs in the empire units. Not something even someone as ripped as me can throw around. Having to contend with it melting as fast as I carved was also a challenge.
I had two blocks of ice with me as I drove the 150Km to the town, they were in the back of a rented van wrapped in bubble wrap and sleeping bags. I got the organisers to put up a marquee to protect me from the direct sunlight. Lots of sun and heat causes the ice to fracture and shatter the internal structure as those with a keen eye can see.
Due to all the logistics and stress over the weather, the piece was quite freeform. I was trying to think about ways that fire and ice are also symbolic of the different emotions that come from love. Working in a t-shirt on ice can lead you to interesting thought processes. Not sure if I even got the piece to speak to me, let alone the audience. But, I am sure they enjoyed the spectacle as I used a chainsaw, chisels and grinders to fashion the ice drenching them in ice-cold slush as I did.
Ice still fascinated me. How, with just removing all heat from liquid water you can actually carve it. Then, it will just melt away, back down the drain to continue its cycle of metamorphosis. If these molecules of water could speak imagine the stories they would tell. I wonder, have I ever carved the same water twice?
