I’m all in favor of a good ice sculpture destruction video. Plus, I wasn’t super happy with this sculpture anyway 🤪💩
updated 8/31/23 with the deletion of a giant duplicate text section 😬, seo, formatting, an awesome new title, a small blurry pic, and more
ice sculpture destruction video: live demo grand finale
While I’m upgrading the site, it’s occasionally amusing to run across things that I was previously amazed by. But now, years later, it’s just how things happen 🤦♂️ Before, I was very impressed with this ice sculpture destruction video, in that I could do the whole thing on my PHONE. What wizardry is this!? 🧙♂️
Now, of course, that’s normal. Everyone and their dog shoots and posts videos on their phone. (Maybe not MY dog though; Jadeaux is cute and all, but…) Anyway, so I got rid of the part where I was super impressed with the process and the Videoshop app that I used. I still like Videoshop though.
The sculpture was carved over the course of a little more than an hour out of two blocks of ice at the New Orleans Glassworks & Printmaking Studio for their annual White Linen Night event. I’ve carved sculptures for it before; always lots of fun and I try to end the demo with an exclamation point: DESTRUCTION! I have to get the tray out from under the ice anyway and there’s nothing for the sculpture to do overnight but melt.
the moment of truth! The screen captures from my ice sculpture destruction video were blurry no matter what. I need a better phone, lol
The sculpture in this case was a jazz saxophone player. I only carved his upper body; his waist goes to an abstract base. I’m not surprised if you have trouble telling what it is from the camera’s vantage point; the audience was over to the left and I was going for a strong silhouette during the demo. One funny part: listen for the lady that says “He really did smash it!!” at the end of the video. She was clearly surprised that I went through with it and I only wish the camera had caught her expression.
P.S. You would think that destroying an ice sculpture with a sledgehammer would be ridiculously easy, but such is not always the case. I present as evidence the video below, in which a “Ice Doll” is apparently trying to take out an ice sculpture of the Winged Victory of Samothrace in a Budweiser commercial outtake. I’m guessing she was a part of the commercial, which so far I haven’t run across.
To be fair, she’s trying to take out a MUCH larger sculpture than I did and she’s having to swing at a bit of an awkward angle. The spot she’s hitting is quite a bit thicker as well.
Big ice sculptures can be very tough to take down. Our record breaking ice luge, for example, took HOURS to take down with ice picks, for a variety of reasons, but also partly because it was built right next to a largely glass structure that we didn’t want to pay for.
watch the short on YouTube if the video above isn’t showing up
links and things
P.S.S. You can play the videos above, but make sure to look at the other videos and video posts on the site. One of them is super boring even. You can also check out the ice sculpting secrets YouTube channel. And subscribe! As I’m able to spend more time on new content for ice sculpting secrets, I’m hopeful that I can add a lot of new videos!
