at about 14 feet tall, this Statue of Liberty was the largest ice sculpture I’d worked on up to this point. This big sculpture ended up teaching me a valuable lesson on ice and light.
updated 10/24/23 with a bit more info and the addition of the cool video from Bruges, even though it’s the wrong year.
a lesson on ice and light (for me too)
I’ll always remember a big mistake I made that taught me an important lesson about ice and light. While I was working on the Statue of Liberty sculpture above in Belgium (it was in a giant tent kept at below freezing), I remember being very happy with how the face was looking. The back of the sculpture was still snowy and rough, and although I didn’t realize it, it was acting as a diffuser for the light coming through the sculpture. It was scattering and toning down the harsh light that was aimed at the back of the sculpture.
Unfortunately, towards the end of carving this piece, I took a large torch to the sculpture to get rid of the snow and tool marks. I didn’t spare the back of the sculpture and I glassed the entire piece. When I looked at the face again, I was surprised at how different it looked. A lot more light was coming through from the back of the sculpture and it was overpowering the delicate work that I had done on the face. I didn’t have much control over the lighting at the event, but I did have control over my sculpture.
In the end, I wished that I hadn’t “cleaned up” the back of the sculpture because I ended up with a sculpture that was much less photogenic. I suppose I could have gone back and roughed up the back of the sculpture, but I was nearing the end of my available carving time and that would not be a trivial task given that the sculpture was about 14 feet tall. I learned a valuable lesson about ice sculpture photography that day.
The relationship between ice and light can be a tricky one, but it’s ALWAYS an important consideration.
I’ve looked in vain so far for video from the event where I sculpted the Statue of Liberty. I know it exists, somewhere, since it even ended up on U.S. news after I got back. However, THIS video is from an even earlier Bruges ice festival; I think it was the first one actually. I’m honestly surprised I found this one, but I was at this festival too, even I don’t see much of my ice. Max Zuleta gets a brief interview though! And I think Erik Cantine and Mike Palombo were also at this event. If it won’t play in the post, check it out on YouTube.
links and stuff
As a last little side note, here’s how important I consider the interplay between ice and light to be. For a while, I had the domain name iceandlight.com. However, later I got distracted and lost the domain. Currently, I can get it back for the low low price of $2695.00 🤣😩 Not going to happen! I have iceandlight.art though, so maybe I can do something about that later 😉
Finally, this post on ice and light is listed on the ice sculpting techniques page, and you could also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page. You can comment there as well as below. And if it won’t LET you comment below, then definitely comment on fb and/or IG. Thanks!
