truly amazing ice sculptures from Junichi Nakamura
I’m going to have to ask Junichi the next time I see him, how many world championships he’s won. It’s a lot, that much I know for sure.
These pics are all from the old ice carving secrets site. I have at least a couple that I can add that are newer and I will try to get some more as well, as Junichi has yet to stop sculpting amazing pieces of ice art. Almost all of the sculptures here are from the World Ice Art Championships in Alaska. One is from the Olympics in Salt Lake City and another is from Lake Louise in Canada.
I have some more photos from a competition in southern China that I’ll add as soon as I get a chance. And I might also have some from a U.S. national championships near Chicago. We’ll see
Junichi is from Japan and often sculpts with his longtime teammate Shinichi Sawamura. Shinichi’s English is better than Junichi’s, as he lives in the U.S. However, they don’t always sculpt together and Junichi has had many teammates from all different countries, as he’ll frequently sculpt with new teammates. Over the years, he’s been very open to collaboration and has become pretty skilled at communicating his vision for his sculptures, even with language barriers. He’s even worked with ME, so if that doesn’t tell you something, I don’t know what will 😬
I have an unusual perspective on Junichi, possibly a unique one. I’ve sculpted against him several times, I’ve sculpted with him once (on his 2004 WIAC multi-block team), and I’ve also judged him at a competition in China. In every case, his commitment never wavered to creating the most daring and detailed ice sculpture that he possibly could. In fact, his ice sculptures are usually the most daring by a wide margin. He has crashed many times, testing the limits of ice and his designs.
I wanted to get this gallery back on the site, but I’ll expand on this later, as well as add more info about the sculptures and links to other pages and posts on the site that concern Junichi. There are or will be quite a few.
Despite ice sculpting accomplishments almost too numerous to mention, ironically, Junichi’s most famous moments as an ice sculptor are probably from the final minutes of this competition in Alaska. He uses a long bar chainsaw to remove the last structural supports from his daring multi-block team ice sculpture “Birth of Bluebird.” Don’t worry, he doesn’t die 😱 But it was kinda close…