Wednesday evening we visited the Ice Park in Fairbanks and toured the BP World Ice Art Championships. This year's theme is "Frozen Memeories-50 Years of Statehood". Talk about Ice, Ice, Baby! We discovered more than 100 works of ice nestled in the tall evergreen trees surrounded by snow every where. If you were wearing white you could have disappeared!
The artists have 60 hours to finish their masterpieces. So when we arrived, we saw sculptors from around the world using chain saws and drimmels carving their blocks of ice. In the Single Block Classic, teams of up to 2 persons work on a 3' X 5' X 8' block of Fairbanks ice that weighs about 7,500 pounds!
Many of the details weren't added to the carvings yet so parts of the sculptures were sitting on tables that had not been "welded" onto the large blocks of carved ice. It was odd to see ice heads of statues just sitting by themselves! I asked how long it took for giant wings to refreeze onto the large blocks of ice and the carvers told me that using a small amount of water and pressure, it only takes about 5 minutes.
Some of the creations were lit up with colored lights, but most of the carvers had big spot lights behind them so they could work in the dark. The artistry was just amazing! Hopefully, I will learn the winner of this contest and can "call" you about that later.
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