A Snow Sculptures Story ( The New Millennium )

Something happened this year that effected everybodies life, The United States was unexpectedly attacted by terrorists.

I picked this sculpture to be on my home page because its important that people remember the men, women, and children who lost their lives on that september morning.

Adding the World Trade Centers to this sculpture was a last minute decision.

This was just a quicky I did after the demise of 9-11 sculpure. The red wings did go on to win the stanly cup that year.

It was another patriotic year, with our troops fighting in Iraq,would you believe this picture was taken in April ?

This idea came to me at a friends house. We finally had enough snow for a sculpture. We knew we wanted to do something about the Iraq war, but no specific idea. That was until I seen a picture of a U.S. soldier on the front page of the morning newspaper. Three days later the same soldier appeared on the front page, but this one was made of snow. I wonder if anybody ever realized that similarity.

Not that I'm tired of looking at red, white, and blue, but it was time to get back to what the kids wanted to see.

After doing my research, watching episodes of Sponge Bob Square pants, of which, by the way I kind of enjoyed, I came up with this underwater scene for a sculpure.

A Father and his Son were in the fore-ground as the photographer snapped the picture of this sculpture for the newspaper. I found out later that his boss at work, seen it, and ask him why he called in sick that day. I hope he didn't get in too much trouble.

The last time I sculpted a Red Wing theme, they won the Stanley Cup. It wasn't to be this year, as they lost to the Calgary Flames. The Tampa Bay Lightning eventually raised the Stanley Cup. ( Cool Sculpture though )

One thing I learned through the years, is to build the snow hill big enough to sculpt two or three sculptures. Because of the short life expectancy of a single sculpture.

This picture was taken just prior to the running of the 2004, Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the checkered flag.

When nascar visited "The Rock", ( Rockingham Speedway ) the next week, I had this one displayed in the front yard.

This is a snow sculpters nightmare, and the first sculpture I have ever done at a different location.

I am not use to carving into dirty snow hills like this, but it was for a good cause, to raise money for the boys and girls club.

This was a contest in co-opperation with our local buisness owners, and Mcdonald Resturants. Our team won by collecting the most money for this orginazation, one of the prizes included, 3rd row seats at a Detroit Pistons NBA Basetball game. That was worth the trip in itself.

The snow blocks seem to just keep getting bigger every year, in 2005 we gathered up a 130 square yards of snow.

I wanted to challenge myself, by attemping to do Mt. Rushmore. This one by far was the most difficult sculpture I've ever tried to do. I didn't originally plan on coloring this one.

But what fun is a sculpture if you can't use colors. I could have spent more time on the face detail, but I was on a collision coarse with 50 degree weather. I had to, " get - r - done ".

I used a small 3-D model, as I have sometimes done in the past, to sculpt this one. This time though, I needed to know exact measuring scales, to locate specific locations, most importantly the tips of all their noses. Eventually though, I knew I would have rely on my instincts to pull it all together.

When I started this year I had two sculptures in mind. I just didn't know what the second one was going to be. I was thinking, mabee, Scooby-Doo. My daughter suggested that I do the Care Bears. I'm glad I listened to her, everybody loved them.

Because the Care Bears are all the same size and shape, I was able to keep current with the holidays. (valentines and St. Patricks day)

This is how we begin a sculpture. It's almost more work building the block than carving the sculpture itself. But it sure helps having handy dandy equipment like this.

This is the block of snow I began with, It's the same exact size as last years.

The snow sitting in front of the sculpture is everything I carved off from it, which must be removed before completing it.

Believe it or not, this sculpture is all carved out, it don't look like much does it ?

South Park was not my first choise for a sculpture this year. Because of the size of the block of snow I needed it was possible to do two sculptures from the same block. If I would have done the one I planned on doing first, I only would have been able to do just that one. So I needed to design something to do first.

I've been thinking of doing South Park for a few years now, but decided against it because of moral values. Finally this year, I decided to go with it, thinking their more socially accepted now, then what they used to be. As for the one I planned to do originally, I don't know if i'm going to have time to do it this year. O well, if not, theres always next year.

How time flies, it's now 2007. I want to keep my drive-way open this year so I built the snow block in front of my house,talk about shutting the lights out, looking out the front window felt like we were in a snowcave.

Some things just take priority, even over my sculptures. This years project will have to wait untill after our annual super bowl party.

As I wait for a plow to clear away the exess snow carvings I'm thinking to myself that this sculpture is going to be a tough one to do, with the degree of difficulty ranking rite up there with Mt. Rushmore.

Being bitter cold did'nt make this one go any easier. But I managed to complete the sculpting, for the most part. For this one I used the grid scale system, what made it hard was the layering of it's features.

After figuring out the background, which was a last minute design decision, the 2007 snow sculpture was done. I found out that Scooby Doo is still very popular. It created a lot of attension including the picture and story going A.P. (associated press), it was seen in newspapers as far away as West Palm Beach Florida, and appeared on the Fox News. com web-site.

Sometimes when I have the time, and the cold weather holds out, I sculpt a second sculpture from the remains of the first one. Scooby Doo being egged by vandles had no bearing on the birth of this sculpture, I planned on doing this one by special request from a friend of mine. All in all it was one of my most successful years building snowsculptures.

But, one year turns to the next, It's now 2008. This year I learned that I'm not as young as I used to be. Even though, in my mind I like to think and feel young. I really have to watch the way I work these days and to know my limitations.

This year though, I was'nt going to let an injury deter my 2008 snowsculpture.

Shrek, Donkey and Puss-in-boots turned out to be a big hit. People really like the way this sculpture jumped out at them.

A phrase I coined this year was about how everything needed to happen in sequence and timing to complete a major snowsculpture. And I now refer to that as the "snowsculpture stars lining up".

Unless someone was to actually plan and execute such a venture, I think it would be difficult to understand what I'm talking about. Will the snowsculpture stars line up next year ?...Who knows, but I'm always ready for a challenge to keep my artistic edge in tacked.

I want to take this time, to thank my Wife & Family, for their encouragement, support, and patience, while constructing these sculptuures. And to the many friends, and people behind the scenes, who took time out in their own lifes to help make these sculptures possible. I hope you have enjoyed," A Snow Sculptures Story."