Melting Art, A St. Paul Tradition

We have a strange tradition here in St. Paul.  Every year we have a winter Carnival , which makes sense because we have winter every year.  There is an ice carving contest, one of my favorite winter events.  The actual carving is done when the weather is so cold it is unbearable.  When the statues are done we have one, or two days of 30 to 40 degree weather so that they melt almost instantly.  As soon as they melt it gets very cold again.

I got some pictures today, in our 37 degree weather, just as the statues were starting to melt.  A first for me.  I am not exactly sure why the ice sculpture part of the carnival is handled the way it is but it has been a traditi0n for more than 100 years so I won't question it.

As I was leaving Rice Park I could hear the sculptures melting.

For those of you who are reading and are not from around here these carvings are made from ice and carved with chain saws and torches.

Comments

[Ann Cummings]

Beautiful sculptures - that bottom one looks so delicate. I marvel at those who have the talent to create sculptures like these. Using the tools they do to create these works of art is just amazing to watch.

[Brian Block]

Teresa, ice sculptures are so beautiful that it is a shame that they ever have to melt. My wife and I had a beautiful 4 foot tall custom ice sculpture at our wedding. She's a professional ballroom dance teacher and we had a sculpture carved modeled on a photograph of the two of us dancing.

My other favorite memory of ice sculptures comes from my summers at the beach in Rhode Island. In the town of Narragansett, every year on Labor Day weekend, they'd place a large ice sculpture of the words "Summer's Over" -- when the sculpture melted away completely, it meant that the season truly was finished and it was time to go back to school with wonderful memories of the Summer that had passed.