Letter I: Ice Sculpture

Each year, from late February through most of March, IceAlaska hosts a kids’ park (ice slides, climb-on ice sculptures, ice mazes and skating rinks.) The same venue plays host to the BP World Ice Art Championships. These slide shows display the 2014 competition pieces.

The Single Block competition gives teams of 1 or 2 people a single block of “Alaska Diamond” ice, roughly 8′ x 5′ x 3′ harvested from O’Grady Pond Too. Heavy equipment is used only for the initial placement of the block. Power tools may be used, and the teams are allowed 2 1/2 days to work. Only the ice, ice shavings, and water (as glue) may be part of the finished sculpture.

 

Love in Motion: First Place Single-block Realistic

Carnival: First Place Abstract and Artists’ Choice single-block Abstract

Teaching Breaching: 2nd Place Realistic

Windy Day: 2nd Place Abstract

Conformity: 3rd Place Realistic

Flight to the Sun: 3rd Place Abstract

Fairy Tale: 4th Place Realistic

Peaceful Flight: 4th Place Abstract

Lunch: 5th Place Realistic and Artists’ Choice Single-block Realistic

Queen of the Forest: 5th Place Abstract

Self Made Man

Aurora Harp

Curiosity Killed the Cat?

“Resting Grizzley” by B.D. Berry

Hello

Goliath Defender of the Night

Behold

Reminder of the Past

Pass Through of Time and Space

Safety

Tree of Life

Arctic Winter Dreams

Below the Surface

The Second Brain

Born to be Wild

Arapaima

Brick House

Progression

God of Fire

Viral

Connie’s Spirit

The One That Got Away

I Love You!

To Face a Fear, To Be Set in the Clear

Metamorphosis Of Aisha’s Dream

Strong

Creation Station

Born to be Wild

Which One is Yours?

Anybody Out There?

Yearning

Full Circle

The Multi-Block competition gives teams of up to 4 people 10 blocks of ice, each roughly 6′ x 4′ x 3′. (The 3′ in each case may vary; it’s the thickness of the pond ice.) Heavy equipment and skilled operators are available to move and stack carved and uncarved ice. The teams have 5 1/2 days to work.

Maidens of Birch Tree: 1st place Multi-block Realistic

Heavy Duty Dream: 1st Place Multi-block Abstract

Soul of the Moon, 2nd Place Realistic

Gone With The Wind: Artists’ Choice and 2nd Place Abstract

Adventure Book: Attists’ Choice and 3rd Place Multi-block Realistic

Emotion, 3rd Place Abstract

The Last Dance: 4th Place Realistic and my favorite.

Blessing of the Horse Year, 4th Place Abstract

Wind of Childhood, 5th Place Realistic

Morning Coffeek 5th Place Abstract

Governor’s Choice: Aurora Dreams

Guardian of the Deep

Nature’s Judge and Jury

It Takes Guts to Get Out of the Ruts

Cocked

Imagine Dragons

This is a Test

This is the first time I’ve tried to embed a slide show. All are this year’s ice sculptures, and most have been on my blog before, but this is primarily a test of the gallery feature in WordPress. This show includes the Governor’s Choice, the four winners of the Artists’ Choice awards, and the four First Place winners, along with my personal favorite, which took 4th place in the realistic category. Click on any image to get to the slide show.

Governor’s Choice: Aurora Dreams

Gone With The Wind: Artists’ Choice and 2nd Place Abstract

Adventure Book: Attists’ Choice and 3rd Place Multi-block Realistic

Heavy Duty Dream: 1st Place Multi-block Abstract

Maidens of Birch Tree: 1st place Multi-block Realistic

Carnival: First Place Abstract and Artists’ Choice single-block Abstract

Lunch: 5th Place Realistic and Artists’ Choice Single-block Realistic

Love in Motion: First Place Single-block Realistic

The Last Dance: 4th Place Realistic and my favorite.

The main problem at this point seems to be getting in the names of the artists. They’re in the description field, but you may need to scroll down on the slide show photos to see them.

Ice Art: 2nd and 3rd place Multi-block

These are the second and third place multi-block winners at the World Ice Art Championships.

Second Pace Realistic: Soul of the Moon. Sculptors Jinichi Nakamura, Japan; Shinichi Sawamura, Japan, Todd Dawson, and Ara Hidenobu, Japan.

Soul of the Moon

Second Place Abstract and Artist’s Choice award: Gone With The Wind. Sculptors Ivan Zuev, Russia; Eduard Ponomarenki, Russia; Aleksei Tugarinov, Russia and Julio Martinez, Mexico.

Gone With The Wind

Third Place Realistic and Artists’ Choice Award: Adventure Book. Sculptors Tsagaan Munkh-Erdene, Altankhuu Khishigdalai, and Enkherdene Ganbataar, all from Mongolia.

Adventure Book

Third Place Abstract: Emotion. Sculptors Manu Spmgsro, Sithichai Sutapan and Anusorn Sjongsri, all from Thailand.

Emotion

North Pole Weather 3-17-14

The sun will rise this morning at 8:02, and set 11 hours 57 minutes later at 7:52 this evening. Since we’re now gaining 6 min 43 seconds a day, by tomorrow we’ll have more day than night.

But the equinox won’t be until 8:57 am Thursday the 20^th! Why do we have equal day and night lengths before the equinox?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll explain again. The equinox is defined by true sunrise and sunset, when the center of the sun would line up exactly with the horizon if light rays traveled in straight lines and your eyes were right on the ground. None of these assumptions are true.

In the first place, sunrise and sunset are defined by the first (and last) appearance of the top edge of the sun. At the equator, this differs by about a minute from the time as defined by the center of the sun. Where I live it is closer to 2 minutes.

The position of your eye doesn’t matter much normally, but I’ve seen the midnight sun (not normally visible at Fairbanks) from a small plane.

Finally, the atmosphere bends light, especially near sunrise and sunset. Exactly how much depends on the density structure of the atmosphere, which up here tends to produce a lot of bending. The numbers above are based on a standard atmosphere, so it is possible that the day length today is even longer than calculated.

At any rate, it is beginning to feel like spring. We had several thawing days last week, and I am sorry to say that some of the ice sculptures are beginning to melt, especially those with delicate parts. I went out again Friday to get some photos with the sun in a better position, and found a group of school buses unloading children! Luckily most were far more interested in the slides than the sculptures, so I was able to get some good shots. Some still looked pristine; some were slightly melted; some were partly collapsed. Here’s a pair of photos showing some of the damage wrought by the warm weather. Both photos are of “Guardian of the Deep” sculpted by Chris Foltz, Dean Murray, Jillian Howell and Amela Rombach, all of the USA. If you compare the two, you can see that Neptune has lost his trident, and the seahorse has lost a hoof and part of his mane.

Final comment: the warm weather seems to have ended. The coming week is forecast to be about normal: partly cloudy, no precipitation, highs in the 20’s and lows zero or a little below.

Ice Sculpture

Here’s the first place abstract in the multi-block competition in this year’s World Ice Art Championship. Sculptors are Vitally Lednev, Russia; Marlo Amegee, Monaco, Robert Sparks, USA and Bradley Groszkiewicz, USA.

Heavy Duty Dream

And first place in the realistic category. Sculptors are:  Victor Dagatan, James Duggan, Jess Parrish and Angelito Baban, all from the USA.

Maidens of Birch Tree

Ice Art Winners, 4th and 5th Places Single Block

Thursday’s an open day, so here are the 4^th and 5^th place winners in the single block ice carving in the 2014 World Ice Art Championships:

4^th Place Realistic was Fairy Tale, sculptors Junichi Nakamura and Hidenobu Ara, from Japan.

Fairy Tale

4^th Place Abstract was Peaceful Flight, sculptors Stan Kolonko and Jerry Perun, from the United States.

Peaceful Flight

5^th place Realistic was Lunch, sculptors Tsagaan Munkh-Erdine and Enkherdene Ganbataar, from Mongolia. This piece also won Artists’ Choice in the Realistic category.

Lunch

5^th Place Abstract was Queen of the Forest, sculptors Igor Stepanov and Alexey Andeev, from Russia. That’s a mammoth she’s riding, by the way.

Queen of the Forest

Ice Sculpture: 2014 2nd and 3rd place Winners

Second and third place winners in the single block sculptures at Ice Alaska:

2^nd Place Realistic: Teaching Breaching. Sculptors Aaron Costic and Stephan Koch, USA.

Teaching Breaching

2^nd Place Abstract: Windy Day. Scultors Vitaliy Lednev and Sergey Loginov, Russia.

Windy Day

3^rd Place Realistic: Conformity. Sculptors Steve Brice and Heather Brice, USA.

Conformity

3^rd Place Abstract: Flight to the Sun. Sculptors Eduard Ponomarenko and Aleksei Tugarinov, Russia

Flight to the Sun

There are times I find myself wondering where the dividing line is between realistic and abstract.

North Pole Weather 3/3/14

The sun will rise at 7:52 this morning, and set 10 hours 16 minutes later at 6:11 this afternoon. (Sunrise is in the future tense only because I switched my posting time to midnight.) The sun is getting higher in the sky, too, 18.6° at solar noon, now. With our snow cover and clear skies the past week, sunglasses have definitely been needed! The days are now lengthening by 6 ¾ minutes a day. The roads are still icy; we’ve had some brief thaws, but on all but the busiest freeways it’s merely polished the ice.

The ice park is open and the judging of the single block competition is complete. The weather has been close to ideal: sunny, with daytime temperatures just below freezing. First Place abstract and Artist’s Choice went to Carnival, sculpted by Ivan Zuev and Nikkolay Stepanov from Russia.

Carnival: first Place Abstract

First Place Realistic went to Love in Motion, by Victo Jagatan and Joel McRae from the United States.

Love in Motion: First Place Realistic

I looked at the multi-block area Saturday, a few hours after the sculpting started, but there was too much heavy equipment running around to get much in the way of pictures. I’ll try again this afternoon, after my first iMovie class.

Tuesday’s Ice Photos

Here are a few photos of the kids’ area from the second day the Ice Park was open. Again, click for full size images.

There’s more than one mode of transportation: how about a biplane?

There’s an ice helicopter right in front of the plane. Collision imminent?

And one for the adults: a chapel. It isn’t finished yet, but at least one wedding has already been scheduled.

A slide with a couple of gorillas guarding it.

North Pole Weather 4/1/13

If you’re looking for the A to Z post, click the logo to the left or scroll down.

The sun rose at 7:06 this morning, and it won’t set for 13 hours 39 minutes, at 8:45 this evening. It was 45°F Friday and the streets were wet (and slippery.) We also set a new March record Thursday for the widest daily temperature range: 24 below to 31 above, a warming of 56°F. Spring may really be on the way!

“Singing in Unison” as it appeared March 31.

The forecasts are calling for more snow now and then, though not much, and with highs forecast for the 30’s I don’t expect much accumulation. The 22” on the ground might even melt a little.

I got out to the ice park one last time Saturday (it closes Sunday) and tried to photograph the effects of the warming weather. I didn’t get much, as I had inadvertently set the camera to video. I had to use iMovie and a screen grabber to get the photo to the right. Some of the sculptures have lost their more delicate parts, though most still look surprisingly good for the end of March. The ones out in the open sun, though, have turned from the clear “Alaska Diamond” ice to milky, as the sun has melted the internal grain boundaries of the ice.