I competed in the Minnesota State Snow Sculpting Competition at Vulcan Snow Park with my team, Glacial Erratic.
The project started a year earlier as a sketch in my introductory design perspective class. We were learning to draw using primitive shapes, but I wanted to push myself toward something more organic. Around the same time, my professor, Jason Quick, talked about his experience competing in snow sculpting, which encouraged me to try it myself.
I entered the small amateur block competition after winter break with a different design. I did not finish in time, but after judging I was allowed to keep working, so I continued carving with whatever tools I had until I completed it, even a car ice scraper.
During the competition, while the larger block contest was still underway, Killian, my professor’s friend and teammate, asked what ideas I had for the following year. I showed him my original class sketch, and he said he wanted to help me build the design. I accepted when he invited me to join his team in December.
At Killian’s shop, we brainstormed and I sketched ideas. He gave me a grid to work from, which I brought home and used to build a plastilina reference model. The concept had always been a hand-shaped house, but the interior was still undefined. Through sketching and working with the clay, I developed the interior, including a finger couch and a finger person watching TV by a finger fireplace.
We had two and a half days to complete the sculpture using non-electric tools such as shovels, saws, and floor scrapers. The scale was more demanding than the small block, but working as a team made the experience far more rewarding.
One unexpected full-circle moment was realizing one of the judges was my elementary school art teacher. We did not place, but the final sculpture was a significant improvement from my first year and reinforced my interest in continuing to compete.