One of the Anchorage’s delights is the Crystal Gallery of Ice. Ice artists carve blocks of clear ice in Town Square Park each winter for the delight of Alaskans and to be judged by both a panel of judges and by the artists themselves.
This winter I was able to show up when there were blocks of ice and watched design sketching on ice, rough carving with chain saws and the final finish work. On some of the pieces blowtorches smoothed the surface.
Ten teams competed in the contest, three form China. The next three posts will be from the gallery. Today’s post is the winner, “Frozen Window Pane” by artist Paul Hanis. I like the shots of his block of ice work bench where he keeps his tools. He worked day and night on this from January 2 to the judging at 4 PM on January 4. I was photographing the work right up to 15 minutes before judging.
Tomorrow the post will feature the second and third place winners. One of them was the winner of the balloting done by the ice artists themselves.
He was watching his person work. Actually he seemed pretty interested.
I feel a little sad fir that husky dog tied to a tree in cold weather. It’s probably an ice sculpture model..