On arriving in St. Petersburg Niall and I were happy with the freezing temperatures. At least for this our second attempt at ice sculpture we were going to be working with it in the way it's meant to be. Our experience in Moscow didn't teach us much due to the warm weather and only having a short time to throw a sculpture together. Luckily now were had our tools sharpened, with help from some new Russian friends and were rearing to go.
A quick gander through my notebook provided another idea. It was an old sketch I had done during college for my second year. I don't know where it is now but my work in College had me thinking about how it was like to be before we are born.
Back in the C.o.l.l.e.g.e
My final Exhibition that year was a plaster fetus comfortable growing in a womb made from silicone. All around this central piece was the madness of the world with a metal cage of spikes pointing in towards the baby and a slide projector showing images of war and music provided by Metallica. It was all a bit crazy and interestingly something I can't blame on my drug use. Because there was none.
For me the work was about the idea that wouldn't it be wonderful sometimes to be able and return to that safe, cozy environment. I'm really not sure my installation read that way. I was young and still quite naive when it came to art.
We choose the image of the baby in the cage as our idea because it seemed iconic and also possible for two Amateur ice sculptors to achieve.
The Venice of the north
St. Petersburg is an incredible city with massive buildings intertwined with Canals. I can see why it was called the Venice of the north. Everything in this frozen metropalis was aw inspiring to me. I really love to visit Russia because it has the exact opposite of the western ways of doing things that i grew up with.The whole experience is like being in a David lynch movie.
The location of our ice project was at Peter and Pauls Fortress which is on a little island in the Neva river. We had a great view across to the Hermitage Museum, an art gallery which makes the Louvre look like a craft fair.
Unfortunately our sculpture was right next to a cannon which is fired each day at 12pm and scared the crap out of us especially if we were using a dangerous tool at the time.
A chip off the old block
Working with ice was interesting, it is hard to describe the way it cuts because it changes so much based on the temperature. Very cold it is like limestone when it is warm it's like margarine I'm glad now that I experience both on my first and second attempts at the stuff.
For this project it was around -10 centipede so the ice cut like wood and since I had lot's of experience working with that I used the same approach. We both first created the central pillar together. It helped to have two to lift the blocks into place and fuse them together with water squirted from a plastic bottle with a hole in the top.
Next we each took an element to do, Niall made the baby while i made the cube and spikes. Then the whole thing could be assembled. One holding and the other squirting water.
Although it was not the most impressive sculpture on display and also apologies for the bad photos, we were quite proud of our work and felt we were in some ways getting the hang of working with this new and exciting material.
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use Steemit to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, among other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Steem blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Market Analysis using digital elevation maps
My introduction to Ice Sculpture - ice sculpture
Fixing a Dell SK-8135 keyboard
I hope you'll join me again soon.
@ammonite
I think it’s incredible @ammonite, I’m sorry I missed this one when you put it out. Eh and I see they’re giving you a hard time for centipede, the coolest (get it?) Part is we all knew what you meant anyway.
I'm just happy that people are interacting with my posts centipede or no centipede. It really gives them legs😉
Posted using Partiko Android
It looks pretty good, and even better that you're happy with it :) 10 centipede? XD
And for future reference if you know there is going to be a loud startling noise at a certain time that time might be an awesome time for a snack break ;D
Thanks @Ryivhnn. Centipede is probably part of my slight Dyslexia (Why is that word so hard to spell, is it a joke at the suffers expense?)
I was at the same place for sand a couple of years later and the canon was still shooting. I never got used to it and never wore a watch to time it.
" -10 centipede" . Nice one autocorrect!
Glad that you caught the centipede. Sometimes I type the words that come out of my mind. They are not always the correct ones unfortunately but I'm so happy to hear that people are reading my posts. Thanks
'centipede' gave me a good laugh, I must say
Congratulations, Your Post Has Been Added To The Steemit Worldmap!
Author link: http://steemitworldmap.com?author=ammonite
Post link: http://steemitworldmap.com?post=caged-baby-ice-sculpture
Want to have your post on the map too?
Dear Artzonian, thanks for using the #ArtzOne hashtag. Your work is valuable to the @ArtzOne community. Quote of the week: Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics. -Victor Pinchuk
Hello @ammonite, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
Hi @ammonite!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.091 which ranks you at #3116 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has dropped 146 places in the last three days (old rank 2970).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 597 contributions, your post is ranked at #105.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server