Ice sculpting a penguin: take a block of ice and cut away what’s not the bird

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/14/ice-sculpting-penguin-do-something-challenge

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All creative people know the tyranny of the blank page but it’s nothing compared with staring into a large block of ice, wondering how an aquatic bird is going to magically appear from it.

“Study my penguin sculpture and sketch its profile,” advises Laura Giles, who carved one earlier. She’s an expert ice sculptor who gives masterclasses from her studio near Newport. I score a shaky line on the block with a small knife. It’s quite hard to concentrate when you’re locked in a walk-in freezer and a woman brandishing a chainsaw is telling you to “study her penguin”.

Solid, ephemeral – I’ve always been fascinated by ice sculptures and the contradictions they embody. It seems a type of conjuring. As I am a novice, Laura explains the basic principle of the form, which is subtraction – removing excess material until you arrive at something good. (When asked by the pope how he had carved his exquisite statue of David in marble, Michelangelo is said to have replied: “I took away everything which was not David.” Same idea.)

And so it is I find myself stepping into protective chaps and being handed a chainsaw of my own, for the first time. The saw roars into life and I begin shearing off great slabs, unnecessary corners, making triangular cuts in the hard ice. A fan gusts freezing air around my head to maintain the room’s -10C atmosphere. I’m wearing a ski suit under the orange chaps and two pairs of thick socks, and I look like an inflatable dinghy, but it’s great, manly feeling fun.

Afterwards, I’m left with a geometric lump that still looks like nothing. There’s more subtraction to be done. I put down the chainsaw, pick up a chisel and try to remove everything that is not a penguin. Laura patiently guides me, showing how to cut away lines of fin and belly, domed head and curving smile. I don’t know if you’ve studied penguin anatomy, but they look like badly packed sleeping bags with beaks. At least mine does.

Laura shows me pictures of the mind-boggling, bespoke installations she has made for corporate clients. A DeLorean car mid-flight, a three-metre-tall woman on the peak of Snowdon, lifting a torch to the heavens. All ice sculptures eventually melt, and she has no room to keep even the best. While she works on them, the sculptures live in rooms like this for weeks until they are ready. This is her busiest time of year and the frozen studio has an air of Narnia about it, animals and objects in arrested motion, red roses suspended in ice.

Cold bites my double-socked feet within steel-toed wellies. We take breaks, while I stick my legs under the wall-mounted hand dryer. Over tea and biscuits, I study racks of what look like medieval torture instruments outside. Nail boards, long-armed lances, a Japanese saw with teeth like a shark. I get the feeling you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of an ice sculptor.

Back in the freezer, I put down the two-inch chisel and pick up a one-inch. Then something akin to a dentists’s drill and something with a V-shaped fine-tip. With chainsaws and chisels, carving ice requires techniques from tree surgery to calligraphy. I rasp away at my fat penguin, refining his feet, tail and eyes. Under experienced direction, I round a shoulder, taper a bill, turn the chisel over and flick out a hollow between claws. The blade glides through the fine-grained ice with delicious smoothness; it’s addictive.

When I’m satisfied, Laura steps in with an angle grinder to smooth down the rough edges. She touches the spinning disc to the body and gusts of pure whiteness cascade off him, filling the room. Delicate flakes billow into our hair, catching our eyelashes. It’s unexpected and joyful: like standing in a snow globe.

When the snow settles, a smooth, recognisably Antarctic bird stares back at me. It’s unbelievable. Next to Laura’s elegant effort, he looks like a steroidal bouncer who’d kick you off a glacier. But he’s glistening, other-worldly, and to me he’s beautiful. I name him Nero.

I feel proud, astonished at myself. I know I can’t keep Nero on my mantelpiece. With ice, nothing remains – he came from nothing and will that way return. But it somehow makes his sub-zero creation more meaningful. Like being initiated into a mystery. Or becoming a magician.