Thursday 3 March 2011

2011 WinterPLAY Ice Sculptures


Here are a few pictures taken by Municipal Leisure Guide Coordinator, Emily Hui (pictured below). Ice sculptures fit within the category of temporary works of Public Art. What do you think about these works? Would you like to see more works of Public Art in our region? If so what types; sculpture, murals, temporary works, light or sound installations, memorials, monuments, street furniture, architecture etc.



A few words from Emily:
For me, the Ice Kingdom Wood Buffalo was the most anticipated part of the WinterPlay Carnival. I went to the Doug McRae Park outside Keyano College on Feb 26 (Sat) in the afternoon to have a quick “preview” of the ice sculptures before the public reveal & lighting ceremony. An eagle with its wings wide stretched out was the first ice sculpture at the entrance of the path, followed by other animals like owl, deer, beaver, fishes, loonies, a big wood buffalo bison and even RRRibbitt the recycling frog! At the end of the path stood two stunning sculptures which made everyone “woah!”. On the left was a jungle with a giraffe, a zebra and some smaller animals around. On the right there stood a huge Chinese dragon which you could see all the details of the hair and scales as if it’s a real animal in front of you. Some of the artists were still polishing and giving their sculptures a final touch. There I met and talked with the Chinese guy Stephen Chung who carved the vivid dragon. He is actually a chef from Edmonton but recently moved to Fort McMurray to work at MacDonald Island Park. (Maybe we can expect good Chinese cuisine and more beautiful ice sculptures at MacDonald Island soon!?)

It was nice to see those ice sculptures so I decided to go again with my camera to take some pictures of the finished sculptures the next evening with the lighting. The freezing cold temperature kept the ice sculptures in good shape but was a real challenge to my hands to operate the camera. The lighting effect was pretty cool for some of the sculptures but a couple of them were affected by the strong light from the Keyano buildings. I hope the organizer would find a better location next time and would put up some panels to display the title/theme of each sculpture with the sculptor’s name.

Hurry to see these fabulous artworks if you haven’t visited them yet!


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