"Providing Knowledge & Tools to Ice sculptors"- our mission
|
Elegant Ice Newsletter
"Dedicated to Sharing" |
September 2009 |
|
Fellow Ice Carvers,
The last month or so we have been involved in 4 different educational experiences.
The first & my favorite was the coaches retreat. 10 ice carving educators came together at Elegant Ice Creations for a NICA event. The first day was filled with ice carving seminars. I taught seminars on how to carve a face, 14 different textures, & Fusion. Jeff & Greg taught the 10 step systematic carving process, precision carving of geometric shapes & tool mods. We only stopped briefly to shovel down some pizza the entire day. Day 2 found us out on the houseboat, where much info was exchanged & the foundation of the Certified Ice Carving Educators program was established. A very mutually beneficial event.
The Nica trade show & educational seminars was held in Las Vegas this year. Probably due to the economy attendance was down to 30 or 35 carvers. Despite the smaller numbers, I think we all left energized with new ideas & that warm fuzzy feeling of having spent a few days with like minded people. My only suggestion would be to include a few classes where ice is being carved.
Next we went to Columbus where Steve Brice taught classes for 10 days straight. One of his classes was a tool workshop, where he taught the attendees how to sharpen their chainsaws, chisels etc. . . & also about a few tool mods. He asked me to come down that day. Don Chappelle said- "The class more than paid for itself when I learned how to sharpen my dull bits"
Lastly Steve & I headed up to Iceculture in Canada, where Steve is teaching anatomy sculpting. The first class was a heads and hands. Each student carved 4 heads & 2 hands over a 2 day period. The second class found the students carving a female body out of 2 blocks in 2 days. The team at Iceculture were very hospitable & I think all involved learned a lot. here is a head I carved while the seminar was going on-
Looking forward to settling down at the studio to work on this cool job for Coors Light, more to come on that in a future newsletter.
Stay Cool
Aaron Costic
Elegant Ice Creations
440-717-1940
|
Klaus Ebeling responded to the email about marketing ourselves as Artists with some additional advice-
Stress "original design by . . . " and/or "unique design" and "one-of'-a-kind design" if it is yours, but also don't hesitate to give credit to another artist for the design or "composition" which, like an actor or a concert musician, you are "performing" or "interpreting".
Call "ice sculptors", you and others, performance artists, just as dancers, musicians, gourmet chefs are artful entertainers whose work must be witnessed or consumed at the time of "performance" or "exhibit", or it is missed. Unless, of course, it is photographed to turn this "ephemeral" material into a "permanent art collection" or "permanent record".
"Carver" is alright, too. You can promote yourself as a "craftsman" and compare your (fast, ephemeral, large scale, pound-for-pound inexpensive) craft to (fragile) ceramics and glass, (tiny) jewelry, (slow) woodworking or metal crafts.
You can identify your style as "figurative" or "decorative", "idealistic", "realistic" or "surrealistic", "abstract", "stylized" or "non-objective" (have fun googling these terms and see where you fit in.).
There is no artistic shame on power tools. All artists create with hi-tech equipment these days, except a few purists, bless their heart and wish them a profit.
|
|
Quote of the week-
"Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance"- Will Durant
|
|
***NEW*** Add your info to our free listing ***New***
Over 230 tools for ice carvers
|
