This could all do with a spot of colour and it did get some in the end but, unfortunately I had to leave the project before this was done. All my images are with the work lights used during construction and carving.
Ice really lends itself to playing with lighting and I suggested to them that they lit this piece with many changing colours from different angles to give it a painterly feel, hoping that I would see some photos of the piece complete. But alas I never got any images.
This is one of the things I don't like about working on large commercial Ice projects, I always have to leave before I see how everything comes together and finding out if my vision was correctly resolved.
This Collection of room scenes was made for the 2004 Oberhausen, Germany ice sculpture festival by another carver and I. (For the life of me I can't remember if it was Jeroen Meijer of Martijn Rierse.) We were asked to make two houses with very different scenes within, one was a reproduction of Van Goghs famous painting 'El dormitorio en Arles' and the other a Christmas scene. Don't ask me why, I was just just following orders.
Source
Room 1
Trying to make a sculpture of a painting is like trying to make a poem about a dance. Certain mediums are chosen for a reason. I'm sure Van Gogh was a great ice sculptor by he wanted to express the world through paint and colour. Anyways, this is the painting above.
The building came with no roofs so, the first thing we did was hobble together some sort of snow block covering on top with a wooden support for safety. Then we had a closed off box. It was then necessary for us to cut a door so that we could enter and then at the end seal it off again.
Each of the elements were made outside and then brought in. It really felt like we were making a stage set. All would be viewed from a small window which we cut in the wall. To give the look of the painting from the 1 point perspective of the window we tilted the floor and carved, well constructed all the furniture in perspective. From the window all our warped furniture came together quite well. We left it with the floor still to be covered in a layer of white snow powder but before we sealed the door, as a nod to the creator of the original I made a dismembered ear from ice and left it on the table.
Room 2
The second room was simple enough in idea. Just three characters representing a family at Christmas with a tree and a wood-burning stove in the center.The mother had a present in her hands that she was about to give to her child. Can you guess what it is? 1 SBD for the first correct answer in the comments below.
On the outside of the building I was asked to make a figure in the windy street to contrast the nice cosy inside. (You want a cosy ice sculpture‽) I made him being blown away by the wind trying to hang on to the window frame. His head was carved like a mask so that people could look at the scene inside through his eyes. This was me just trying to add a bit of creativity to an otherwise pedestrian scene.
I actually enjoyed making these Dioramas. It was nice to have restricted views of sculptures so that the audience had something to discover.
Mouse house
As a last minute thing I was asked to come up with something simple which would make the side wall of one of the houses more interesting. It was a area of the project where there was nothing really of interest to see. So, I made this little mouse maze for people to play. Nothing really deep or meaningful, just a bit of fun and apt for what would be going on in the walls of a house. It had a few ways that would lead the mouse to a trap or cat but if successful the mouse would get home to his own little house.
The mouse house was a miniature with one mouse already home playing snooker and other furnishings.
Overall it was a nice little project where I felt I was more a carpenter than sculptor. It was just a pity I didn't get to see it all with it's final lighting. I did however get this image from someone obviously showing that they ignored my ideas on lighting altogether. pishhhh?!!!
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use Steem 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.
Zhoushan 2004 - sand sculpture
Temporal nostalgia - sand sculpture
Mirror mirror - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite