I’m often asked what my next sculpture will be and I often explain that it will be “snow.” (Its helpful to have canned answers prepared for such questions) Here is what it looks like now in my back patio:
The weather folks reported that Duluth got 6.9 inches of snow. If so it was compacted as it fell. It looked like four inches to me in my backyard. This is how my sculptures begin. I scrape snow off my patio, my driveway (hopefully before it get’s driven on and dirtified [NOTE to French pen pal. This is not an English word. Its just me playing around with english])
I try to wait until the weather is just right for snow sculpting. That weather is a few degrees above freezing just ahead of a serious freeze. In other words, snowball weather. Snow clay is more forgiving than snow marble. I to finish them as the temperatures drop to preserve my handiwork. I once made Lincoln on a warm spring day and a member of my church complained that it didn’t look like Lincoln when he drove by. It was a very warm day and my Lincoln was the famous statute of him by French in the Lincoln memorial. The head was only the size of a basketball. hair, nose and ears simply could not last long under those circumstances. That’s why I take a picture of my sculptures for posterity right after I finish them hopefully during the day before night hits.
What will my first sculpture be. It was going to be a gnome. We got a little snow a couple weeks ago but by the time I was ready to sculpt it the next day what I’d made was listing and already only half as tall as the day before when I paused for a new day. I didn’t bother fixing it up. But now I have something seasonal in mind…..Something Xmasy [Another unreal English word]
It won’t be Trump. I don’t much approve of our use yellow snow and he’s been featured in one way or another about six times since he attacked our democracy in 2015. My snow messages 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 ,2019, 2020.
