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When Michelangelo looked at a massive block of marble, he saw the David waiting within it. When Durangoan Keith Martin looks at a 26-ton block of compacted snow, he sees a family tubing, a woolly mammoth, a 19-foot-tall violin player, or an undersea diver in a cave with an octopus floating overhead.<\/p>\n
Martin, whose interest in snow sculpture began while living across the street from the venue of the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpting Competition, is fresh off a gold-medal win in the competition that started it all for him about 12 years ago.<\/p>\n
It was his sixth try at the competition, fifth on Team Breckenridge and fourth as team captain. The first year he competed with Team Germany, which won the bronze medal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel very privileged to sculpt with these people,\u201d Martin said, \u201cand it\u2019s a huge honor that Team Breckenridge thinks enough of me to say they want me as the team leader. Breckenridge is kind of the Olympics of snow sculpting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The art form appeals to him in many ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love playing in snow,\u201d he said. \u201cI like living in a snowy climate. I like that it\u2019s temporary art.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin began with an advantage \u2013 he learned ice sculpting in culinary school and had used it while working as a chef for a number of years. But sculpting in snow, as opposed to ice, comes with some unique challenges.<\/p>\n
The technique<\/p>\n
Martin starts with scale clay models of the sculptures he wants to create.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it falls down in clay, it won\u2019t hold up in snow,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it takes the concept from inside my head and shows the other sculptors the detail. Then it\u2019s connect the dots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because it generally is so warm in La Plata County in the winter, Martin works only in clay here. But he\u2019s learned a lot about what works and what doesn\u2019t, some from more experienced teammates and some from experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of science, a lot of engineering,\u201d he said. \u201cYou want a nice snowball feel because that\u2019s what allows us to defy gravity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team begins by carving off big blocks of snow the first day of what generally is a 60- to 65-hour allowed sculpting time in a competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more open you get the big block, the colder it gets overnight, the easier it is to sculpt the next day,\u201d Martin said. \u201cOn the last night, we sculpt all night long, right up to the 10 a.m. stop time.\u201d<\/p>\n
A typical Durangoan, Martin\u2019s day jobs include running a handyman business, rehabbing trailers and cooking at a hunting lodge in Idaho for two months a year. His handiness allows him to make many of his own sculpting tools, including chisels and scrapers, which he uses along with saws, and brushes. It\u2019s not unusual for him to give away 10 or more tools to fellow snow sculptors at competitions.<\/p>\n
Highlights and hazards<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has taken me half way around the world,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI went to Sapporo, Japan, in 2007. The competition there is huge, covering about 16 city blocks, literally about the size of Durango. Some of the ice structures there are larger than any buildings we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin will leave this week for Loveland for the state snow-sculpting competition before going to work with Team Yukon in Canada, where he\u2019s looking forward to seeing the northern lights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to travel, see the world, enjoy the food,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He almost got to go to Iceland once and is hoping to compete in Switzerland, Germany and Italy some day.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s the Asian teams you have to beat, he said, especially the teams from Mongolia, two of which were at Breckenridge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey intimidate me,\u201d he said. \u201cTheir level of detail is amazing. We were lucky they like whiskey and were a little tipsy the last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because he generally gets to participate in only about three competitions a year, it\u2019s hard to get the practice in to achieve that kind of detail, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m getting better as I do it, but I\u2019m still better at fat people, puffy jackets, hairy dogs \u2013 those kind of things are easier for me,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
And snow is such a fragile medium.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes, when you\u2019re a racer, you fall down,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes, when you\u2019re a snow sculptor, the snow falls down on you. I\u2019ve had it fall down before judging, as they\u2019re judging and right after judging. One time, a team had the ear of a cat just fall off right in front of the judges. It happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of his biggest challenges came on a sculpture he did of an underwater cave.<\/p>\n
\u201cI slipped off one of the arms of the octopus and broke off one of the arms of the scuba diver,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile everyone else went into lunch, we managed to mount at least 75 pounds of snow back on so you couldn\u2019t tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes, something almost magical happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne time, I put a little snowflake on a dog\u2019s nose,\u201d he said, \u201cand it melted some the first couple of days, then lasted two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has hopes of working with major ski resorts or perhaps the X-Games tour, and a gold medal at Breckenridge will go a long way in reaching that goal.<\/p>\n
Martin also would love to do more snow sculpting here, but the weather just isn\u2019t conducive, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d have to figure out a way to work it, maybe with a refrigerated building because Mother Nature is not going to play with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One sculpture he did at the Leland House lasted a couple of minutes before it toppled, and some at Durango Mountain Resort stayed standing only a couple of days \u2013 although he\u2019s quick to point out they allowed kids to climb on them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut kids are the coolest thing about the whole event,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThey still have the imagination to see what we\u2019re doing. They walk up and see it long before the adults do.\u201d<\/p>\n