A Month of R&R

For the Month of February the club is closed so I have been relaxing, catching up around the house and carving ice.  This past weekend Chef Joe Albertelli and I were in St. Joseph Michigan competing in the winter festivities.  It was an extremely successful weekend and I got to see some family.

Day 1 Street Pieces:  All of the carvers for the weekend were paid to carve sponsor pieces for all of the local businesses that contributed to the event.

I had a book store,

Unbeknownst to me,  there were awards for first, second and third place street pieces.  Out of the 18 carvers,  mine took third.

Saturday was the team competition, 5 hours, 4 blocks of ice:  Joe and I have been working on this piece for a while, developing, drawing, practicing....  The event was sanctioned by NICA or the National Ice Carvers association.  NICA has been around for 25 years and they give medals based on 10 criteria or 100 points.

90+ = Gold

80 - 90 = Silver

70 - 80 = Bronze

Since NICA Began, approximately 

300 gold medals  

2500 Silver Medals

3750 Bronze medals have been awarded, these are for all national competitions and spread across a wide range of talent.

The piece is called "trapped" its a take on a venus fly trap catching a dragon fly

Trapped stands 11.5 feet tall, the dragon fly is 6 feet long from nose to tail

12 teams competed, and at the end of the day we finished 2nd with a score of 90.53, Joe's Medal is Numbered 287, mine is 285.  Gold Medalist by professional Ice Carving standards and we just so happen  to be chefs...

#285 and the trophy

Saturday February 11th, 2012

I need to work on my consistency though, Sunday was not so productive, I need to practice more, but sunday, sun and power problems caused an incomplete for me, in-completes or "crashes" Score no higher than a 64, a cool piece but " Curiousity" will be retired there will be another version in the future, maybe... Had a great weekend though.  Back to Greenwich...

I froze the back wings and didn't leave enough space for the front wings, got frustrated and didn't think to stick the legs, then time was called. 64, was the final score.