Weather favors carvings in Fairbanks Ice Park

Ice Alaska, the group that organizes the event, originally planned to close the grounds March 22. But cooler than usual temperatures this month helped the 100 or so ice sculptures, including entries in the BP World Ice Art Championships, hold their shape for longer than expected.

Single- and multi-block winners, carved from Fairbanks' coveted "Blue Diamond" ice, were selected in abstract and realistic categories earlier this month.

Teams led by Japanese master Junichi Nakamura took both first places in the realistic category with "Surfacing Kingfisher" (single block) and "White Fang" (multi-block). In the latter, a caribou reels to fend off three wolves. The judges seem to have been impressed by forms that appear to defy gravity. One lunging wolf is held in place only by his extended hind legs. The caribou's head and antlers lean into the air far from their balance point.

Likewise, the first place multi-block abstract winner, "Pandora's Box," by a Russian-led team, catches high, hollow, toppling towers in mid-collapse as the curious girl reaches for the forbidden container.

"Pandora's Box" is among the brainier pieces. Another Russian multi-block winner (second place abstract), "The Three Graces," has an artist sketching three tall, filigreed, tree-like forms. "I Know This is Where I Want to go, but I Don't Know How to Get There," a multi-block piece by a Fairbanks team, has a figure contemplating an ice wall behind which glows an illuminated ice heart.

Several subjects evoke humor. A Chinese team's "50th Celebration by the Sourdough Band" features an orchestra of Alaska wildlife playing instruments. Then there's the crudely monumental "King Kong" who stretches his hand high over viewers' heads to snatch a biplane with the marking "AK 09" on its fuselage. Both nod to this year's theme: Fifty Years of Statehood -- though few sculptures acknowledge that theme.

Detail and delicacy repeatedly astonish the viewer. An Ohio team produced an enormous caterpillar to take second place with their single block "Leafy Lunch." "Invitation," another Chinese submission, has a lady in elegant court dress seated on a swing, extending her hand to a bird. The bird pivots on its icy perch. Originally horizontal, it now tips downward toward the woman's palm because the amount of ice in the counterbalancing tail has shrunk faster than the rest of the bird.

Among the most curious sculptures, "Evolution," a Mongolian single block entry, has a running woman emerging from a running horse. There are abstract horizontal lines where the horse's chest would be. Something like flame comes from the woman's hair. In one hand she holds a torch. Her other arm is actually a wing, also on fire. Viewed from the side, the woman's form appears natural, if idealized. From the front, however, it is a stark abstract, the face resembling a stylized skull.

As of last weekend, very few pieces had crumbled and sublimation -- the process by which ice evaporates without melting -- had caused only minor losses. Considering how fragile and short-lived this art form is, most carvings remained in good shape.

So was the Parks Highway, for those considering the drive.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.