Award-winning snow sculptors need creativity, flexibility and warm clothes to perfect their art in Lake Geneva

For visitors to Lake Geneva's annual Winterfest held Feb. 2-6, it was all about fun and games as they tasted food from local vendors, shopped in downtown stores and enjoyed s'mores and bonfires.

"Some people who don't ski or do winter sports, they don't consider themselves winter people," said Stephanie Klett, CEO of Visit Lake Geneva. "But this event is something fun to do in winter for people who aren't winter people."

One of the most popular areas of the festival was the site dedicated to this year's national snow sculpting competition. Klett said the event has taken place here in Wisconsin for nearly 30 years. There were 15 teams from all over the country, spending the four-day duration of the competition building and refining their sculptures.

'Basically like a construction project'

Snow sculpting is a lot more intense than rolling snow up into a few balls and stacking them to make a snowman, or even forming it into blocks to build a snow fort. 

Joshua Jakubowski is captain of Wisconsin team Sculptora Borealis. The team's sculptures took first place both this year and in 2021.

Jakubowski said the snow sculpting process starts with the Winterfest team hauling snow from nearby ski hills, and pouring it into molds layer by layer. After each layer is added, people stomp the snow down with their feet.

"After the layers are stomped and packed, the forms are removed, and the blocks sit for a day or two," Jakubowski said. "The blocks become like concrete if it's cold enough. They're super hard and super dense, which make them really nice to carve in."

When the competition starts, the teams stack blocks on top of each other and start carving with chisels, saws, ice picks, shovels and whatever works to remove snow. But power tools are not allowed. 

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Jakubowski, who has been sculpting since 2016, described the process as "basically like you're doing a construction project with a project management plan."

When his team decides on a design, Jakubowski will sketch or model it in clay, then refine the design with his teammates, father and son Michael and Robert Lechtenberg.

"Then we break it down into individual elements and plan how long each of those will take to sculpt," Jakubowski said. "We also have to build in contingency plans because if we get behind on one thing, then all the next steps become at risk of not being completed. So we have to figure out what we can leave off, to make up time we could lose."

Weather: The fourth teammate

But no matter how detailed the planning, Jakubowski said everything can change when "the fourth teammate" — the weather — is taken into consideration.

If the temperature is too high — 32 degrees or warmer — the snow turns slushy and soft, which not only makes it difficult to sculpt but is actually dangerous.

"At that point, the snow loses all kinds of strength and it can fall over and hurt you," Jakubowski said. "We know people who have had chunks of snow fall on their head or knock them off their ladder. It's a serious deal."

But, on the other hand, if it's too cold, that makes things difficult, too.

In a recent competition, Jakubowski said the nighttime low temperatures were between 15 and 20 below.

"In those conditions, you get really cold and you're all bundled up so you can barely hold on to a chisel or saw," he said. "The snow is in a perfect condition to carve, but it's really hard on you."

This year's temperatures  — with highs in the mid-to-low 20s and lows in the single digits at nighttime — were perfect for carving. But it's still cold, so sculptors rely on the coffee, hot cocoa and nearby warming center provided by the Winterfest staff. The teams also dress warmly in ice fishing gear, warm boots and the most important clothing item, gloves — and lots of them.

"Your hands are the number one thing that gets cold. The thing is you will start sweating and once that sweat gets inside your gloves, if you take your gloves off, you come back and your gloves are a brick of ice," Jakubowski said. "If that happens, you just have to grab a new pair, put some hand warmers in there and you're good. Every time I go to Ace Hardware, I make sure to buy a new pair of snowblower gloves. I have like 12 pairs now."

'The sculptures are works of art'

Although sculpting from snow in the cold for four days is hard work, there are also fun traditions, socialization and the opportunity to appreciate talented artists.

On the first day of the competition, the sculptors stack their blocks to achieve the height they want and then start carving sculptures into their rough shapes. The following days are spent on details and refinements. 

Jakubowski said Friday is when teams typically pull all-nighters. Although he said he and his teammates try to get at least a couple of hours of sleep on Friday, they do appreciate some of the late-night traditions.

"The organizers will bring in some really good pie," Jakubowski said. "And all the teams will stop carving for an hour and sit around eating pie and telling stories."

Although he describes Saturday morning as "scramble time" when people "fly around like crazy, sanding, smoothing and making everything perfect," he said those are the moments when it's most fun to watch, and the moments when he's most impressed by the artistry of his teammates and competitors. "The sculptures already look like works of art at that point, but in those last hours, you just watch them get better and better before your eyes."

That artistic appreciation is more than just casual. Klett pointed out that competitors vote to select the winning teams.

"These sculptors are the best of the best, and they know better than anyone what's supposed to be done when sculpting with snow," Klett said. "And the camaraderie is really great. They'll look at the sculptures and see something that they have never been able to do, and they know how impressive that is."

A message that's meaningful and relevant

Klett said teams are judged on how well the final sculpture matches the original clay model and how well the team has represented the artist statement that embodies the artistic vision of the sculpture.

Jakubowski and his teammates start thinking of that artistic vision and the message of their sculpture months ahead of each competition. 

Last year their winning design, called "Inoculation," was all about triumphing over COVID. Jakubowski described it as a COVID molecule, recognizable by its spike proteins. They gave the molecule a face that was was looking up with a surprised reaction at the syringe, representing the vaccine, poking into its forehead.

"Then there's a tornado of fire going around the base of the sculpture as it turns into a phoenix," Jakubowski said. "It represents us getting over this adversity."

This year's winning design is also relevant for the times we're living in. Called "Deeper Connections," it's a sculpture of a man and a woman with an abstract ribbon behind their heads, which turns into a heart.

"The message is to not label someone right away as being the opposite of you or to label them as right or wrong," Jakubowski said. "You need to actually get to know the person, and that's how you find there's a deeper connection there."

Educating the next generation of snow sculptors

It may seem like there's too much work and too much time involved for amateurs to snow sculpt. But Jakobwski said anyone can do it. He's in the process of working with his 10- and 12-year-old sons to do their first snow sculpture.

"Right now I'm teaching them how to draw in 3D to make images look like they're in space rather than a flat image," Jakobowski said. "Then I'll have them make a sculpture in clay, and once they've got that, we'll get in the front yard to make a snow sculpture."

For backyard snow sculpting, he recommends filling up a large, clean trash can with snow and packing it down. Any kind of snow is fine as long as there are no sticks, mud or other debris in it. After leaving the snow-filled trash can overnight, the snow should be in good shape to sculpt, saw and chisel.

Amateur snow sculpting was also on display at Winterfest, where Lake Geneva-area middle school students were making their own sculptures with instruction and guidance from Snow Babes, a team from Rockford, Illinois, that travels the country teaching the younger generation how to snow sculpt. 

Ted Beauchaine, an art teacher at Walworth Elementary School, said seventh and eighth grade art club students received an hourlong demonstration from Snow Babes, after which they were led to their blocks of snow and given tools and two hours to create their own sculptures.

The students, who have spent the past few weeks designing and sketching their ideas, created recognizable sculptures of SpongeBob Square Pants, a character from the video game "Among Us" and Pixar's Wall-E, among other sculptures.

"We need to make sure the next generation knows how to do this and that they're excited to do it," said Krista Gustafson of Snow Babes. "Snow sculpting is such an unusual art form and there's only a limited time each year that you can do it. Our mission is to make sure it's appreciated."

Contact Amy Schwabe at (262) 875-9488 or amy.schwabe@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @WisFamilyJS, Instagram at @wisfamilyjs or Facebook at WisconsinFamily.