(running water)
(clicking) (crunching)
- Every time before I do a set up, I am a nervous wreck.
(creaking)
I can't tell you how much time I spend at night
thinking about details and logistics, and is this gonna fit,
is this gonna hold up, do I have enough support
in the bottom to hold this big piece up?
I do sometimes say if I have any regrets, I don't
have anything but a memory and a picture to show for it.
- Two, three - I think I’m going to go that way.
Because otherwise it's gonna get really dirty.
The ice that we create is a lot harder
than ice that has oxygen in it.
So we have to temper it, we allow it to
start to melt a little bit before we do any carving.
It makes it, to me, almost magical.
As a child, I didn't feel I was very talented at art,
and it wasn't until I was long outta school,
realize that my mind works much better in three dimensions.
I still struggle when I do animals.
The chainsaw cuts straight lines, and Tom often reminds me,
in nature, there are very few, if any, straight lines.
I've known him for 30 years, he's a very good teacher.
My first ice carving I ever did was at chef's school.
What would go on back in the past a little more was
that chefs would make an ice sculpture
to garnish a buffet, and it brings out
the total creativity in a chef.
Needless to say, what happens with us who are
in this industry, if we really like that medium
to work with, it really becomes a passion.
(sharp buzzing)
When I did my first ice carving, I was a cook.
I loved the process of carving the ice,
that I can just disappear from my
day to day worries and troubles and thoughts.
- You mean in the chest area? - Like the feathers, yeah.
- Yeah, put this back in so we'll have more
stability with it. - Okay, cool.
- Your 100 percent focus has to be on
that piece at one point, ya know, you're in a zone,
and you've got to follow step by step.
It's almost like an orchestration of we're gonna start here,
we're going to do this, then we're going to that.
We have our times where we're doubting
what we're involved with, and what we're putting up.
It's wet, it's cold, it's very, very physical
when you're holding a chainsaw that's going 5500 RPM,
but boy, when it's all said an done when it goes up,
that's what makes the difference.
- That's awesome, look at that.
- Crazy how they did this. - I know, right?
- Without it melting - Is it super cool guys?
- Every holiday there's probably 10,000 people
that get to see our sculptures.
- [Woman] Isn't it beautiful, look at that.
- It's real ice! - Oh, that is ice!
- [Pat] You know, you could have made a sculpture out
of bronze, you could have made a sculpture out of anything,
and put it up there and lit it up,
and made it look beautiful, but when it's something
that is actually melting right before your very eyes,
it's got a little bit more intrigue to it.
- Feel it. - That feels so weird.
- [Tom] God, there's a lot of people here.
- [Pat] Yeah. - It's carved out of real ice.
- [Pat] All that excitement over something
that we sometimes take for granted on what we could do.
- You're an artist. - Thank you.
- How long did this take? - An hour and a half.
Yeah, we started with three, 300 pound blocks of ice.
- Wow, so you did this?
- [Pat] It's not there to forever preserve, and admire,
and share, but in a tragic way, that's really beautiful
that only a certain percentage
of people will experience and enjoy that.
- That's ice, but you can't put your mouth on it.
- [Pat] No, get your tongue stuck on that, huh?
How do you like that, have you
ever seen such a big chunk of ice?
To do something that they have
such a great memory of is priceless.
- It's cool huh? - Yeah, it was cold.
- [Pat] The most special sculpture is the angel.
She was like an angel, caring,
made so many people's lives special.
Sometimes on the fourth of July,
the day that she passed away, I'll take an angel
and leave it on my wife's grave site.
It brings me some comfort to know
that she's still in our thoughts.
I miss you, you would be very proud of your kids.
They've turned out to be perfect people.
I've been able to contribute to other people's
hard times through a few more angels,
and I'm glad that I can do that for someone.
It took a long time, but now that I know I can make
something that will bring joy to someone else,
that tells me that I've got an artist's hands.