Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
like a peacock, if you look at it through an existential squint. There is a kind of pharonic
sea serpent going mano a mano with a gladiator brandishing a woefully inadequate sword
and shield. There is a giant hand holding a baby, the giant head of a polar bear, and an
even more gigantic Tic-Tac-Toe game with two child players so carved and placed that
they look like they're moving as we walk by.
One sculpture is a partially open door with an abstract human figure just behind it and
another figure on its head in front of it, but the finish is what makes it—clear with vari-
ously sized ice polka dots. It sounds idiotic, I know, but it is amazing in person. There is
an ice castle, a beautifully detailed circle of ravens and stars, a bamboo Snow White, a
sort of madonna and child, two parrots perched on a philodendron branch, and three
manta rays swimming around a coral reef that looks real enough to cut your feet.
Plus some abstract stuff I never did figure out. Of one such Rhonda said, “I heard the
carver say it wasn't going well.” Regarding the pile of, well, rubble left behind, it defin-
itely wasn't.
The carvers have 72 hours start to finish, and we return Friday night an hour before
deadline. The man riding the peacock has resolved into a man playing a bass with de-
tached hands in white gloves and musical notes dancing in the air. “It's How You Wrap It”
had not fully realized its creators' original idea, becoming instead a smooth post-modern
form of curve and light. “Now we're wishing we'd entered in the abstract category,” Gina
says ruefully.
The remaining carvers are rushing the finishing touches and corraling tools and scraps,
making way for the judges. The totemic table now has a shark grinning at me from the
northeast corner. He looks familiar. “Hey,” I say, “that looks like Bruce the shark from
Finding Nemo
.”
“Well, yeah,” says the guy laying on the ground making last minute corrections with a
chisel, “the whole thing is
Finding Nemo
,” and indeed there they all are, the little surfer
dude turtle and Gil the blue gill and Nemo himself. Now the land mine makes perfect
sense.
“Seventy-two hours,” the other guy says, shaking his head. “Have you had any sleep?”
I ask. “More than we should have,” snaps the man with the chisel. His friend looks guilty,
and we beat a stealthy retreat.
