Ice Sculpture Festival
What would the world be without Ice Sculptors? There are a number of ice sculpture festivals in the world, including in Russia, Canada, Japan, China, USA, France, Norway and the Netherlands. In 2016 the Dutch Ice Sculpture festival moved to a bigger venue in the South East of Amsterdam, Bijlmer Arena. The 2016 edition of the Ice Sculpture festival was musical themed with 100 music inspired ice sculptures. This event attracts some of the worlds leading ice sculptors and a massive crowd. For my second episode of What is That Job?, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Nicola Wood. She is one of 42 international ice sculptors who were invited to participate in the 2016 Netherlands Ice Sculpture festival.
Take a look at some of the amazing ice sculptures in a video we made.
Professional Ice Sculptor
So you want to be a professional Ice Sculptor?
There are only approximately 200 professional sand and ice sculptors in the world. Nicola Wood is one of this rare breed. She has won multiple prizes including two gold medals at the World Championship of Sand Sculpting in 2007 and 2010, a silver medal at the European Sand Sculpting Championships in 2012 and the public choice award in 2014. I had the amazing opportunity to interview Nicola during the construction of the Netherlands Ice Sculpture Festival. She gave me the opportunity to carve out a small section of the ice sculpture she was working on.
What does an Ice Sculptor do? Below are links to my chat with Nicola Wood. We chatted about how she got into Ice Sculpture, what a typical day looks like and how she starts and completes an ice sculpture.
To discover more about Nicola and her amazing work as an ice and sand sculptor, check out her website at nicolawood.info