Let It Snow: Dave Rothstein’s Ode to Winter
By Melissa Karen Sances, photos courtesy of Dave Rothstein
If he had entered the Longest Beard contest, this might be a different story. But 30 years ago in the dead of winter in Anchorage, Alaska, Dave Rothstein took part in the state’s annual festival, and he honed in on one event. Turkey bowling? Pass. Outhouse racing? Nah. Beard growing? Yawn.
Snow sculpting
That’s when a 25-ton block of ice changed his life.
Rothstein sawed, whittled and willed that snow into submission. “In that moment,” he says, “I was happy to finish with a bear sitting on a beach in a lounge chair and have people recognize what it was.”
This year the Florence resident and his four-man team swept the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championships in Colorado, winning the gold medal, the People’s Choice Award and the Artists’ Choice Award for “The Beggar,” a 16-foot man, gaunt from greed, surrounded by giant bitcoins, every protruding rib and crypto curvature frozen in time.
In the years between the Fur Rendezvous and the International Championships, Rothstein waited for the winters, or he chased them around the globe, carving under the Northern Lights in Canada and getting frostbite in Finland. An environmental lawyer by day, Rothstein notes with awe that snow sculptures are always at the mercy of the weather. “It teaches you not only how to be adaptable but how to let go,” he says, noting that his favorite piece was an Owl Lantern carved in Florence, something he completed in 12 hours but didn’t last through the night before it collapsed under its own weight.
The ephemeral nature of his artwork makes it all the more precious. “Each time I leave my piece, it’s the last time I’ll see it,” he says. “You give it a hug, a kiss, but those sculptures will continue to evolve, melt, shrink … Mother Nature continues to sculpt them long after you’re gone. During the summer, when I’m pelted by raindrops, I like to think that a little bit of that sculpture is coming down to say hello.”
His work transcends time, temperature and even language, depending on whether he’s working with a team and where everyone calls home. Practical considerations have to be made, such as who has the best knees and can lift the heaviest snow, or whether a ladder or stairs should be incorporated into the sculpture to give the artists greater reach. Ultimately, sculpting is a uniquely detractive process, creating by removing.
The artist still looks forward to the winter, and when it’s snowy enough in Northampton, he takes advantage by sculpting in his yard or even creating what he calls “snow doodles” in his driveway. “Oftentimes I’ll go out to a snow bank and will practice noses, or do 50 eyeballs,” he explains. “Sometimes I’ll go out and make curlicues. You never know what it’s going to look like.”
His goal is to brighten the longer, darker days, and, hopefully, to inspire moments of joy. “Beauty is really fleeting,” he says. “Even if it lasts for a day, it’s worth doing.”
For Curious Kids: How to Make a Snow Sculpture
Where to begin? “The most important part is not to think about it as rolling a snow person, where you take a ball and need wet snow,” says Rothstein. Instead, create a block of ice that you can carve the snow away from. Take a garbage can and fill it with snow one foot at a time, stomping it down. When it rises to the top, flip it over, and pull off the trash can. Alternatively, take an old refrigerator or stove box and set it up outside. Fill it up, compress the snow, and peel off the cardboard. “Then,” says Rothstein, “kids can go in with a spoon.”
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