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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend January 29, 2006 Snow-sculpture artist and organizer Roger Butterfield walks past the winning sculpture, which his team created on Mount Ashland for the first annual sculpture contest on the mountain. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven ART IN THE SNOW Camaraderie lasts once sculptures have melted after Mount Ashland competition By JENNIFER MARGULIS for the Mail Tribune A group of jubilant sculptors and a small crowd gathered at noon Saturday on a surprisingly clear Mount Ashland to celebrate the end of the four-day snow sculpture competition. Lyn Godsey, executive director of the Oregon Arts Council, announced the winners to shouts and applause. After a morning of snow and howling winds, the weather was pleasant though cold for the announcement. Team Two took the gold with its sculpture, "Skeepa Trolls Bounty Basket." "Skeepa" is short for ski patrol, and the sculpture was conceived to be a tribute to the selfless acts of ski patrollers. For Eric Strong, a furniture-maker in Ashland and a member of Team Two, winning first place was not as important as the experience of the last four days being with other artists and working on a team. Strong, who usually works by himself, has enjoyed the camaraderie. "It’s been a blast," said Strong. "It’s neat to expose people to art." Advertisement Second place went to Team Three for an abstract creation dubbed "Chiaroscuro." "We partied in here last night," said Team Three member Gary Price of Phoenix Clay and Steel Works, pointing to the creation by the SOFA team, which was his personal favorite. Team Four, made up of Southern Oregon Fine Arts students from SOU, took third place. The team made a boxy room with a fireplace, refrigerator and sofa and a mounted unicorn head on the wall. Joe Baraona, one of the sculptors, explained that his team decided to play with interior spaces because all the other artists were making more conventional three-dimensional sculptures. Unlike the other teams, SOFA wasn’t sure what they would make until they began. Like Strong, Baraona’s favorite aspect of the last four days was the collaboration between the artists. He and a handful of others even slept on the mountain Friday night in a tent. "We woke up to 2 feet of snow in the morning," he said. "We were dealing with 40- to 50-mile-an-hour winds." Kevin Christman, a member of the first-place team and a professional sculptor who lives in Ashland, said he usually works in bronze and stone and found carving in snow rewarding. "It was great," he said of the giant snow blocks they started with, "a lot like a type of foam I use." Christman said he is actually looking forward to watching his team’s creation melt, and that he and his teammates positioned the "skeepas" — little trolls with mischievous grins on their faces — away from the south side so they would last longer. "It’ll be interesting to see what pieces fall off first," said Christman, who added that his team worked until midnight Friday finishing the sculpture. Many of the artists commented on the bad weather while they were working. "The cold was brutal," Christman said. "When you’re dressed for the weather it’s not a problem," said Roger Butterfield, also on the winning team. Butterfield, the coordinator of the competition, lives in Medford but has been staying at a local inn for the last four days to save time commuting up to the mountain. Even before the winners were announced, Butterfield pronounced the event a success. "I’ve never been more filled with joy and contentment," said Butterfield. "Everyone’s a winner; that’s not just a casual statement." Team One, a team of three artists who came all the way from Idaho to compete and who were the most experienced snow carvers in the competition, received an honorable mention for mentoring the other teams. Their sculpture, "Fusion of Purpose," was a buffalo with eagle wings, its nostrils so carefully carved you could see shadows in them. "It’s really fun to carve in something that big," said team member Matt Cossalman, who explained that the Oregon Arts Council funded their trip to Ashland. The awards themselves consisted of wooden chisel holders with plaques on them, and every participating artist received one. Six-year-old Calder Hall, from Central Point, liked the SOFA sculpture the best. "’Cause it’s shaped like your own home," Hall said. "My dad told me they were going to do this up here � we wanted to check this out, so we did." "I think it was a huge success," said Godsey, who is hoping to hold the snow sculpture competition next year as well. "Look at the art! � If Mount Ashland will have us, we’ll be here," she said. Jennifer Margulis is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail her at [email protected]. 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