Monday, January 28, 2019

Banff Snow Days-Canadian Rockies





Many years ago in Banff, in January, there was a couple of restaurants open, you might see 4-5 people on Banff Ave., and the grocery store closed at 5pm.

Fast forward to 2019. The town is alive and buzzing with visitors, bars and restaurants are open until 2 am, and Banff Ave is alive with people from all over the world. Banff Snow Days is on!

As you walk around the core of town, there are snow/ice sculptures everywhere! The artists are given a 10ft x 10ft chunk of hardened snow that they must work from. As an artist who understands the challenges of putting brush to a blank canvas, it blows me away how these artists create the works shown here. Working with chain saws, adzes, small saws and scrapers, they create these stunning works of art. The subject matter varies from historical personalities to local wildlife, each lifelike, standing before you.While my art hopefully lasts for many years on archival paper or canvas, these great works slowly expire as the sun breaks them down, and finally they are taken away by the town.

It takes a very special creator to work on a piece, putting heart and soul into something you know will be eventually destroyed.

Hats off to these very talented artists.
Hats off to my home town of Banff.

Enjoy the journey.

Robert Krysak

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