Ice Sculptures and Cutpaper Works

Have you seen the latest ice sculptures from Harbin, in northern China?

                               

I first saw them in an email I received today from a very good friend. And I thought, where did they come from? What is their source?

                                   

I was more than a little curioius. I wanted to know so I could add a credit line, give some authorship, or at least recognize the photogprapher or the owner of the photographs.

                                             

I found the same pictures at the website of Christopher Marcinko. I thought, here is the man who first posted these pictures, so I emailed him and asked for permission to add the photos to my journal.

                              

Though hereplied right away, he could not tell me who the photographer was, nor the owner of the pictures. He said I could use them, but he couldn't give me any more information than I had learned from the email. He had also found them in his email.

                                

The only information I could glean from the email were these words:

There is a town in Northern China that does this every
year.  It is a great tourist attraction and is always
beautiful.  Most of them have lights inside and as you can see they
are really big.

The town is Harbun, and this is a new set of pics. they get more 
fantastic all the time. This is the town where the Chinese had that 
chemical spill a couple of months ago

So, I wondered if any of you J-land folks had seen these photos and know where they came from.

What appealed to me about them was that they were made of ice, and that if I wrote an entry about them, it would nicely complement the sand sculpture entry I had written earlier this week. Both art forms have a sense of momentariness, or temporariness. In other words, they won't last. Whereas most art works are valued for their creator and their permanence through time, sand and ice sculptures are guaranteed to be fleeting and impermanent. Yes, they can take pictures of their masterpieces, and look forward to next year's sculpture.

I wonder as Mark did when he asked in a comment of the sandsculpture entry, is art an idea or a material thing?

Like I said, I had found Christopher's website while searching for the ice sculpture source. I stayed awhile, and browsed his entries, and right below his ice sculpture pictures were a series of another art form.

                                            

                                                   Can you identify it yet?

                                                 

It's called papercut art... a picture cut from a single sheet of paper, using fine scissors or knives.

Of all the papercuttings I saw at his website, the one I found most interesting was this one. If you look at it closely, it tells a story. Look at the footprints from right to left. Do you see the story?

            

All cut from a single sheet of paper. I don't know who the artist of this series is either. But when I find out, I will post that information here, with links. If you know, please leave a comment or email me.

I did find another site where there were some classically elaborate cut-paperworks.

      

These two fine pieces of cutwork were created by Chris Natrop. More examples are at his website. Click on his name.

    

Intricate, isn't it? Gives a whole new definition to cutting paper.

BTW, for a real treat, check out this website for pictures of Harbin's Winter Ice and Snow Festival. Beautiful nightime photographs of buildings built from ice, lit up by fireworks and colorful interior lighting. Pure fantasy in a land that is freezing cold.

Tags: Harbin China, Harbin's Winter Ice Festival, mtrib2, Chris Natrop, Christopher Marcinko, ice sculptures, papercutting

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