How do you get to the ice-carving competition? I asked. This was at the recent Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show in McCormick Place. “It’s simple,” an usher told me. “Just follow the blinking red arrows and when you hear the sound of chain saws, you’ll know you’re there.”
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“Chicago is a hotbed of ice-carving activity,” said Wagner, who, not coincidentally, is also president of a company that sells ice. “We have a certified school just outside the city, and membership in the association is open to anyone with an interest.” The association even has a code of ethics, which acknowledges the member’s accountability to society as a whole as well as to the association, which means, I guess, that hardened criminals need not apply.
Wayne Dunham, another representative, agreed. You wouldn’t believe some of the things these guys make. I’ve seen Statues of Liberty, sculptures of Christ being crucified, I’ve even seen the entire Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Sir Georg Solti conducting. They have these great tricks that they do, like using water or slush as a kind of glue to attach separate parts of the sculpture together.”
Daukas, at 30, is considered to be the best American ice sculptor, having won every competition he’s entered in the U.S. “I went to school to be a chef, but I couldn’t see spending my days behind a hot oven. I was always good at art in high school and liked to study anatomy, and I thought anything had to be better than cooking, so I tried this.” Daukas especially likes to sculpt horses and the human figure and sells many of his sculptures to big hotels like the Ritz, the Four Seasons, and the Beverly Hills and even to movie studios. Unlike the team from Singapore, he’s largely self-taught, a fact he quickly lets be known. “American superiority is just around the corner,” he said. “They have the tradition, but we have more flexibility and originality.” Then, he added, with enough panache to make Iacocca proud, “We expect to do some definite damage at the next competition in Japan.”
