Snow becomes fleeting art in Breckenridge

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Snow becomes fleeting art in Breckenridge

16 teams invited for the 20th Annual International Snow Sculpture Championships

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. – Experience the visual wonderment of the creation and exhibition of snow art. The Budweiser International Snow Sculpture Championships return to Breckenridge for the 20th year from January 26-31, 2010.

Sixteen teams from around the globe have been invited to compete from 9 countries including Canada (2 Teams), China (2 teams), Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico, Mongolia, Russia and the USA. The United States teams invited include Alaska, Colorado (Breckenridge and Loveland), Idaho, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Snow Sculpting is attended annually by more than 30,000 people of all ages from across America and the world and has been named by USA Today as “one of the top 10 ways to celebrate winter.”

Each year, four-person teams are assigned 12-foot-tall, 20-ton blocks of machine-made Colorado snow. These teams work within a five-day period to create their sculptures. From these blocks of snow, the teams often craft enormous pieces of whimsy, although some deliver powerful political or social commentary.

The finished pieces are achieved after a total of 65 intense hours of work without the use of power tools, internal support structures or colorants – just the ingenuity of the sculptors and a medium that lends itself, if only temporarily, to the persuasion of hand tools.

When the sculptures are finished on Saturday, January 30, a panel of well-known artists and patrons of the arts serve as judges. Awards are presented to the first, second and third place sculptures on Sunday, January 31. Awards are also given for People’s Choice, Kids’ Choice and Artists’ Choice. There are no cash prizes; the artists instead revel in the reward of hard work, forged friendships, freedom of artistic expression and the satisfaction of long hours of preparation that lead to the event.