Wolverine....

[fajrdrako]

I saw him first when I was walking from the Rideau Centre (and my rowing class) to my hairdresser's place on Saturday. A snow sculpture, maybe fifteen feet tall, in front of City Hall; but the first thing I saw were the claws. "That looks like Wolverine's claws." I thought.

It was Wolverine's claws, and his head and shoulders. There were men on ladders still working on the head: the hair unmistakable, and done in exquisite detail. I heard someone near me say, "I know who that is - it's Wolverine!" I didn't have time to stop and stare or even to circle the sculture to see it from all directions, but as I rushed on I head someone in the crowd saying to someone else, "Look, it's Wolverine."

I love it: X-Men characters are now part of the public consciousness.

I went past it again today, and took time to look at it properly, from the the front. It's beautifully done. It's a bust of Wolverine showing his arms, shouldders, and head, the hands raised as fists, claws extending upwards. His teeth are bared and his shirt is torn to shreds. (Good things he has a healing factor, and is made of snow to boot: it's pretting chilly in front of Ottawa's City Hall in February.)

I just did some googling, and found information about the snow scultures here. If you want to see the Wolverine sculputure, go to the list of subjects on the left side of the page and click on "Snow Sculptures". That will take you to the list - it's the Prince Edward Island team that did Wolvie, so just click on them (and the name "Logan") and you'll see the sculpture from sketched design to finished product.

In front of the sculpture, it has a title written on an upright oval of ice, but it doesn't say "Logan", it says "Canadian Idol".

Heh. Bub.

Comments

[mlleelizabeth.livejournal.com]

wow! and here I was excited abouy the inch of snow we had on the ground on Saturday! *g* I have been to Montreal, Alaska and even Wisconsin in wintertime, but I've never seen wintertime coolness as cool as those snow sculptures. Thank you for sharing this!

Re:

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

and here I was excited abouy the inch of snow we had on the ground on Saturday!

And so you should be, in your neck of the woods. Here - snow is one of the things we do best. Lots and lots of it.

I've never seen wintertime coolness as cool as those snow sculptures.

It is pretty grand. Maybe tomorrow I'll talk about the ice sculptures.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

This is too cool! This is yet another reason why I would love to live in Canada. We don't do nearly enough wintertime stuff down here, mostly we just bitch about it.

Re:

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, we bitch about the weather. We are masters of the art of weather-bitching. (And we've earned the right, too!) But the snow and ice sculptures are really wonderful. I keep planning to get my camera out and share photos but I haven't got round to it yet.

The ice sculptures are like something magical. It perks me up every time I see them, all lit up with coloured lights, glistening and intricate.

[ryui.livejournal.com]

It snowed here, once. My brother and I used all the snow in the yard (we lived on a farm, so that's a lot of yard) to make a very dirty (as in full of twigs) snowman, about two feet tall. We felt we'd accomplished something. I'd love to see what it's like in real snow. And the work on these-wow @_@

And, of course, having Logan as a part of the collective consciousness is an excellent thing. Ah. Logan. *off to dig out old Classic X-Men comics filched from older brother*

Re:

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You snowman sounds charming. Usually here it's too cold to make snowmen - so you don't see them much. (You can only pack snow when it's fairly warm - in cold weather, snow is like powder and doesn't hold together.) The big sculptures like the ones at city hall are made with packed snow, chipped and chisled into shape like stone - not molded like clay.

I am always impressed by the artistry and in awe of the ephemeral nature of it. These things are made with such care and beauty in the knowledge that in a week or two - or whenever it gets warm enough! - they will melt into sludge.

Meanwhile - yes, wow.

Ah, Logan, indeed. He's one of those striking characters that gets under your skin and never really goes away.