Aurora celebrates Lincoln with snow bust
He's already got his face on the penny, $5 bill, and his own monument in the state and nation's capitol. So when it comes to honoring Abraham Lincoln, you've got to be creative.
The Aurora Public Art Commission Friday unveiled a larger than life portrait of Lincoln, carved in snow by Batavia sculptor Joseph Gagnepain. The large-scale bust will stand in the commission's sculpture garden, adjacent the Pierce Center at 20 East Downer Place, until temperatures rise above freezing.
The commission asked to have the sculpture done in honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday on Feb. 12.
A longtime admirer of Lincoln, Gagnepain said he has always wanted to use the former president as the subject for a work of art. The project also strikes a personal chord of pride for Gagnepain because ancestors on his mother's side are cousins to Mary Todd Lincoln.
Gagnepain and his team of sculptors had planned on trucking snow into downtown from Aurora's Mastodon Lake, but when those plans fell through they were forced to use fresh snow from an empty Aurora parking lot.
After foot packing the snow, a technique Gagnepain compares to stomping grapes for wine, it's dumped into a 64-square-foot mold.
"This snow was scraped off the top of some drifts in a parking lot and it was the best snow I've ever used," Gagnepain said Friday morning, before applying the sculpture's finishing touches. "When the bobcat poured it into the mold, it looked like sugar falling."
The sculptors then used a model and photographs of Lincoln to scale the image onto the snow block.
The creativity comes into play when they begin to carve out the negative space. Unlike ice carving, chain saws are out of the question.
"We can only use hand tools like spiral brushes, shovels and homemade saws and sanders," he said. "We're constantly finding new ways to use everyday items."
The bust took about 20 hours to complete, in part because of curious passers-by stopping to talk to Gagnepain, but he expects it will stand for several weeks.
"The cool thing is the sun melts it a little (on sunny days like Friday) then it freezes and gets a hard-shell glaze on it and that actually helps it keep shape," he said. "As long as it stays as cold as it has for the last few weeks, Abe'll stay here for a while."
Gagnepain, a freelance artist with a sculpting background, has been carving snow for the past four years with his teammates from Eau Claire, Wis.
"The Starvin' Carvists" have participated in multiple national and international snow-sculpting competitions and commissions in Michigan, Illinois, and Italy. Last year the team placed first and second in an international competition held in two Italian villages.