In conjunction with Telluride Mountain Village’s SnowFest activities during Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Jan. 12-15, the town will once again host CoolSculpt, the third annual winter snow sculpting event. Building on the success of previous years, six sponsored sculptures will be carved in and around the Mountain Village Core, including a special piece commissioned by the town to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Gondola. With more than $3,000 in prizes and money, the competition will be stiff. 

This year’s sculpture sponsors are the Town of Mountain Village, Las Montañas restaurant, Telski, S.U.N.R.I.S.E., and American National Bank. Sculptors include Duncan Mackenzie, Daniel Kanow, Andy Krueger, Craig Wasserman, and Anji Sawant.

Mackenzie won first place in the 2005 CoolSculpt event. He is also a TCAH public art grant recipient, created the Robin Magee memorial at the Wilkinson Library, and was featured as an As the Crow Flies artist at the Ah Haa School. Mackenzie’s 2007 ice sculpture will be sponsored by Las Montañas.

For the Gondola’s 10th anniversary, the Town of Mountain Village is having local artist Kanow carve a 125-percent scale ice gondola car. Kanow has been involved in several public art projects in Telluride, including the facilitation of a student mural in the San Sophia Gondola station. The public will be encouraged to visit the more-than-life-size ice gondola car for great photo opportunities.

Special this year, CoolSculpt will create an enormous four-foot by 28-foot by eight-foot crescent shaped structure as a backdrop for ABC’s Good Morning America show, which will be in town shooting live footage of SnowFest.

On the Beach, Krueger, who is also the organizer of CoolSculpt, will sculpt a piece for Telski near the bottom of lift 4. It will be Krueger’s first time heading up a sculpture team. In the past he worked with Tom Alpern, the creator of last year’s CoolSculpt VW bus featuring a hippie waxing down his surfboard.

Under the leadership of Wasserman, Telluride Mountain School middle school/high school students will create a S.U.N.R.I.S.E-sponsored ice sculpture at the base of lift 4. As the Mountain School’s art teacher, Wasserman will wrangle approximately 20 students in their creation.

Sawant will sculpt for American National Bank. An avid sand sculptor, Sawant became interested in snow/ice sculpting as a young girl growing up in Montreal. She is a private art teacher.

This year’s first place prize is $1,000, donated by Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, and ten transferable lift tickets. Additional prizes and money will be divided among all the ice sculpting teams. Additional CoolSculpt sponsorship comes from The Club at the Villas at Tristant, Wells Fargo, Inn at Lost Creek, 9545 restaurant, Bijou Cattle Company and Mountain Video Productions LLC.

Sculpting begins Thursday, Jan. 11. Teams will have until Jan. 15 to transform their ice cubes into sculptures, when the six sculptures will be judged.

For more information on CoolSculpt, contact Krueger at 728-7008, or anday@coolsculpt.com.