**February 5th: another incident of ice sculpture vandalism in Michigan**

    **Feb. 11: and again in Burlington, VT**

    In the last few weeks, there have been stories in the news about outdoor ice sculpture displays being damaged or destroyed by vandals. In Vail, one of Scott Rella’s sculptures was destroyed late at night. In Traverse City, Michigan, a sculpture by Steven Berkshire was destroyed after being commissioned by a law firm.

    Unfortunately, this is not a new trend. Searches on Google turned up stories on 1996 First Night sculptures being toppled in State College, PA. More recently, a large holiday display in the center of Santa Fe, New Mexico was wrecked in 2006. Another story from Fairbanks last year makes the point that it’s not uncommon for sculptures at the World Ice Art Championships to be damaged.

    Probably, vandals like to take out ice sculptures because they can. If you kick at a bronze or stone sculpture, you’re going to be the one damaged. Kicking at an ice sculpture, however, can often quickly bring the whole sculpture down in an instant. Perhaps they started out kicking over sand castles at the beach.

    Certainly, there’s an understandable attraction to an ice carving’s destruction, just as people like to blow things up and Dave Letterman likes to drop stuff off buildings. It’s not surprising the most popular “ice sculpture” video on YouTube is Junichi Nakmura’s collapsing “Bluebird” sculpture (two slightly different videos combine to get the most views for the keyword “ice sculpture”). A survey of pro ice carvers would reveal some creative methods of breaking down sculptures after events are over. In the vandalism cases, however, they’re taking out ice sculptures in their prime, while they’re still art, and for no other reason than to break something. In short, the intentional destruction of ice art before its time is up is a waste and a shame...

    On top of that, it can also be a felony! A quick search on the law regarding vandalism turned up a California lawyer’s website indicating that vandalism can be considered a felony if the damage is as little as $400 (with a prior conviction for vandalism). Now each state has it’s own laws and monetary limits, but it would seem that willfully destroying a multi-block ice sculpture or a number of smaller pieces could easily qualify as a felony in many situations.

    An obvious, but unfortunate solution to prevent these incidents would be to provide security to keep on eye on them. The police in Vail indicated that they would “work harder to protect” future ice sculptures. Another possibility is to use cameras: not just security cameras, but also more webcams that would not only help protect the sculptures, but also let curious viewers see how they’re holding up over time. Some events have used webcams to show the sculpture creation process for long competitions. Expanding their use would discourage, or at least help catch those fools that think destroying artwork is cool.

    In the end, vandalizing an ice sculpture is a selfish act. The vandal gets a momentary thrill while stealing hours, days, or even weeks of enjoyment from fascinated spectators. The sculpture in Vail was of a lemonade stand and was to benefit a children’s cancer fund. It was destroyed on Christmas Eve. Can’t get much more coldhearted than that...