In case you haven’t guessed, I am, and have been for some time, something of an ice geek. I will read just about anything I can find about ice carving and I will study photos of sculptures to see how they were done. Long after everyone else is bored, I’m still happy to talk about some spectacular ice carving, from somewhere, done by some fantastic sculptor. When I was just starting out in ice carving, back in the very late 80’s and early ‘90s, I was particularly hungry for anything I could I could get my hands on. My fascination with ice was new and raw.

    I started carving ice in Albuquerque and San Antonio, neither of which have ever been ice carving hot spots. All of the “action” was going on in the Upper Midwest, Northeast, in Florida, and out west in Vegas and California. There wasn’t much of an internet yet, so it was, when NICA’s On Ice newsletter showed up in my mailbox, I would immediately read it front to back and study the smallish black and white photos. Then I would wait a month or so for the next issue, while I carved whatever ice I could get a hold of.

    Some of the first issues of NICA’s On Ice that I got talked about the new National Championships and how intense the competition was. Mark Daukas won both of the first two championships, in ’91 and ‘92, but right behind him was another master sculptor, Vivat Hongpong, who took 2nd both years. The Nationals is a two day event and in both years, Daukas won one day while Hongpong won the other. Daukas’ cumulative score narrowly proved to be the difference in both cases. Reading about Daukas and Hongpong inspired me to try harder to master this fantastic art.

    In 1992, in my first NICA competition, I qualified to compete at Nationals by earning a bronze medal. Of course, I never made it to the ’92 Nationals; I only read about it. But I did make it to the ’93 Nationals. There, I met one of my new ice carving idols, Mark Daukas, and, just as I expected, he won his third straight National Championship. My other idol Hongpong, unfortunately, was not there that year to battle Daukas and I would have to wait some time to meet him.

    Two years later, in 1995, I went to my second Nationals. This time, Hongpong was there (Daukas was not). Yet again however, Hongpong narrowly missed his chance to claim the National title, this time taking second place to Kevin Roscoe. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to talk with Vivat, partly because I had a tight schedule with a big project going on back home.

    Several years later, I finally got a chance to meet and talk with Vivat when by chance he came down to the Gulf Coast to work on a big project for one of the Mississippi casinos. But I didn’t see him again at a competition until 2002, at the Olympic event in Provo, Utah. I don’t know if Vivat was at all driven by his three near-victories at Nationals, but against the strongest field of ice carvers that I’ve ever witnessed, Vivat and his son Art came out on top and won the Gold. I would imagine that most carvers would readily trade a National Championship, or even a World Championship title for the much rarer Olympic Gold. So it must have been particularly sweet for Vivat that he was able to achieve this goal teamed with his son.

    The Gold medal might turn out to be Vivat’s crowning achievement. On the other hand, the Gold is a lot for Art to live up to in his young career. Art, however, seems up to the challenge and has obviously inherited  a strong dose of his father’s talent. He’s been winning awards for his ice since he was a teenager, and if he carves into his fifties and sixties like his father has, the sky’s the limit! More recently, in 2007, Art carved himself a place on the team representing the U.S. at the 2007 World Pastry Cup. And while Vivat continues to run Vivat Ice Classics in New Jersey, Art has started his own ice carving company, Cold Fusion Ice Designs, in Washington D.C.

    I am a big admirer of both Vivat and Art and I am very pleased to be able to post pictures of their work here on ice carving secrets. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to check out their gallery and perhaps experience a tiny bit of the awe that I have when I’ve looked upon a Hongpong ice sculpture...