The Making Of: Lion Throne at Lincoln Park Zoo with Nadeau's Ice
- jesicagrafer
- Nov 28, 2021
- 3 min read
It's snow joke, creating an ice throne in the Nadeau's shop and presenting it to the Lincoln Park Zoo was awesome in every way. There's no other word to describe it. From the freezing of the ice blocks, to the slicing of the exact building block sizes, to the programming and planning of the design of the piece as a whole, to the coloration and customization of the details involved, to every other process that we used to make this work of art that I won't bother rambling about now. It was memorable, rewarding, challenging, motivating, and an absolute honor to be a part of.
With a job like this, of course it starts with making ice. Programming is the next step in the process, which can sometimes be the most time consuming part. Once the ice is harvested from the machines and sliced to the correct size, we run the programs on the CNC with various drill bits to customize each piece with the lion face and zoo lights logo.
As it snow happens, the next part of the process is cleaning snow from all of the pieces of ice. Cleaning, in general, is a large portion of what we do. Let's just say, the weather forecast in the freezer at the shop has a chance of snow every day of the week!
Once all of the pieces are run and cleaned, we add colored glitter to the topper logo pieces and work on the carved details of the lion arm rests. It's snow laughing matter, carving mirrored lions was a challenge! Having the carved detail for the armrests was a great addition to this particular throne design, for sure.
Once the production process is complete, it's time to pack everything up lovingly in a massive truck, drive through traffic very carefully, and begin the building process!
Starting with a level spot on the ground, we unload the base leg, seat and back blocks into place, measuring meticulously so that everything is centered.
Once the base of the throne is assembled, the challenge really begins: lifting multiple blocks onto each other, making sure each one below it is perfectly level, then slushing (yes, that's a technical term in the ice carving world!) in the seams with very wet snow and water to solidify each fuse. Sounds easy enough, right?
The higher up the layers get, the more challenging lifting the weight of the blocks up onto the next one becomes, and the more critical it is to keep everything level.
Once we were finished stacking the back of the throne pieces, it was time to add the fragile lions as the armrests of the piece.
Once all the pieces were in place, the final step was to slush all of the seams one more time and seal it all with a massive blowtorch. Of course, this can be done with a water hose, which we do in the shop, but a blowtorch is a little more of a show for the people watching, am I right?
Once finished torching, we added the cushion embellishment to finish off the piece. After working with the team on this piece for the last couple weeks, the feeling of seeing it complete was beyond words. While working on the process every step of the way, a project like this is obviously too large to see in its entirety until it's built. These are the moments that I cherish as an ice carver, an artist, a creator, and a member of an awesome team.
Once we were finished, the lion came to check it out too! He gave us a big roar for all of our efforts. An absolutely majestic creature, snow doubt.
After the tree lighting ceremony and the reveal of the throne to the crowd at the zoo, it was time to start the live carving! I will be carving with Nadeau's Ice Sculptures and the rest of their team at the Lincoln Park Zoolights through the holiday season.
For more ice carving updates, check out the updated schedule! New carving dates and events will be added for January and February in the coming weeks.
After enjoying the Zoolights myself, I would encourage everyone to go check it out, walk around and enjoy the lights, and of course stop at the stage by the lion house and check out some live ice carving demos! There's snow better way to celebrate the holidays.
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