Wyoming Arts Council

WAC fellowship judge tackles ice sculpture


As noted yesterday in a wyomingarts post, Denver artist and sculptor Lawrence Argent has agreed to serve as one of the judges for the 2009 Wyoming Arts Council’s visual arts fellowships. Argent has a new project (shown in drawing above), as reported in a Denver Post article by Claire Martin:

Colorado sculptor Lawrence Argent’s latest project is far more ephemeral than “I See What You Mean,” his installation of the big blue bear peering into the Denver Convention Center.

Argent and ice sculptor Scott Rella are finalizing plans to begin constructing “Conduit” on Jan. 12, where it will stand on the Gore Creek Promenade as part of Vail’s upcoming Winterfest.

“Conduit” will be a spiral shaped from blocks of ice and illuminated with energy-efficient LED lights. A seashell will cling to the whorl inside the spiral’s summit.

The midwinter seashell “might otherwise seem out of context,” Argent acknowledges.

It’s meant to invoke the ancient shallow sea that flooded a prehistoric, flat Colorado. In Vail’s neighbor, Minturn, evidence of that seaway remains in the fossil sea life embedded in the Minturn Foundation geological layer.

“What’s interesting is that when you go for hikes around Minturn, people always are finding fossils and things,” Argent said. He has not found one of those fossils, but his son, a dinosaur enthusiast, has.


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