Ice Sculpting

CARVING OUT BRILLIANCE IN THE BERKSHIRES 

By Laura Mars Photos Courtesy of Bill Covitz

Bill Covitz, owner of Ice Matters in Chicopee, is an award-winning, internationally renowned ice sculptor who has been headlining the annual Stockbridge Ice Festival since 2021. Hundreds will flock once again to the front of the Stockbridge Library on Saturday, February 15, where he creates extraordinary ice sculptures, like last year’s ten-foot elephant on its hind legs, balancing books on his upright trunk.

Gingerbread house by Bill Covitz.

“The Stockbridge Ice Festival started as a way to provide outdoor programming during the pandemic,” explains Wendy Pearson, the library’s director, “and it continues to offer something to do after the buzz of the holidays.” 

Pearson knew that Northampton held an Ice Art Festival that included an ice sculpture in front of the Forbes Library. The Forbes director put her in touch with festival organizer and Northampton artist David Barclay, who then connected her to Bill Covitz. 

Covitz, Barclay, and David Rothstein (award-winning snow and sometimes ice sculptor from Northampton) brought their ice sculpting skills to Stockbridge for the first three years. Last year, Covitz and Rothstein were joined by female ice carver Marie Agresta from Manchester, Connecticut.“It was really special to watch the young girls light up and gravitate to watch her create a beautiful sculpture using a chainsaw, some chisels, and an iron,” says Pearson.

“I look for towns like Stockbridge, with great, walkable Main Streets, a bit like my hometown of Ridgefield, Connecticut,” says Covitz. “With three of us carving, we have time to talk to the visitors, show them what we’re doing, play with the kids. It’s really fun.”

The carving process starts with blocks of ice being dropped off on the library’s front lawn, one or more for each sculptor, depending on the design. Pieces take up to several hours to complete and are created using chain saw, assorted chisels, and die grinders. Crowds are mesmerized as they watch the blocks of ice take form.

“It’s not just the kids who are excited to see the ice being carved before their eyes, says Barclay, who likes to sculpt animals. “Adults are also giddy, especially if they watch it being done. They are fascinated by the tools, the clarity of the ice—and the fact that they don’t last very long is also exciting.”

The Stockbridge Ice Festival is officially one day, but visitors come back at night to see the sculptures on backlit platforms. Many return the next day, and often the day after that, to delight in how the carved pieces have melted and changed, disappearing drip by drip. How quickly the designs disappear depends on the weather, sometimes hours, sometimes days.

According to Covitz, a controlled environment, like a wedding or corporate function, sees ice melting a quarter inch an hour. He loves how a sculpture will transform. “If we're doing a sailboat, initially we start a bit thick, but throughout the event, the sail gets thinner and thinner, melting into the perfect sail. It's a constantly changing form of art. A swan, like the sail, gets more beautiful two to three hours in.”

Stockbridge is not the only place in the Berkshires to watch ice transform from bulky block to intricate design to gone. Pittsfield sculptor Peter Vacchina and Ashfield multimedia artist Robert Markey will be carving ice sculptures in Great Barrington during the Holiday Stroll on December 14; on February 14 in Pittsfield, the first day of the city’s 10x10 Upstreet Arts Festival (see page 34 for more winter activities); and Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield during their Big Chill weekend on February 15 and 16.

These artists found their way to the cold side through other creative work. Barclay is a painter and photographer. Markey paints, makes mosaics, and sculpts in marble, wood, and welded steel. Vacchina, a retired high school science teacher, carves in marble. Agresta discovered ice while studying culinary arts. Part of the appeal of working with ice is how quickly the design takes shape—a matter of hours versus days or even months with other materials.

Winged instrument and elk head, by Bill Covitz; giraffes by Northampton artist David Barclay.

Covitz acknowledges that “a lot of artists love to play with the ice” but says that many ice sculptors come from the food industry. That includes him. Before his office was an 18-by-18-square-foot freezer, he was a chef. His work as the grand buffet chef at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, included self-carved ice sculptures among the pâtés and galantines.

“I thought I knew how to carve,” he recalls of his table centerpieces. But in the winter of 1996, while working at a new French restaurant in Newport, Rhode Island, he visited ice carver Steve Rose of Ice Effects in Boston. “I was blown away. I had no idea of what you can do with ice.”

Covitz worked for free with Rose on his days off. When he was offered a full-time position as an ice carver, he traded in his knives and spatulas for a chain saw and chisels. In 1999, Covitz founded Ice Matters, using his connections with chefs and managers of banquet facilities and country clubs to grow his business.

Ice work is not as seasonal as you might think. Generally sculpting for weddings happen in May and June and for country club events in July. August and March are slow, giving way to time for family vacations and equipment maintenance. There’s more wedding work in September and October, and winter is crammed with holiday parties and outdoor winter festivals where he creates all the usual suspects—reindeer, Christmas trees, and pop characters. “I can’t tell you how many Olafs I’ve carved,” he says, referring to the character in the Disney movie Frozen. For most of the year, Covitz makes his own ice—an average of 30 blocks a week—in Clinebell machines, where constant circulation of pure water creates crystal-clear blocks. When the holidays hit, he goes through about 130 blocks a week, buying ice to keep up.

David Barclay stands in front of one of his sculptures in Concord, New Hampshire. Courtesy of David Barclay

Aside from demonstration work—creating sculptures outdoors in front of an audience—Covitz carves in the “office,” an 18-square-foot freezer set at 18 degrees, wearing a full-blown ski suit. Finished pieces are wrapped in plastic, then in a moving blanket, then again in plastic. He delivers them by truck, where they could sit intact for up to three hours. If it’s really hot, he adds dry ice. For large events, he rents freezer trucks. The process is not for the faint of heart. A single raw block weighs 300 pounds and finished sculptures about 175 pounds, usually needing two people to load them into the truck. Sometimes a lift is needed to set the larger sculptures on a venue table.

One of his favorite designs was a praying mantis, for which he placed second in the National Ice Carving Association's Nationals. And if you thought that ice sculptures are just for looking at, think again. His functional pieces include not only extravagant cold food and drink displays, but for 16 years, Covitz was the ice carver for the Ice Music Festival Norway, creating working ice horns, marimbas, cellos, and more. He also has carved ice instruments for musicians in Greenland, Finland, Italy, Canada, and the Kennedy Center.

On Saturday, February 15, watch Covitz and crew at work on the front lawn of the Stockbridge Library, 46 Main St. Dress warm, come early, and stay late to see

the transformation.