(La Porte, IN) - The annual Winterfest festival in La Porte kicked off on Friday with blocks of ice being professionally carved into sculptures resembling a horse, dog, and harp, among various other subjects.

 

People watching the sculptors at Plaza 618 at Lincolnway and Monroe Street appeared fascinated by their ability to create such life-like images out of ice in one hour or less.

 

“It’s beautiful stuff. We really like it,” said Jerry Blastick, who comes to watch the ice carvers every year during Winterfest. The LaPorte man brought his nine-year-old grandson, Lukas, to the downtown location after picking him up from school in Westville.

 

Corinne Vanderstar, 13, came from Valparaiso with her brother, Jonathan, 16, and other siblings, and found it interesting to watch sculptors, using power and hand tools like hoe an artist with a brush creates a painting.

 

“They’re incredible,” she said.

 

Her favorite out of the dozen sculptures was one in the visage of a cardinal.

 

Dennis Kalso showed up with his seven-year-old grandson, Miles, after class was dismissed for the day at Indian Trail Elementary School in LaPorte.

 

“They’re cool!” shouted Miles, standing beside a dragon figure made from ice by sculptor Alfredo Arroyo of LaPorte.

 

Arroyo, 84, has been sculptor for 60 years and was previously an executive chef at a hotel when he started making exotic ice figures to display at the buffet for guests.  He said the secret to being a professional ice carver is the ability to see in the ice what you want to create and executing the cuts in a manner that brings that vision into reality.

 

“You have to have an eye for it,” he said.

 

Arroyo was working on the image of a Lion’s head when he decided not to complete it, because of the challenges posed by temperatures in the upper 30s.  Melting ice becomes soft and breaks more easily, making it harder to make thin cuts in the ice so as to bring out more detail in the figures.

 

The weather was also a factor in the cancellation of Friday’s free ice skating and Saturday’s ice fishing derby on Pine Lake as a part of the event.

 

LaPorte Park Department Superintendent Mark Schreiber said ice on the city’s refrigerated rink at Lincolnway and Monroe Street melted because of overnight rainfall, with the refrigeration underneath the ice unable to stop the melt as a result of the rain pooling on top of the surface.

 

“When it comes to ice, it’s the rain that does all of the damage,” he said.

 

The hope is to blanket the rink with new ice, so as to have free skating on Saturday and Sunday as originally scheduled.

 

Schreiber said the roughly six inches of hard ice on Pine Lake was ruled too unstable because of the rain and milder weather the past several days.  The heavy lake effect snowfall melt also contributed to the very slushy conditions on top.

 

Other Winterfest activities expected to go on as schedule include a co-ed softball tournament in the elements Saturday at Lions Field and bicycle ride beginning at Cummings Lodge on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

 

Sunday events include free horse drawn wagon rides at Cummings Lodge from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.