Thursday, March 19, 2015
Watch Massive Snow Murals Come to Life
The Creators Project: Simon Beck's massive snow murals are astounding on their own, but watching them come to life is even better. Ever since he carved his first piece in North America (a geometric clover in Utah's Powder Mountains), the muralist has been immersed in the Canadian Rockies with his spartan signature tools: a compass, a map drawing, and a pair of snowshoes. For #ProjectSnow, his cold creations come to life in the mountains of Banff National Park, transformed into a gorgeous timelapse that even features the creation of his largest piece, a near-1,500 foot wide snowflake.
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I am amazed by his talent and dedication. I can follow a compass on a map to a spot, but there is no way that I could follow those patterns just on dead reckoning. The shot of the geometric snowflake in Banff national park is really gorgeous, and should be appreciated in its own right. In the opening shot of the time lapse movie of his work, it shows a craggy peak sticking up above Banff national park. That is Mt. Babel and it far more imposing than the video suggests. I stayed in a hike in lodge in the valley below that mountain for several days and had to stay in a snow cave with my family on the other side of the ridge from the lake where he made the geometric clover. The landscape there was one of the most awe inspiring things I have seen, and even without the drive to create a work of art, I can sympathize with wanting to be out there.
This is an amazing style of art that is very different from the typical mural. That takes a lot of planning out and finding the perfect place to create it. Any art with nature is very tricky because nature is constantly changing so there is a chance your piece will get destroyed in the middle of creating it or right after you finish. It could easily snow and get completely covered up and all of the work would have gone to waste. They are also in locations that probably do not get a lot of visitors so it would not be a piece for the public to go to and appreciate. I am sure the artist is not creating these masterpieces for other people, but he is creating them for himself and his own pleasure. I love the time lapse and watching him do all of that work walking back and forth in a very specific pattern. I wish this type of art was more popular and show to the public more through social media and the internet.
I love this. The exactness with which he plots out his drawings is incredible. My favorite part, I think, is the white circle surrounding the wolf that was shown in the beginning of the video. First, how the heck did he make it so perfectly circular? Even trekking around with a compass, it would be really hard, especially when every footstep counts towards making something perfect. The near geometric perfection of his footsteps arrayed out like that is a very interesting effect, and looked amazing from the time lapse video above. I agree with Chris in that I don’t think he is doing this for anyone else- being out in this beautiful landscape and creating artwork with only his footsteps in the snow is something he must enjoy doing for himself. There is something incredible about being outside and adding something of this scale to the landscape, a landscape that still dwarfs the work he has been doing.
These giant snow murals are truly amazing. The sheer amount of planning and problem solving that must have gone into the creation of this endeavor is astounding. In the video we get a glimpse of such preparation for a second seeing all of the coordinates the artist had to hit to create the greater image in the snow. What’s even more amazing to consider is that this process must have been extremely well planned. Not only did the location of the shot of the large mural had to be scouted, but the image drawn in the field had to be plotted out with distances, the lines had to be accounted for so that he retraced his steps to avoid creating unnecessary marks, there had to be fresh untouched snow, and the weather forecast had to be right so that a snowstorm or rain wouldn’t destroy the mural right away. On top of all that planning I’m sure it was no easy feat trudging through the snow to create these images, somehow making sure you’re staying true to the lines without being able to see the larger image, and taking the time to actually create the mural alone (as we see in the video a significant amount of time passes from start to finish). This was no doubt no easy task, but the murals are truly fantastical images that add to the beautiful environments around them.
Using a compass, a map drawing, and a pair of snowshoes. I wonder if that guy was in Boy Scouts when he was younger. To do what he does takes plenty of time and dedication to do it right. The only way you would be able to redo is if you ended up I guess finding a different patch of snow. Once you mess up snow, it’s hard to make it the way it was before. The size of the projects he works on definitely put your orienteering skills to the test. I wish the page would have said how long it took him to complete one of these designs. As seeing that the largest one he’s done has been the snowflake that is shown, to get it right takes the right kind of thinking. Seeing the time lapse, helps give some sense of time, but nothing I’m sure than to do it, and then walk to the top of the hill, and view it from above.
In addition to these pieces just being staggeringly beautiful within themselves, they are also a fascinating contemplation of the play between big picture and detail in a work of art. Increasing the scale of the "canvas" forces the artist to only work in detail. They cannot construct large swaths of a project this size. But in a way, I imagine this would - perhaps counterintuitively - force the artist to be more meticulous. Though some might be tempted to write off mistakes, assuming they would be lost in such a large art piece, being forced to work on such a magnified scale brings detail work to the level of attention that the big picture is often on.
Though the calculations, and efforts required to generate these works of art is amazing, it is refreshing to simply appreciate something for its daring size, and to appreciate the artist's ability to thing even bigger than the bigger picture.
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