With Chainsaws And Chisels, Locals Create Art In Ice Festival
VALLEY COTTAGE, N.Y. (WCBS 880) – They may wield chainsaws, but it's not what you think.
Instead they create beauty, and in the Knickerbocker Ice Festival you'll find just about anything.
"It's an art that's here one day and gone the next. The light shines through the ice and acts like a prism. So you get a lot of different colors, which is a good thing but also a bad thing because the sun does the number one damage to the ice," said John Hebabney, who created a half-mermaid-half-octopus work of art.
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The festival at Rockland Lake features five ice sculptors transforming 300-pound blocks of ice into temporary works of art.
Tim Englert with the Palisades Park Commission said the festival pays homage when ice harvested from Rockland Lake was shipped around the world.
"Barges would take them down to Manhattan and then they'd distribute it to cruise liners, or the meat making industry, or the Waldorf Hotel," Englert said.
The two-day celebration runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day and features igloos, art, hot cocoa and a bon fire.
