McCarthy Snow and Ice Sculptor Paul Hanis: Best In Snow
Paul Hanis sculpting snow. Photo courtesy of Paul Hanis
Michelle McAfee - CRR Staff
Paul Hanis was house-sitting for a friend in January 2004 when a snow plow berm in the driveway caught his attention. He found a spade shovel, walked down the driveway, and began chiseling chunks of snow from the dense mass. A neighbor walked by and took an interest in what Hanis was carving from the snow bank, then suggested Hanis sign up for the snow sculpture contest in the Fur Rondy Festival.
Hanis signed up for the solo division and carved a block in the competition that year. Within two weeks of first touching a snow carving tool to frozen water, Hanis was carving at the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks. Fast-forward to this winter: Hanis won 1st Place at the 2022 Fur Rondy Alaska State Snow Sculpting Championships and was selected as a Pro Carver for the Disney+ TV show, Best In Snow.
Hanis grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and is a sculptor by degree with a bachelor’s in fine arts and a sculpture emphasis. Hanis wanted to move to Alaska to experience wilderness, and he found exactly that when he came to McCarthy twenty years ago. “I became a climbing bum for at least a good solid decade (in) the KWG (Kennicott Wilderness Guides) days,” said Hanis.
Unable to afford tools or a studio set-up for wood and steel sculpture, snow and ice sculpting allowed Hanis to practice his art form. Hanis said, “It’s a small tool kit for that. I could do art and alpine climb in the winter, then spend the summer roaming around the Wrangells.”
Ice and snow sculpting have similarities but are quite different in density, the tools used, and what can be created from the raw material. Hanis said the biggest difference between working with ice and snow is that ice bends and reflects light, so you are a light sculptor with ice. Snow is more opaque and all about the shadows, creating the illusion of depth with shadows - with snow, you are a shadow sculptor.
Hand scene snow sculpture. Photo courtesy of Paul Hanis
Ice is stronger, so artists can carve finer details, suspend parts of the design in space, or create thinner objects than is possible with snow. “It’s pretty incredible what people up in Fairbanks do with suspending weight in the air - thousands of pounds of ice,” said Hanis.
Snow is carved from larger blocks, so the scale is also very different. Hanis said the scale of snow carving is what really grabbed him, how big you can make a design in a weekend. “You can make something the size of a garage,” he said. It would take months to finish a design that size with wood or steel sculpting.
When Hanis and other artists compete at Nationals, they show up prepared with very refined designs. The events are timed, and they don’t want to waste it “whittling,” as Hanis says. The last few years Hanis competed, he showed up with a fully built clay model of precisely what he wanted to make onsite during the competition.
“It comes down to knowing where your cuts are going to be and having the correct tool for the job,” said Hanis. He made his very first snow sculpture with a spade shovel and a Simpson tie duct taped to his car’s ice scraper to create a rasp. “The snow tools are handmade. There are no power tools in snow sculpture. That was all I had for that first design, and I made a giant pile of forget-me-not flowers. I’ve learned that there are way faster ways to do that now,” said Hanis, who laughed remembering the basic tools he first used to carve.
Moth scene snow sculpture. Photo courtesy of Paul Hanis
The art form features a lot of custom and specialty tools that cost quite a bit of money. Other tools the pros use are made in a garage in half an hour. Hanis said that’s part of the fun, meeting top talent from all over the country and seeing what other people use and how they use it. The tools and techniques are a “scene” with ice and snow sculpting.
The national competitions offer no prize money. Hanis said, “We do not do this for the money. I have lost tens of thousands of dollars from snow and ice sculpting, between missed work, buying tools, and travel expenditures.” A light-hearted laugh erupts after he is asked, “Why do carvers do it?”
Hanis replied, “We don’t know why we do it, but we sure love it!”
Hanis competed in national competitions in Fairbanks for seven consecutive years, from 2004-2010, and said there is quite an international scene. China, Russia, and Japan reliably produce “top-notch” snow and ice sculptors for international competitions. Hanis said that is the big leagues - when you’re retired and can afford to travel more. Sometimes, the competitions do cover travel expenses, as well as lodging and meals while at the event.
Abstract snow sculpture by Paul Hanis. Photo courtesy of Paul Hanis
In January 2020, Hanis competed again at Nationals back when Covid was becoming a headline. An associate producer for one of Disney’s production companies was talent scouting and approached Hanis, and a few other artists, inviting him to participate in a Disney+ television show called Best In Snow.
The show was delayed due to the pandemic, but finally, last winter, Hanis flew to Keystone, Colorado, where the TV show was filmed over a 4-5 day period. The show’s premise was to place people who had never carved snow into teams for a timed competitive event. Hanis was chosen as one of the Pro Carvers, or team leaders, and was placed on the Red Team.
Teams were given four days to carve a ten-foot cube of snow. Hanis and the other lead Pro Carvers were there as mentors to guide the team members, showing them what to do and what not to do. The goal of the television show, said Hanis, was to make snow sculpting relatable to regular people.
One of the bigger challenges for the team players was the subtractive method. With snow carving, the design starts as a giant block, and the carvers remove material until the piece is finished. Hanis says that is a very different approach than what he does in his shop with steel, for example, making a sculpture by cutting tiny pieces and then artfully combining those pieces into a larger sculpture. That, he said, is additive work.
“The first cut is always the hardest,” said Hanis, when standing back looking at a big block of snow, thinking how it’s going to become something. Hanis pushed his team members to really get elbow-deep into the material and not to be afraid to remove large chunks of snow.
Best In Snow promotional poster. Photo/Poster courtesy of Disney +
Hanis started laughing - it was contagious, “They easily learned how hard the work is. It’s a workout, man! All upper body, shoulders, and back. The tools are heavy and take effort, like moving the saw back and forth. They learned pretty quick how hard it is.” The laugh of this seasoned snow sculpting artist trailed off then he paused and said, “I’m just an artist. Just doing my thing. It’s always been a labor of love, totally just for fun. I never thought it would fly me all over the way it is now. It’s pretty cool.”
The smile on his face beams across the wires and is audible. Hanis then said, on the edge of more laughter bubbling up, that he needs to try sand sculpture so he can go somewhere warm one of these days. don’t know what the h--- I’m doing wrong. Florida has a snow sculpture team. They are all sand sculptors, but they fly to Wisconsin to carve snow once a year!” He lets fly another hilarious belly laugh.
Hanis said he has a studio set up for the first time and invested in some good cameras so he’ll have better images of his work, which is impermanent. He rarely visits a site when he’s finished with his sculptures because he’s sick of the place after working night after night with no sleep during a timed event. He just takes pictures and walks away.
The true joy of art is in the process of making the art, not the final product. Hanis considers it full-on performance art because people are there watching him make the sculptures live while he interacts with the public.
Hanis’s long-term goal is to sculpt full-time, so he’s going for it this year and putting everything he has into his new studio and working on his art. Hanis said, “There is never a perfect time, right? Sometimes you just have to make the move and hope you’ve got enough lift to get off the runway.”
Learn more about Paul Hanis at: http://www.paulhanis.com
Paul Hanis at a snow sculpting event. Photo courtesy of Paul Hanis