BUTTE - It took more than 8,000 pounds of ice and an entire sleepless night for a Butte artist to create an ice sculpture in front of the Butte Plaza Mall.
“Yeah, I don’t know, we’re so tired, we carved at Snoflinga and we carved here, so we’re 24 hours straight carving,” said Corey Gransbery.
Corey and his wife Lisa, who run Absolute Zero Ice Designs in Butte, were hired by the Montana Conservation Voters to build the sculpture that depicts Butte’s East Ridge and some historic buildings.
“It’ll be lit up tonight, we’ve got solar lights that will light everything up,” said Gransbery.
The sculpture consists of about 27 blocks of ice that weigh about 300 pounds each. They started it Friday evening and completed it by noon the following day. They had plenty of help getting the job done.
“Duane got us a bunch of cokes from McDonald's. Lisa had Red Bulls stocked up,” he said.
Corey has been making ice sculptures for more than a decade, but this one is definitely his largest and most challenging project to date.
“We had a lot of rough moments. We should have been done already, but things happen, man, you just adapt and overcome. What are you going to do,” said Gransbery.
The sculpture is still standing in front of the mall off Harrison Avenue.
