ice sculptures as unique as New Orleans
ice sculptures as unique as New Orleans
all the basics about ice dragon ice sculptures, via a lot of Ws and a couple Hs.
ice dragon ice sculptures offers the finest quality ice sculptures for New Orleans and Baton Rouge as well as throughout much of the Gulf South (and sometimes beyond!). Take a look at our service area for more details on where we can typically deliver our ice art for your special event. But if you have a question about a special event someplace else, don’t hesitate to contact us!
And yes, I know that EVERYBODY (almost, anyway) says they have the best ice sculptures around. I mean, are you really going to be interested in a company that brags that they offer the 3rd best ice sculptures in town?! 🤣
However, that’s why we’ll soon have a page that explains why we REALLY have the most experience and offer the finest ice sculptures you can get, at least in this area. That’s why we’ve been called upon to create our ice art for everything from Super Bowls to supermodels! If artistry, quality, technical capabilities, and experience are things that matter to you, check back here soon for more. And if those things don’t matter to you, then grab some darts and a blindfold and chose your ice sculptor that way 😉
For a while, we were based both in New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama. Since the pandemic, however, we’ve been making ice sculptures just in the New Orleans metro area. Like most event vendors, we had to refocus during the pandemic and figure out how to make it to the other side.
But just because we’re more NOLA focused now, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get an ice dragon ice sculpture at your event somewhere else. Baton Rouge is our second most important service area, but we go to Jackson, MS and out into the Florida panhandle too! Check out our service area for more specifics. However, even if you need ice art outside of our service area, it doesn’t hurt to ask! We went all the way to Savannah, GA recently and we’ve been to Texas many times.
Most ice dragon ice sculptures are created by Dawson List. (That’s me!) Thus, I am the primary sculpture designer and ice sculptor for ice dragon ice. Some of them I sculpt by hand and some of them I design to be run on specialized CNC machines that are just for carving ice. Our in-house CNC machine is fantastic for precisely engraving logos and detailed wedding monograms.
As for achievements, I am a gold medal ice sculptor (NICA and ACF) and very nearly a World Champion! (SO close!) Ice sculpting has taken me all over the U.S. and I’ve travelled as far away as Europe, Asia, Alaska, and the Caribbean to create frosty ice art. Because of these experiences, I’ve learned a lot from other ice sculptors throughout the country and around the world!
Typically, at least once a year, I go someplace well outside of New Orleans to work on ice art. I’ve worked as a professional ice sculptor for more than 20 years and competed at five national championships (finishing as high as 4th). As for world championships, I’ve competed in four (finishing as high as 2nd & 6th in team events). And in 2002, I sculpted at the Olympic ice carving competition held in conjunction with the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
For other special projects, we created the world’s longest ice bar (in Alaska), the world’s tallest ice luge (2x, in Alaska and in Boston). I also made giant ice sculpture (9′ tall) of Drew Brees following the Saints Super Bowl win!
Finally, to give you another perspective on my skill level in the ice sculpting world, I’ve been called on to judge ice sculpting competitions, most notably at international events in China (3x) and Canada. I’ve also created what’s almost certainly the world’s largest website on ice sculpting: ice sculpting secrets. And actually, for more on what it’s like to be an ice sculptor, take a look at this post on that site.
Over the years, ice sculptors, chefs, and event planners have come up with an astonishing variety of ways to use ice sculptures at your special event. Examples include a variety of food and drink related favorites such as buffet ice sculptures, ice vases, seafood displays, and ice luges. Then there are ice designs that take food and drink service to a higher level, like ice bars, sorbet servers, and shrimp luges.
In recent years, ice has been moving further and further away from the food and drink and out into the rest of the event space. Ice curtains, ice furniture, ice pool tables, and ice bongs 😱 are just a few examples of more exotic ice sculptures. Take a look at our galleries for even more ideas!
At ice dragon ice, we specialize in several kinds of ice sculpture designs that you might have a tough time finding just about anywhere else. To start with, the locally available fresh seafood provides lots of opportunities to create shrimp luges for special events. Another one of our specialties is the ice portrait, which can be a rather difficult type of ice sculpture to pull off.
Also, we could be considered world authorities on both ice luges and ice bars. That’s because we’ve helped set world records for both of these types of ice art. Finally, we’ve also tried a few borderline crazy things with ice art: how about combining ice and neon? We only got shocked ⚡️ a little. And just a few times 😱
Ice sculpting techniques and technology are quickly advancing as ice artists adapt computer aided machinery to carving ice. More and more often, our logo and graphic sculptures, as well as many ice serving pieces, are carved on some of the most modern CNC ice machinery available. This sophisticated equipment enables multiple color effects and high precision graphics and sizing that cannot be efficiently or affordably carved by hand.
We combine this forward looking technology with decades of ice sculpting expertise. Thus, many of our sculptures end up a combination of machine precision and hand-sculpted detailing. Accordingly, we strive to take the best of both to create the best ice sculptures for your event. Right now, our galleries are a mix of hand sculpted and machined ice sculptures. See if you can figure out which is which!
To see how we made a recent ice luge for an LSU tailgate party, check out the video below! (It says ice sculpting secrets, but it’s also ice dragon ice.)
Well, the easy answer to this is: WHENEVER YOU WANT! (Subject to our availability, of course.) But we do ice sculptures for weddings, birthday parties, baby showers, corporate events, kickball parties 😯, holiday events, live demonstrations, product launches, photo ops, news segments, winter festivals, movie scenes, liquor promotions, memorial celebrations, reality tv shows, grand openings, proms…ok, I’m starting to run out of things that I can easily think of. But there are a lot more!
Just ask! Contact us and we can discuss your ice sculpture or answer your questions about what we do!
crafted at 19˚F
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