Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/504804
LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5.15 49 What's one thing Louisvillians have to do in New York? Go immerse yourself in a production of "Sleep No More" for a night. Brush up on Macbeth, research which characters to follow, and open fully to spontaneity. You'll never forget it. And stay out of Times Square. How did you get into carving ice sculptures? I had worked with stone and clay and started to see how anything and everything could be used as a material. My apartment in Louisville was across the street from Grocer's Ice Co. downtown. One day, they threw these giant blocks of ice onto the sidewalk. I got a hand truck and took it down to my studio and started messing around with it using a chainsaw. I started doing these installations Year moved to New York : 2008 Profession: Ice sculptor, Okamoto Studio. A few memorable clients and projects: Carved sculptures for three episodes of the TV show Iron Chef; carved the word "LOVE" in ice at Madison Square Garden for Ringo Starr's 70th birthday; carved at 2013's Super Bowl ; carved a new Buddha sculpture daily for a Chinese restaurant; created a 21-foot dragon with L.E.D. lights and dry ice inside. with ice and then doing live carving events at gallery openings. Eventually, I started getting invited to do cool events like benefits at Actors Theatre, Slugger Field and weddings. Why did you decide to move to New York? I needed a mentor. I found this Japanese ice- carving mentor in New York and knew I wanted to work for him. What's a normal day like for you? I bike eight miles from my apartment in Brooklyn over to Queens. When I get to the studio, we talk about the designs we have to carve that day. Sometimes we warm up the ice and cut it into little sections and begin to join them. We try to get all that stuff done before lunch. Then we have a nice long lunch, family-style, every day. And then we just blast out ice sculptures the rest of the day — sometimes till as late as 8 or 9. Do you miss Louisville? I miss seeing friends more often. Everyone gets so caught up in their lives here. I miss the wide open spaces. If I went home, I'd go to the woods and stomp in a creek for a while! We have great parks here, but you can't get very close, you know? Everything's fenced off. I miss getting mud on me. I miss the cheap rent! The rent for a garage studio space here can be like 10 grand a month! The overhead, the insurance — it's hard.