Despite unusually warm weather earlier in the term, little student help and a scarcity of snow to work with, this year's Winter Carnival sculpture is nearing completion, sculpture committee members said.
The sculpture, patterned after this year's Carnival theme of "'Round the Girdled Earth They Roamed: A Prehistoric Carnival," is a stegosaurus standing atop a large block of ice.
"We finished the base on Friday -- the animal is now ready to be slushed," Sculpture Committee Chair Sara Paisner '96 said.
Slushing refers to the act of applying a snow and water mix to the burlap sacks surrounding the wooden frame of the stegosaurus.
Paisner said rain and warm weather, neither of which is conducive to building a snow sculpture, are the main reasons so few people have volunteered to help with construction.
For the last few weeks, it has been either pouring or 50 degrees which has discouraged potential sculptors from joining the cause, Paisner said.
"When there is no snow on the ground people don't get psyched for Carnival," she said.
"Of course, more people work as Carnival gets closer," Beth Bloodgood '96, the sculpture publicity chair, said.
"The last week everyone is like, 'Oh, we want a sculpture this year," she said.
Paisner agreed the number of people willing to help with the construction has increased over the past few days -- including 15 volunteers on Friday and 10 to 12 yesterday. "There has definitely been an increase," she said.
"Basically what we need now is people. If we have people it will get done," Paisner said.
Earlier in the term, warm weather melted away workers' progress and forced the sculpture committee to "import" snow.
Last week, a local construction company brought snow by the truckload from the Campion Ice Rink in Hanover, and more reinforcements arrived just yesterday. The snow was taken from piles of excess ice shavings removed from the rink's grooming equipment.
"We may have more snow imported, since the storms missed us this weekend," Paisner said.Sculpture Designer Chris Carbone '97 said workers can complete the entire sculpture using only artificial snow -- if enough people volunteer to help.
Paisner said the artificial snow is dirtier, icier and harder to work with than natural snow, but it will have to suffice.
Sculpture committee members remained optimistic about the sculpture's fate.
"We will go on no matter what, and it will be done" before Carnival, Paisner said.
Bloodgood said she thinks the project will be completed on schedule, because a number of campus organizations plan to work together on the sculpture.
Undergraduate Advisors "are getting their students out there," Bloodgood said.
"Also, [Dean of the College Lee] Pelton should be helping out on Feb. 6, which is senior work day." Bloodgood said.
Whatever headway the sculptors make in the next few days will probably be preserved, since temperatures for the rest of the week are expected to be well below freezing.
"I don't see a very high possibility for an above freezing day before Carnival," said Joel Burgio, a meteorologist at the Weather Services Corporation -- a private forecasting corporation in Lexington, Mass.
But this cold weather still does not mean the sculptors will receive any much-needed snow. In fact, despite "several chances for snow in the next couple of days," Burgio said he is not optimistic about the chance of significant accumulation.
"Snow is not the issue, labor is," Carbone said.
Assorted problems have afflicted the snow sculpture in past years as well.
The 1993 sculpture of a penguin reclining in a beach chair was only 12-feet tall due to lack of labor, frozen water pipes and warm weather.
Lack of student involvement also plagued last year's statue of a wolf howling at the moon, said Patricia Bankowski '95, chair of last year's sculpture committee.
Sculpture committee members will be working Monday and Tuesday from 1 p.m. until 9 p.m. and Wednesday until the sculpture is finished.
"Everyone is encouraged to work," Paisner said.
