Sculpting Creations

When you drive past the Gibraltar High School this winter, you will see snow carvings that represent the creativity of the students and teachers at Gibraltar. This week, Gibraltar is being exposed to new sources of creativity that they may not see in the students ordinary life and snow sculpting is an example of that.

Sam Kordon (sitting), Carl Witteborg (left), Austin Bauldry (back), and Brandon Vanderlinden (not in photo) created a chair in an Exposure to Creativity workshop at Gibraltar.

There were a lot of people signed up for this session. The majority said they picked the sculpture session because either it seemed fun to make things out of snow or they enjoy working with their hands. A lot of the students said that they enjoyed the workshop but it was really cold outside and wish they would have been more prepared.

Austin Kissel and Josh Leonard had started sculpting their block of snow imagining a Lombardi Trophy as their outcome, but when they realized how difficult the base was to make with all the weight on top, they switched to sculpting a snake with the head on top and coils underneath. Sam Kordon said the hardest part of sculpting the snow was, “The fact that we don’t have a bigger shovel.”

Teachers are also involved in these workshops. Craig Carriere, the new science teacher that replaced Mrs. Mann, was the only teacher signed up for this workshop. He and another student sculpted a frog from their block. Carriere said when asked why he chose this that he enjoyed being outdoors and loved working with his hands. He had no prior experience of sculpting but was happy he had this opportunity.

Jeff Olsen was the instructor of this workshop and he explained what the idea of the workshop was. He said that he was trying to get the students to sculpt animals but he let them sculpt whatever they had in mind. Some examples of sculptures are a chair, snake, obelisk, and one pair of students made SpongeBob Square pants.

This shows instructor Jeff Olsen helping Craig Carriere and Robert Volpe on their Frog at Gibraltar’s Exposure to Creativity workshop.

Overall, these workshops helped give students different ideas and activities that on their normal day they wouldn’t experience.