What do head football coach Curt Cignetti, a cat on a ball of yarn and a piece of watermelon have in common?
They are all ice sculptures on display at Bloomington’s fifth annual Freezefest, a three-day event featuring live ice carvings, a “Chilly Cook-Off" and plenty of family-friendly fun.
The winter festivities concluded Saturday on North Madison Street with Family Fun Day, featuring free ice cream from The Chocolate Moose, a kid’s ice slide and games including pickleball and checkers made of ice.
Before noon, the street was bustling with people admiring the boulevard of ice sculptures. Children raced up the hill for a chance to glide down the ice slide while families posed for photos next to ice sculptures depicting well known IU locations like Sample Gates to more arbitrary designs like a throne and a swan.
Jordan Smith, leisure marketing manager of Visit Bloomington, began planning Freezefest last fall.
“Family Fun Day is of course the big grand finale all day Saturday,” Smith said. “We truly wanted to make it for everybody, not anything specific to a certain age group.”
Attendee Emily McMurray-Walsh, who visited Freezefest with her family, said that they have frequented the event in recent years
“I love free community events,” she said. “I like seeing all the different sculptures and what people do artistically with them.”
For attendees wishing to get out of the cold, The Mill offered a heated escape with free cookies to decorate and a coloring contest. Dozens of coloring pages were displayed on the back wall, each depicting a wintery scene of cheerful snowmen, alongside a screen listing the 25 winners of the contest.
A booth downstairs featured a prize wheel from Family Success Martial Arts, who were promoting their business at a pop-up table in The Mill. The prize wheel offered two available prizes: two weeks or a full month of free karate lessons.
Upstairs, a long line of children and parents awaited free ice cream while another line waited to order hotdogs from the Orbit Room, which had set up shop inside The Mill. More food was available outside from food trucks Slop Shop and Pili’s Party Taco.
Also outside was ice carver Dean DeMarais, who began his ice carving career in 1988.
“I was studying to be a chef, and we did this one day in class, and I never looked back,” he said. “I work out of Dallas, Texas. I have a full-time business there, where I do parties, banquets, events and weddings.”
Every few minutes, DeMarais would take a step away from the ice and bob his head to the music playing in his bright green earbuds: songs from Rihanna and the Pitch Perfect soundtrack.
As DeMarais began to cut into the block of ice, a crowd quickly formed around him. Attendees stopped in their tracks to record him as he worked, whispering in awe.
“What could he possibly be making?” an onlooker said.
The crowd’s guesses ranged from an ocean wave to a dinosaur, and within minutes, nearly 100 people surrounded DeMarais and his nearly 6-foot-tall ice block. The finished product, an abstract shape, left the crowd confused. While he shook the snow off his coat, a little girl approached DeMarais and asked what he made.
“It’s art for the sake of art,” he said. “Something you can look at and hopefully appreciate.”
