Finally (!) winter has come to northern Vermont and snow has been on my mind ever since last weekend’s big powdery dump. It’s hard to concentrate on my work when there’s so much fluff to play in. Needless to say, the “Studio Closed – Gone Skiing” sign was hung on my door for most of last week.
Michelle Aldredge, the creator of art blog Gwarlingo also had snow on her mind last week when she posted an article and photos about Simon Beck’s snow art. I’d never heard of Beck, who lives in Les Arcs, France and was immediately smitten with his work.
According to Gwarlingo, Beck is an Oxford educated, self-employed mapmaker. His gigantic snow drawings, which he stomps out with snowshoes, are the size of three soccer fields and take about two days to complete.
The biggest challenge for Beck (besides getting overly tired) is finding a way to reduce the visibility of his own tracks when he begins and finishes a piece. Sometimes, he might work all day only to have his design covered by fresh snow overnight. At other times, he finishes a design right at sunset and doesn’t have enough light remaining to photograph his work properly.
Beck’s geometric snow designs have a textile quality to them and remind me quilts, snowflakes, solar discs, crop circles and ancient symbols. How DOES he make such perfectly aligned designs on such a large scale? A mapmaker’s sense of place and desire for accuracy must come into play. I wonder if he finds tromping back and forth, and around and around, filling in his patterns meditative? I think I would!
Visit the Gwarlingo site to see more about Beck and images of his work. There are more photos on Simon Beck ‘s facebook page where these pictures came from. Be prepared to lose yourself, as I did, for a bit if you venture there!
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The ephemeral quality of Beck’s work is shown here, a short time before it completely dissolved into the lake.
To see more ephemeral snow art on my blog click here
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