Iowa ice sculpting: Ron Dillavou has been sculpting ice for 25 years

When I finally caught up with Ron Dillavou last Saturday, he was busy in a roped-off open shed in Amana with a masked crowd intent upon his work.

A chef by day at a Cedar Falls Hy-Vee, this Waterloo artist moonlights creating intricate ice sculptures for weddings, corporate dinners, casino events and winter festivals.

He was in Amana to demonstrate his skills for Winterfest there. Bundled, COVID-weary families passed by his booth and watched him slowly free a wild goose in full flight from a 300-pound block of ice.

It's hard to tell with masks on, but it's easy to imagine they were enraptured by the process.

"It's an outlet for my artistic abilities," said Ron, who was trained in the art by other chefs and has been carving ice for 25 years now. "If I ever get too old, I’ll still play with it."

This weekend, Ron is sculpting wild animals for display at the Beat the Bitter winter festival in North Liberty. He's been thrilled to get a couple of carving jobs again after months of inactivity during the pandemic, which he said reduced his normal carving revenue for this period from $15,000 down to about $1,000.

Ice carving is tricky and requires some investment. He usually charges about $350 per sculpture.

When he began to get into ice sculpting outside of his usual job as a chef, about 15 years ago, he purchased a special Clinebell brand ice machine, which can make two large blocks of ice at once, measuring 40 inches tall, 20 inches wide and a foot thick. That's the industry standard, although for elaborate ice art requests, more than one block might be needed.

The machine resembles a large chest freezer, but by freezing from the bottom with coils and using reverse osmosis water with a pump, it can produce a perfectly clear block of ice. Like Michelangelo and his pure white Carrara marble, an artist wants good material.

"If it's a good block, you can stand behind it and I can see your face," says Ron. His ice maker also allows some creativity in that he can embed an article — like a rose or a beer bottle — into the ice for effect.

When the heavy block is solid, he winches it from the machine, then uses a special tilt cart and dolly to load it into his van to take to the carving site. If he carves at home for a wedding, he has a special storage freezer to keep the finished sculpture intact, then hauls it to the reception covered in a large insulated bag.

When carving, Ron often works from a photo or three-dimensional model, sometimes posing them a different way to keep things fresh, or other times drawing from his own imagination. He roughs out the design with a chain saw and works his way down to more intricate equipment like power grinders, sanders and eventually Dremel-style tools with different bits.

He'll carve whatever the customer wants. The North Liberty festival will feature animal ice sculptures such as a polar bear, penguin, otter, owl, bobcat, fox, reindeer and wolf. Ron enjoys creatively lighting some of his sculptures for night viewing, too.

At the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, he's carved a three-block grand piano, guitars and logos for its famed annual Winter Dance Party. This year, COVID canceled the February tribute to Buddy Holly's last concert before his ill-fated flight.

Ron has carved in competition at the St. Paul Winter Carnival in Minnesota in the past, as well, creating works such as a firefighter, a grandfather clock and a pencil piercing an apple.

"At St. Paul one year, it got into the 40-degrees range and it was a real mess," he said. "Pieces were falling apart."

Repair is tricky if a block melts or splits or a key section drops off your sculpture.

"With the fireman, I went to turn the ice block and both legs fell off," he said. "You can add water and refreeze if it's cold enough outside. I managed to save it."

He says sometimes ice sculpture emergency repair involves the use of a chemical spray popular with restaurants to freeze bubble gum kids stick under the tables so it can be hardened and chiseled off.

Meskwaki Casino has been another good customer, sometimes requiring as many as six ice sculptures from Ron for special New Year's Eve events in the past. "I'm sure they will be doing this again down the road," he said.

Ice art has a short lifespan, unlike the chainsaw wood carving he also enjoys. But it doesn't bother him to see his work disappear.

"The sun is the enemy of ice sculpture," he said with a grin. "But I don't mind losing it — you can always recreate it. But I do really enjoy wood carving because it lasts."

Part of the thrill of chainsaw art, he adds, is that you are often performing for a crowd.

"It's fun for me to watch kids come up and try to guess what I’m making," he said. "And it's interesting because, usually, it's the kids who figure it out before the adults."

Ron Dillavou calls his artistic endeavors Chain Reaction Carvings and his website is CRCarvings.com.

Ron Dillavou of Waterloo is one of three ice carvers scheduled to create three animal sculptures each for North Liberty's annual Beat the Bitter winter festival, which kicks off this weekend. The other two sculptors are Matt Meadows and Rob Storm from the Quad Cities area.

If you want to see them carving ice, show up masked at Penn Meadows park Saturday morning, where a special "Sculpture Walk" will be set up on the trail between the play structure and tennis courts. The art will be lighted for night viewing and on display all weekend, including prior to the winter fireworks at the park at 7 p.m. Sunday.

In according with Johnson County's mandate, attendees should wear a face mask while in the park and maintain at least six feet of distance between members of different households.

Other COVID-conscious Beat the Bitter events include activity kits for kids, a winter story walk along the park trail, a virtual snuggie crawl, a livestream Pork Tornadoes benefit concert, a unique socially-distanced version of a 5k run and an "Idita Pod Race" scavenger hunt.

Find full details and the winter festival schedule at BeatTheBitter.com.