One of the main attractions for the Village of Western Springs’ 125^th (quasquicentennial) anniversary celebration on Jan. 30th will be a visit from Nadeau’s Ice Sculptures, who will perform an ice-carving demonstration from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. next to McClure Junior High School.

Jim Nadeau founded the company in 1980; after an ice-carving gig with Marriott Hotels brought him from California to Chicago, he simply never left. According to Nadeau, his business was the first full-service ice carving company in the entire United States.

Nadeau himself may or may not be one of the carvers on Jan. 30^th—it depends if the Bears win or not, he said. If they do, he will likely be too busy with other carvings. Either way, we caught up with him to discuss ice carvings and the 125^th party:

Patch: What sort of sculptures can we expect to see at the quasquicentennial?

Nadeau: “Beautiful sculptures! We’re going to produce two 300-pound blocks of ice, 40” by 20” by 10”... The first sculpture is going to be the famous Western Springs water tower, and we’re going to incorporate a ‘125.’ The second piece is going to be an ice skater. We’ll work the crowd and find out what they want.

“We’ll also be handing out Crazy Cubes—little blocks of ice in baggies with toys in them. The carvers will play with the kids, asking them questions, and handing out the cubes. A lot of times the kids take the Crazy Cubes home and just put them in the freezer forever!”

What do you suggest people look for when watching the carving?

“I think they’ll just be mesmerized by turning blocks of frozen water into art before their very eyes. It’s planned obsolescence at it’s very best. Everybody knows it’s going to melt and transform—as it’s there, it’s going to continue to change, so every time people look at it it’s going to be a different sculpture. And they’re beautiful!”

What’s the trickiest part of it, or the trickiest thing to carve?

“That’s a tough question. What’s difficult is when people want to carve pieces that don’t lend themselves well to ice. Let’s suppose it’s an architect’s gorgeous building—then [the sculpture] is just a block of ice with windows.”

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever carved from ice?

“I can tell you my biggest—we did a 100-foot train for Nabisco, 84 tons of ice, and they filled it with Oreo cookies for an employee Christmas party in New Jersey. Another fun project we did was a 16-foot igloo in Southern California in the middle of summer for Adidas, and people would sit on the ice benches and try on climate-controlled shoes.

“That’s just two goofy projects—we’ve done hundreds. One of my favorite projects, we had a record company hire us, they wanted to inspire disc jockeys, and so we froze their CDs in blocks of ice with LED lights and sent them simultaneously all around the country.”

Why do you love working with ice as a medium?

“It’s fun and it’s immediate. I don’t think I have the patience to do, like, Mount Rushmore or stone or marble that can take months or years. When you stand in front of a block of ice, in hours you have a sculpture you’re proud of.”

Is it ever sad for you that your art melts away?

“Not really. What you can equate it to is [how] you’re going to eat the meal, the flowers are going to die, and the band is going to walk away… People don’t forget the ice carving. Ask these people what their main course was, what flowers were on the table, what the band played—nothing. But they remember the ice carving.”

Do you have a message for our 125-year-old village?

“Keep going strong, Western Springs! It’s a great town.”

(Note: For a preview of what the carving will be like, watch Channel 7 from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. on Friday morning—Nadeau will be carving a giant sculpture of a bear crushing a lump of cheese, in solidarity with our Chicago Bears and their quest to take down Green Bay!)