ChinaShop

His given name was Rolando De La Garza– and at one time, he had to wear a name badge that read, “Welcome to Office Depot.” But now this 35 yr old character that hails from Houston wears no stinkin’ badges, but if he did, it probably read-“Hello, I’m the Reverend Butter, and anyone can carve ice, not everyone can sculpt it.”

The story goes, that 11yrs ago Orlando caught glimpse of an ornate ice sculpture at a Christmas party in little El Campo, Tx; and boy, oh boy he knew right then and there what he wanted to be when he growed up. No, not an ice sculpture, but an ice sculptor. “I did a lot of research online and surprisingly there is not a lot of ice sculpting in these parts.”  By pure circumstance, Orlando ran into that very sculptor whose work he’d once seen in El Campo, Walter Obermat. “I asked him if I could train with him and learn the art,” remembers the Rev. Obermat’s reply? ‘Are you of European decent son?’ “No”, replied De La Garza, “I’m Hispanic.” ‘Well I cannot teach you nothing then.’ After months of harassment and incessant pandering Orlando finally got his spot, as the shop boy. “I swept, I mopped, and I was like the janitor at some damn dojo on an old karate film. But, I knew if I kept at it that there would some day come my chance.” And it did. The Swiss artists in residence only had a limited amount of time in the states due to visa restrictions and a spot had been earned.  Thus, The Reverend Butter was born.

He was baptized by both fire and ice in this situation. His years of intense study with the tools of the trade- chainsaw, chisel, blowtorch- trained him to not just make shapes out of ice, but transform it into what lay inside from the beginning.  “I have realized that people do not NEED ice sculptures, so I really have to make that luxury item into more than just a figure. It must be my work of art, no matter the shape or size.”  When plied about his worries on where the industry is headed with computer-controlled milling machines and molding:”I am a fucking machine. Ice sculpting is definitely a growing business, but a dying art.”

With prices ranging from $200 for a simple 45min 300lb block piece, to $600 for a live performance and sometimes $1000+ for an intricate multi-block piece de resistance, the Rev definitely has his work cut out for him in this ever unstable financial climate.

Words and photos by Dustin Downing

 

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