On Sunday Tuscany Grill hosted its Fourth Annual Ice Sculpture Festival and Ice Carving Competition, attracting many contestants from the Middletown community and beyond.
“We were very pleased with the response, turnout, quality of carvers, and the genuine participation of the crowd,” said Lynne Reilly, one of the owners of the Tuscany Grill. “I really enjoyed the day.”
Eight artists came from all over the New England area, some as south as New Jersey, to participate in the carving competition where they had to create the ice sculpture on site. Using chainsaws, irons, blowtorches, picks and generators, the carvers had four hours and two blocks of ice to create the likenesses of Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, and Bugs Bunny. This year’s theme was Looney Tunes characters.
The event was open to the public to watch and the audience then judged the entries for an hour.
Winning the $600 first place prize was a sculpture of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, done by Bill Bywater of Windsor, NY. Bywater has been sculpting for over fifteen years, including creating theatrical pieces for Broadway shows.
Second place was awarded to a nine foot tall Bugs Bunny created by Jeff Scarpa of Lakeville, CT.
The event was organized by bar manager and event coordinator Joe Lastrina, who has always been fascinated with this icy art form.
“I came up with this idea five years ago and thought it was pretty cool, no pun intended,” Lastrina said. “It’s a great thing for Middletown. Last weekend I was at an Elvis-themed ice carving competition and I recruited some of those guys to come down here.”
A chowder cook-off was also held with five different types of chowder: New England, Rhode Island, Manhattan, corn and crab and seafood. All participating chefs worked at either Tuscany Grill, BrewBakers, or Baci Grill in Cromwell. The public tasted the soups, and voted Tuscany Grill chef Som Oumsu’s New England chowder as the best.
Face painting and a coloring contest took place at BrewBakers also on Sunday.
Wesleyan students grabbing lunch downtown had the opportunity to see the ice sculptures and sample some chowder.
“It’s nice to see Middletown having productive community events,” said Ian MacLeod ’07. “More students should be informed and check these things out. The seafood chowder is really good, too.”
“I think that the winter season really calls for this type of activity,” said Josh Scannell ’08. “I used to love building snowmen when I was younger, but this seems like a more mature way to participate in the brumal festivities.”
The festival drew in a large crowd from Middletown and outside, complete with people who traveled from Rhode Island to be there. East Hartford resident Val Burke-Dombrowski brought her husband and two sons to the event.
“I saw it in the Hartford Courant’s calendar,” Burke-Dombrowski said. “There are some very talented artists here and it really attracts people to the area, in conjunction with the chowder cook-off. This is bringing people together.”
“The turnout was absolutely unbelievable,” Lastrina said. “This gives people something to do in the winter and brings kids into town. In the future, this will expand a lot to include more people.”
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