At the cutting edge

All you need to sculpt ice is a chisel, a pair of rubber gloves, artistic flair - and one eye on the clock. Róisín Ingletries her hand at a frozen art form with a limited shelf life

Ben Edson and Darren Jackson are putting the final touches to an ice Christmas tree when I arrive at the skating rink in the RDS, Dublin for an ice-sculpting masterclass. Unfortunately there hasn't been much time to prepare for this super-cool assignment. No time to read Ice Sculpting the Modern Way or Ice Carving Made Easy or even Ice Sculpture: The Art of Ice Carving in 12 Systematic Steps.

Edson just hands me a pair of thick rubber gloves and puts a chisel in my hand telling me to start carving a smooth line into the block of ice which has travelled over from their ice studio in England in a freezer, possibly with other deliveries of fish fingers or petits pois. "Don't be too gentle with the ice," is his top ice-carving tip.

A full-time ice artist, Edson brought over here by 7Up Christmas on Ice at the RDS. He sculpts with Hamilton Ice Sculptures, which was set up in England by former chef Darren Hamilton 30 years ago.

Edson studied model-making and design before graduating to this more ephemeral style of art, and his artistic influences range from Rodin to Scorsese. Jackson is a freelance professional ice sculptor who won the individual prize at the Latvia Ice Festival last year. "I like this kind of sculpting because you have to create the works of art at speed, you can't hang about with ice," he says.

These days, ice art is enjoying something of a resurgence. There are few celebrity parties or glitzy product launches which don't feature an ice sculpture of some description. In the UK, Hamilton is usually behind the designs. Ice sculptures at weddings - "Hearts are the most popular" says Edson - have also become commonplace despite the much mocked naked ice sculptures at Posh and Becks wedding in Ireland back in 1999.

Typically, the sculptures range in price from £50 (€70), to £8,000 (€11,140) for more ambitious pieces such as the ice room Edson and his colleagues carved from 20 tonnes of ice for Justin Timberlake. For Elton John's birthday party, the company was responsible for a three-metre high ice replica of the gothic perfection that is St Bart's Cathedral. And when billionaire Philip Green, the man who owns Top Shop, threw a £4 million party for his teenage son Brandon in the South of France, the ice crew were summoned to carve a five-foot high letter B as a centrepiece for the decorations. Beyoncé played and the occasion was a bar mitzvah so it was an multi-purpose B.

Two of the most unusual jobs have been freezing a Honda quad bike into a block of ice for a promotion and, for a television ad, carving a life-size cricket player from ice which Freddie Flintoff subsequently destroyed with some high-speed bowling.

We are starting small, though. Today, according to Edson, I will be turning a square block of ice into one half of a scallop shell. The tools are important. "If you don't have the sharpest chisels it makes the work much harder," says Edson. The first cut is the hardest, you can't help worrying that being over enthusiastic with the chisel will result in the ice block shattering to pieces. It doesn't. The next 20 minutes or so are spent painstakingly carving two-inch deep channels through the ice to represent the grooves in the shell. It's absorbing work and soon the shell begins to take shape.

Jackson says he likes the fact that ice art is so transient. "All the satisfaction comes from creating the art. I like that it leaves no trace, it just disappears." For his next ice-sculpting competition in February he has ambitious plans for making an ice treehouse and a children's playground with an ice roundabout.

When my shell - shiny, if imperfect in places - is completed, I ask my tutors to grade my efforts out of 10. They award me a seven, with Edson saying that for a first attempt it was promising. "You weren't afraid to cut hard into the ice, which is good. Sometimes people just chip at it but are afraid to get stuck in."

I notice, however, that neither of them suggests I give up the day job. Within a few hours my glistening scallop shell is in the process of becoming a puddle and the boys are back in England working on a series of frozen angels. Ice work if you can get it.

[ www.icesculpture.co.uk ]

Ice work

Ice carving is thought to have originated in China, travelling across Asia to Europe where in the 17th and 18th centuries ice sculptures were used to preserve perishable foods

An ice sculpture at room temperature should last four to six hours

Irish ice artists Alan Magee and Daniel Doyle won first prize at an international ice-sculpting competition in Latvia earlier this year with their ice sculpture entitled Why Are We Here? which depicted two enemy soldiers sharing a cigarette