Note: The following blog entry was originally posted on "FROZEN! The Gaylord Palms ICE! blog" in 2005:

Somebody once asked the famous sculptor Michelangelo about carving a beautiful angel in stone. As legend has it, he replied: "The angel is caught inside the stone, I simply carve out everything that is not the angel."

But how do you "release" an angel from several blocks of ice?

As you can see above, the angel begins as a stack of massive blocks of ice.

A day later (above and below), the angel begins to take form.

The next day, the angel's upper body begins to appear (below).  Note that the details are all added using hand tools… not too different from the way Michelangelo carved his masterpieces.

The next day, the artisan adds definition to the angel's wings (below).

As work is completed (below), the true beauty of the angel shows through, even without the dramatic lighting that will be added later.