Artist and family sculpt herd of 7 snow elephants in Saint Andrews, N.B.
CBC
Artist Christopher Griffin and his family wanted to spread some joy last weekend by making a herd of elephant snow sculptures near the historic Blockhouse in Saint Andrews, N.B.
Griffin has been a visual artist for nearly 35 years, with art studios in Ottawa and Charlottetown.
He and his partner were visiting his daughter Kalyna Griffin, a first-year nursing student at the University of New Brunswick campus in Saint John, and they decided to explore Saint Andrews for the Winter Warmer Festival.
Once they arrived, they saw people taking part in a snow sculpture contest and decided to join in, said Griffin.
"We just thought it would be something fun to do," he said. "It was really just for the joy of doing it."
He said they came across a site next to the historic Saint Andrews Blockhouse, "where there's just this beautiful vista with water."
The trio settled on creating a herd of seven elephants of different shapes and sizes, with the largest being five feet tall.
Griffin said they were limited by how much snow they could pile up.
"That actually took most of the work … piling snow into piles that were ready to carve."
He said the entire project took about five hours to complete.
Griffin said Kalyna created the last one by herself, which was "a great bonding experience."
He has since received positive feedback on a video he posted on social media featuring the herd of snow elephants.
"Oh, people loved it," said Griffin, "It was a wonderful experience and was so much fun."
Griffin said he developed a connection to elephants in 2014, when he spent several months in India at a bronze foundry and created bronze elephants after seeing them in the wild.
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