MASSENA - Artists from around the region are being invited to participate in St. Lawrence Centre’s first snow sculpting contest, which is being held as part of Massena’s Winter Carnival.

Participants are invited to begin working on their sculpture Friday morning at 10 a.m. with all work having to be completed by 9 p.m. Saturday. Judging will be noon on Sunday.

And despite the apparent lack of snow, St. Lawrence Centre Marketing Manager Ronald J. Patnode said there should be enough snow to accommodate at least a few teams.

“We could use some of our snow piles to make a couple boxes,” he said. “We’re hoping to have enough to accommodate at least two or three teams.”

According to Mr. Patnode, each “block,” must be four feet by four feet wide and eight feet in height.

“It takes about six loader buckets to fill one,” he said.

While this year’s event is not an officially sanctioned snow sculpting contest, Mr. Patnode said such contests do exist and it’s his goal to make the mall’s event the first sanctioned contest in New York state.

“If you’re a sanctioned event, the winners keep on moving,” Mr. Patnode said, adding a national snow sculpting championship is held in Lake Geneva, Wisc. each year.

The winner there can even advance to a world championship with countries like China, Italy, Switzerland, France, Canada and Japan all participating.

“We are working toward getting to this to be a sanctioned snow sculpting event,” he said, adding that includes abiding by a strict set of rules.

“We could do whatever we want, but with the goal of becoming sanctioned, we wanted to follow as many of the rules as we could.

Those rules include using nothing other than snow, water and ice for the sculpture. Only hand tools may be used. Entrants may be an individual or team of up to three people and advance registration is necessary.

Judging will be based on creativity, technique and message and participants under the age of 18 must have their parents permission.

Registration may be done online at www.st.lawrencecentre.com.

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