Ice Art: Celestial Keys to Understanding

2003

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We see a flesh-coloured mound with a central dish containing a large keyway. It appears to be a very large cylinder lock but also reminds one of a Tibetan stupa. Balanced on the lock are several keys fashioned entirely of ice. We can reach out and touch them, feeling the sensuous designs molded into the ice, one resembling a plant with roots extending down the shank of the key, one a shell, another a woman's hair. The sunlight shines through the translucent ice revealing trapped bubbles and cracks threatening the integrity of the keys themselves. Do they fit anything? If one depended on them, how could whatever secrets or treasures they kept safe be accessed when they deliquesce into plain water and then evaporate from puddles into the very air?

© Alison Ulman 2003