Oliver Annaly from Cwmgiedd, Ystradgynlais is a snow sculptor who for the last eight years has taken a Welsh/British team out to compete in snow sculpture competitions around the world

This year it involved six other sculptors in three teams working on four sculptures in 20 days. These blocks are three metre square and hold over 25 tons of compressed snow. This year they headed to the Italian Dolomites for the 29th annual International Snow Festival which was held in the towns of San Vigilio and San Candido. The theme for the festival this year was Hands and Minds. The team’s first sculpture was called ‘fate of the world’ and featured the earth being crushed by a squeezing human hand. Their second sculpture was called ’three wiser monkeys’. Instead of the monkeys holding their own ears, eyes and mouths, they were featured in a circle holding each others. Oliver said “I meant it to symbolise community spirit and help in the face of today’s mental health problems. The competition was intense, but the Italian public loved us. We finished in third place for both sculptures separately.” The teams have three days to finish the sculptures and they are then voted for by the guests in the resorts and local residents.

Next it was on to the Pontebba Snow Art Festival, also in the Dolomites with Oliver’s second team. This time the sculpture they created was called ‘the big man returns’. It was based on the nursery rhyme, ‘there was an old lady who lived in a shoe’. and featured an old shack, built in to a shoe, and a man sleeping on top of it. Oliver compared it to a man coming back to his childhood home as he has to Wales, where he may have outgrown the old house, but he is comfortable and relaxed in his environment.

The Italian spectators loved it, but the group were up against two local teams and a visiting Mongolian team and were placed fourth which they considered a good show in a strong field.

Next Oliver flew to the Arctic Circle and Tromso in Norway with his third team. Tromso is the most northerly city he has sculpted in, and temperatures were down in the minus 20’s. This was a symposium, so there was no competing. The theme here was ‘Arctic Life’ so Oliver designed a sculpture of an Orca/Killer Whale, flipping a seal in the air and named it ‘playing with your food’. Oliver chose to put a bit of a humorous angle on it. He said “We were well received and the visiting cruise ships made sure we had lots of support from Welsh and British tourists.

“So all in all it has been another successful season for us.”