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GRAPEVINE — The Grinch stood in silence.
A cold object of art.Every inch of him f-f-frozenDown to his small heart.Yan Fei Xu isn’t familiar with the character in the American children’s book How the Grinch Stole Christmas!But he is an accomplished artist. Xu can cut and sculpt ice the way Dr. Seuss could rhyme.The 46-year-old craftsman from Harbin, China, stood atop a scaffold inside a giant refrigerated tent where the temperature is kept at 9 degrees. Dressed in a parka and yellow hard hat, his breath clouding the air, the worker gazed at the 6-foot form towering before him, glistening in the dim light.Xu took in the figure’s long neck. Its sinister arched eyebrows. Its lipless smile.The sculptor cut a slice of colored ice with a small handsaw. Then, using drops of water as glue, he carefully attached the right sleeve to the likeness of the Santa-costumed Grinch — a cartoon figure that Xu and his fellow artisans refer to as "the green monkey."The Grinch figure is now complete.So is the likeness of Max, the villain’s canine companionSo are all the other characters, the storybook residents of Whoville, which are featured this holiday season at the annual ICE! attraction at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center.The whimsical display, as well as a Nativity scene and a 25-foot angel, will open Thursday and run daily through Jan. 3."This year is very bright, very colorful," said Liang Bai, the project manager with International Special Attractions Ltd., a Branson, Mo., company that promotes Chinese artisans in the United States.Construction of the winter wonderland began in mid-October. Re-creating Whoville, the Grinch’s mountain cave, the 20-foot-high slides and other elements required 2 million pounds of ice — about 5,000 blocks. Made from deionized and filtered water, the ice is free of air bubbles, giving it a pristine, glasslike quality. Other ice blocks are frosted; many are colored with food dye.The ice arrived daily in refrigerated trucks, and forklifts moved it into the 14,000-square-foot tent.Forty professional sculptors from Harbin spent a month cutting and carving the ice blocks, working from scale drawings to transform the designer’s vision into a three-dimensional representation.The artists worked eight- to 10-hour shifts in the subfreezing temperature.The cold "doesn’t bother them. They don’t feel it," Bai said of the artists, who learned their specialty at a young age.Harbin, in northeast China, is the capital of Heilongjiang province. Winter temperatures in the "Ice City" average 2 degrees and remain below freezing almost half the year. Harbin is home to China’s original and greatest ice artwork festival. The ice for the fest is cut from the Songhua River.Besides its fifth annual ICE! attraction, the Gaylord Texan will present Lone Star Christmas, which showcases 1.5 million holiday lights, a 50-foot rotating Christmas tree, a life-size gingerbread house and Santa’s workshop.If you goGaylord Texan’s ICE! attraction featuring How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, 1501 Gaylord Trail, GrapevineThursday-Jan. 3 Sunday-Thursday: 10 a.m.-9 p.m.Friday-Saturday: 10 a.m.-10 p.m.Monday-Thursday: $20 for adults, $10 for ages 4-12Friday-Sunday: $23 for adults, $12 for ages 4-12 817-778-1000, www.gaylordtexan.com
DAVID CASSTEVENS, 817-390-7436
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