An NIU candidate for a master’s degree in fine arts worked with the USA-Illinois Snow Sculpting Team to win two international competitions in Switzerland this January.

Joel Graesser, 30, 521 W. Locust St., is the newest member of the USA team, which includes George Farbotko, Roscoe, Ill. and Tom Hulsenberg, Sycamore.

The team won first prize last year in the Seventh World Snow Festival held in Grindelwald, Switzerland.

The team returned this year to successfully defend the title and take first place in another competition held in Bern, Switzerland’s capitol, the week before the Grindelwald event, Graesser said.

In Grindelwald, there were eight or nine teams participating, with entries from West Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France, he said.

The USA team held certain advantages because of their technical knowledge and talents for planning, Graesser said.

First, the team worked on a model for the sculpture in advance, yet made revisions even on the airplane during the flight to Switzerland, he said.

Once the model was prepared, Graesser said the team planned their preparation of the twelve-ton block of snow used for the sculpture.

“Some of the teams weren’t watching the elements, and were done by the third day. When it rained two nights before the judging, the rain ruined their pieces. You’ve got to watch the elements,” Graesser said.

The team provided protection for their block. “We left a foot-wide sunwall up on one side of our piece, and all week long the sun kept eating that away instead of our piece,” Graesser said.

The USA team also used better tools. “Just about everybody used machetes and shovels to take off the large chunks of snow from the outside,” he said.

“When we started actually defining the piece, we used these small-toothed, stainless steel grates that comb the snow. They worked so much better than the crude tools the other teams used that they couldn’t believe it,” Graesser said.

The planning and precision added up to first-rate snow sculpture, and the Swiss judges agreed.

Graesser said the 1992 Olympics will include a snow-sculpting event, and he wants to be in it.

“No, winning this year was not enough for me. I want to go back next year, and if we do well there, we’ll be seriously considered for the Olympics,” he said

Graesser said he plans to finish his master’s this spring and has a contract with a gallery in Deusseldorf, West Germany to open a show in April.

The Deusseldorf exhibit will display Graesser’s steel work, which he said he considers to be totally separate from the snow works.

Students interested can see Graesser’s work at the graduate gallery in the Fine Arts building this week.