Life in Snow
Simon Beck is a snow artist who loves skiing, biking on mountains and also sketching beautiful drawings on snow as part of his favorite pastime. Based in Europe, all the snow drawings to his credit are incredibly his own. Living for months on mountains during snow and bad weather, the artist faces all sorts of challenges yet comes out with flying colors with the best clicked pictures of his art.
One World News caught up with this artist online when he was on one such trip in the Alps, Europe.
Tell us about your first encounter with snow.
It started as a bit of fun initially. I just went onto the lake which was at the bottom of the building I was living during the winter and drew a beautiful star.
When and why you took this up as a career?
Yes, it is becoming a career option now, it is more fun than making orienteering maps (or working in an office). I suppose you could say it started when I was offered money for the first time, in 2012.
Were you fascinated by snow since childhood?
Every child likes snow, don’t they? But I also liked mountains. So, making tracks and drawing on the snow seemed a totally natural thing to me.
I did a lot of drawing on the snow when I was a child. But, I did not know how to use a compass, which was essential in making the drawings.
How much time you take to complete one design?
I take about three hours, if it is an area of the size of a soccer field. I can work continuously for about nine hours or till I get too tired. Occasionally, I take several days for one design if the weather is not good enough. However, I aim to complete it in one day itself.
From where do you get ideas for different designs?
Actually, I am a bit lazy in terms of doing the ‘homework’, so I choose a design from the crop circles or fractals (which nobody will claim to have created) and which is also a bit of shortcut.
What are the machines or equipment you use for making these?
Just snow shoes and a compass and sometimes a rope or anchor if proper circles are needed. I do distance measurement by pace counting.
Do you make it alone or do you have a team of your own?
I had help in only ten out of 175 snow designs that I have created till date.
What are the hurdles that you come across while making these?
One of the problems with slopes is that one’s feet move sideways and that spoils the effect, although there are a few drawings that I have done on significant slopes. I however, use slopes only during long periods of fine weather when I run out of fresh level sites.
Who is your role model?
I would choose one of the top sportsmen, not sure who, Daley Thompson perhaps.
When was your art first noticed?
It caught people’s attention when I got a project by a Ski resort. However, the first one was when I made after I decided to quit orienteering and take this snow drawing seriously, in 2009. There was an event nearby on the speed skiing track in Arc2000 and a helicopter kept flying over and was constantly taking a look!
Have you received any award or title for this?
Nothing as such except the ones I have awarded myself!
What are the places you have travelled so far for your art?
Not many, but only within the Alps (Europe) and one visit to Andorra (Eastern Pyrenees, South-Western Europe). But I have received invitations from Scandinavia (Northern Europe) and other places in the same continent.
What are your future plans? How far do you expect to take this passion of yours?
It depends upon money for making something on a large scale. A lot of people come along with their ideas for something or the other but nothing happens due to lack of funds.
A book is being written on my art, the initial print of which will run approximately 15,000, but I am hoping it sells a million copies. In that case, I would like to spend all the money on making drawings again.
Of course a big problem is getting personnel and equipment to a remote site in winter. I definitely do not want to introduce machines especially helicopters into the wilderness but this might be a necessary evil from time to time.
In the long run, I would like to start a school of snow art, and have large scale work involving hundreds of people and have great photos and a room of my own room as a major art gallery somewhere.
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