{"id":435789,"date":"2026-01-29T00:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/435789\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T00:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:10:09","slug":"team-usa-snow-sculpture-in-stillwater-removed-over-ice-messaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/435789\/","title":{"rendered":"Team USA snow sculpture in Stillwater removed over ICE messaging"},"content":{"rendered":"

Team USA\u2019s sculpture for the World Snow Sculpting Championship<\/a> in downtown Stillwater has been removed. Championship officials cited changes the sculptors made in response to recent federal immigrant enforcement.<\/p>\n

The original design featured a sphere of outstretched hands. It was called \u201cA Call to Arms.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Team USA, which includes St. Paul artist Dusty Thune and teammates Dan Belcher and Josh Jakubowski, decided during the making of the sculpture to add peace signs and hand gestures using American Sign Language. Among the messages spelled out in ASL: \u201cICE out,\u201d \u201clove,\u201d \u201cunity\u201d and \u201cresist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, Team USA did not comply with the rules of the competition,\u201d Robin Anthony-Evenson, president of the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce & Foundation, said Wednesday, adding that event organizers had received \u201cseveral phone calls and complaints\u201d about the sculpture.<\/p>\n

The World Snow Sculpting Championship rules state that \u201cteams must adhere to their original submitted sketch\u201d and \u201csculptures must respect cultural and social values, and avoid offensive, controversial, political, or inappropriate themes,\u201d Anthony-Evenson said.<\/p>\n

The hand gestures in the sculpture \u201cdid not align with these pre-established rules and policy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Events have a hand\u2019<\/p>\n

Thune, a veteran snow sculptor and the team\u2019s captain, said his team, called House of Thune, \u201chadn\u2019t necessarily planned on inserting any messages into the sculpture, other than hand signs for peace, love, unity and resistance, which would have been continued into the snow on the ground behind the sphere as if it were rolling toward the St. Croix River and leaving messages in its wake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thune said the decision to alter the design of \u201cA Call to Arms\u201d came on Jan. 14, the first day of the competition. Renee Macklin Good, 37, was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent<\/a> in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cUpon digging into the snow block, we found the snow pack to be so poorly packed and full of debris that the outstretched arms we were carving kept crumbling and falling off,\u201d he said. \u201cWe made the choice to focus on bigger hands and shorter arms to try and salvage our piece. Sometimes the medium (snow) decides the way a piece is going to be created. Sometimes external events also have a hand in shaping what a piece will become.\u201d<\/p>\n

After learning of the changes, event organizers modified the sculpture on Jan. 19 by removing some of the hand signs, Anthony-Evenson said.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the entire sculpture was removed from Lowell Park, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn hindsight, we should have taken it down right away, but we were trying to be nice and manage the situation without having to do that,\u201d Anthony-Evenson said. \u201cWe learned there were more hidden messages in the sculpture than first thought. That is why we decided to take the whole thing down. The whole point of the World Snow Celebration is to unify the world and bring the world to Stillwater and have a family event without any controversy one way or the other. This event is about bringing people together, not dividing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthony-Evenson, who knows ASL, said the hands spelled out \u201cICE out\u201d by using the sign for \u201cice\u201d and the \u201cresistance fist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very creatively done, and it was not very easy to read,\u201d she said. \u201cYou had to look at it very carefully to notice it, but clearly it was noticed. We appreciated the positive messaging that we did see like \u2018love\u2019 and \u2018peace,\u2019 but at the end of the day, the sculpture was modified from the submitted design. The submitted design had open fingers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The removal was \u201cprocedural in nature, unrelated to judging outcomes, and did not involve penalties or sanctions against the artists,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Was not a winner<\/p>\n

The championship featured 16 sculptures from 16 different countries. Team Canada took first prize;<\/a> Team USA did not place.<\/p>\n

\"ThreeTeam Fjordwitches of Quebec, Canada, pose with their winning entry, “The Inosculation of Souls.” (Courtesy of Peachiie Marketing)<\/p>\n

The Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce & Foundation \u201crecognizes that conversations about artistic expression and free speech matter deeply to many people,\u201d she said. \u201cWe respect the importance of open expression and creative exploration, while also carrying responsibility for maintaining a public event that is welcoming and appropriate for the broad community it serves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organization that sponsored Team USA\u2019s sculpture was Bayport American Legion Hesley Jensen Post 491 in Bayport. The Pioneer Press reached out to the post for comment Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u2018Unnecessary and divisive\u2019<\/p>\n

In a letter to Thune dated Jan. 20, Anthony-Evenson, Stillwater Mayor Ted Kozlowski and Sara Jespersen, the event\u2019s co-chair, expressed their \u201cdeep disappointment\u201d regarding the team\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you were made aware, the rules governing this international competition are explicit: political symbols, statements, or messaging of any kind are strictly prohibited,\u201d they wrote. \u201cDespite this clear policy, inappropriate content was incorporated into your sculpture. This was not an oversight. It was a conscious decision, and it was a selfish one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter went on to say Team USA\u2019s actions negatively impacted event organizers, required financial resources to address and damaged the partnership with a nonprofit sponsor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when unity and mutual respect are more important than ever, introducing this type of messaging into this forum was unnecessary and divisive,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoyed the message in the original piece that was submitted for the competition,\u201d Kozlowski said on Wednesday. \u201cI thought it was a great message at a time when Minnesotans need it most. Unfortunately, they decided to change it a bit to include a political message, which clearly violates the rules that everybody else adheres to. It\u2019s unfortunate because I think it takes away from the overall message of the sculpture, and I love the sculpture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kozlowski said he hopes Thune is allowed to participate in future World Snow Sculpting Championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cDusty and Team USA have always been great, and they\u2019ve always been a part of this competition on some level,\u201d he said. \u201cThe whole thing was unfortunate, but I don\u2019t think we would ban these guys from future competitions. It\u2019s a tough time in Minnesota right now, and so I think we should give everybody some grace. I completely understand why they did it, especially on that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thune, a special-education teacher for St. Paul Public Schools, has competed in four of the five World Snow Sculpting Championship competitions in Stillwater; House of Thune won the world title in 2023<\/a>. Last year, Thune served as a celebrity judge for the competition and created the sponsorship walls and snow slide.<\/p>\n

This year, Thune asked students and staff at the high school where he works \u201cto give me their messages to convey in the piece,\u201d he said. \u201cIt had to include their voices or it wouldn\u2019t be as meaningful. I believe we followed the spirit of our piece: to stand up and to speak out. We stand behind our work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems that \u2018A Call to Arms\u2019 did exactly what its description suggested: It opened an avenue for our voices to be heard, as well as for the voices of those that can no longer speak out to be remembered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Call to Arms\u2019 sculpture description<\/p>\n

From the World Snow Sculpting Championship website (worldsnowcelebration.com<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a world where division is growing, we all have an equal responsibility to do our part to stay united. A Call to Arms is a figurative expression urging people to take action, often in response to a crisis or conflict. It is a rallying cry to engage in a particular cause. It is going to take each and every one of us to keep our democracy healthy and viable for future generations. Everyone needs to lend a \u2018hand\u2019 to keep our society moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Team USA\u2019s sculpture for the World Snow Sculpting Championship in downtown Stillwater has been removed. Championship officials cited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1029,228,226,227,229,88,790,34268,2628,9564],"class_list":{"0":"post-435789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-stillwater","16":"tag-things-to-do","17":"tag-washington-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}