Sometimes ice guys finish first.

Jess Parrish knows all about that. The Longmont ice sculptor was part of a four-man team that won the World Ice Art Championship last week in Fairbanks, Alaska.

“To me, it’s a very magical, natural element,” Parrish said. “It allows us as artists to be more creative because it is so temporary. We’ll try off-the-wall things because we don’t have to live with it.”

In this case, the championship piece was less “off the wall” and more “in the woods,” depicting a delicate trio of fairies playing in and around a birch tree. The carvers — which also included Jim Duggan of Atlanta, Angelito Baban of Washington, D.C., and team captain Victor Dagatan of Atlanta — spent six days creating the piece from lake ice.

That meant digging in for 16-hour days, working around natural cracks, shifts in the weather, and temperatures in the ice itself that can range from 40 below zero to 40 above in the same chunk.

“You push and test the limits of your mental and physical capabilities under extremely harsh conditions,” said Parrish. “It’s very rewarding just to finish. By the end of day three, you look up and say ‘Why am I doing this?’ But by day four, you’re seeing the art and magic that comes out of each block, and there’s a fresh wave of energy that ignites the push for those last couple of days.”

Parrish also took 11th in a two-man competition at the championships, out of 50 pairs competing.

Parrish has sculpted since he was 12, but he only discovered ice seven years ago while working as a chef. Now he has his own business, Cool Hand Ice Carving, and serves on the board of the National Ice Carving Association.

It takes patience. An artist may start with a roaring chainsaw and finish with a small chisel, getting delicate details just right. A shift of a few degrees can make a huge difference, with “too cold” being as challenging as “too warm” — once you get below zero, Parrish said, ice tends to get brittle and hard to work with.

Of course, most of his own work is done under more controlled conditions. Smaller pieces can be produced in a workshop in his home, while larger ones are done at the freezer of A&K Ice in Denver.

But the most important quality, Parrish said, is passion, especially since there’s still so much to discover about how the medium works.

“It’s exciting because it hasn’t been completely figured out,” he said. “You can keep your eyes open and your creativity flowing.”

Contact Times-Call staff writer Scott Rochat at 303-684-5220 or srochat@times-call.com