Feeling a little blue as the holiday season comes to a close?

The festivities for 2011 are already off to a cool start as Niles prepares for the 7th Annual Hunter Ice Festival Jan. 14-16.

Despite the festival’s struggle for additional funding, Niles Main Street’s Lisa Croteau said earlier this year there would be no shortage in ice sculptures to be seen on the streets in downtown Niles.

That includes a functioning carousel by the Grand Rapids-based company Ice Sculptures Ltd.

Leading the way, Randy Finch said he’d be bringing a number of members of the company with him to set up the sculpture.

Finch has been sculpting ice for more than 20 years.

“We were chefs,” Finch said of the company’s beginnings. “It was part of our jobs as chef,” to be able to produce ice sculptures for special events. Whereas a lot of chefs will specialize in pastries or certain areas of the culinary realm, “we decided to specialize just in the ice.”

Finch and his colleagues at Ice Sculptures Ltd. won’t be coming to Niles alone. It will be followed by a production crew from Food Network, which will film its participation in the festival as part of its new reality-based television show, “Ice Brigade,” to appear on the network.

“Part of our goal with the ice sculpting is purely to take it to another level,” Finch said. “We’ve really tried to push with the mechanics, coloring, the precision … We want to make it to where other ice sculptors say ‘wow.'”

Finch and his crew have been planning and constructing the carousel for more than a month. The sculpture will have four figures on it and will spin, he said.

“After we’re done filming, it’ll be left on display so (the public) can see it,” Finch added.

The project is not new nor much of a challenge for Ice Sculptures Ltd.

“We do this sort of thing on a regular basis,” Finch said. “That’s what our company specializes in.”

Ice Brigade uses state-of-the-art technology including laser digitizing, an ice lathe, specialized sculpting tools when working with its frigid medium, and Finch said the company uses computer-aided design drawings to create its sculptures.

The Niles Hunter Ice Festival is just another example of the public’s fascination with ice sculpting. Several ice sculpting festivals and events take place throughout the state as well as across the country, and having ice sculptures to mark special events continues to grow in popularity.

“I think the fascination with ice sculpting is the fact that it’s so temporary,” Finch said. “These particular displays are done for just a brief moment in time. They were created just for you and just for your event.”