{"id":145220,"date":"2018-01-10T03:34:53","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T08:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=145220"},"modified":"2018-01-10T03:34:53","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T08:34:53","slug":"canadian-ice-and-sand-sculptor-michel-lepire-dead-at-70","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/01\/10\/canadian-ice-and-sand-sculptor-michel-lepire-dead-at-70\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian ice and sand sculptor Michel Lepire dead at 70"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Michel<\/a>
Michel Lepire in one of his demonstrations (Photo by Michel Lepire Inc. Sculptures<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Quebec ice and sand sculptor Michel Lepire, the man behind many of the elaborate ice palaces at Quebec City’s annual Carnaval, has died.<\/p>\n

Lepire’s daughter, Renee-Claude, told The Canadian Press he died suddenly from a heart attack Monday.<\/p>\n

He was 70.<\/p>\n

The award-winning sculptor was well known for his work at the Carnaval, having created ice palaces and other works at the two-week event.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father started sculpting with snow at 14 for a neighbourhood contest linked to the Carnaval,\u201d his daughter said. \u201cAfter that, he worked in hospitality in Quebec City and continued to do snow sculpting as part of the Canadian team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, in 1994, his pastime became his life’s work as he ended up founding a company that ice, snow and wood to make sculptures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were different as mediums, but he loved working with all of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

His firm organizes a sand-sculpting competition each August in Quebec City — Les Internationaux de sculpture sur sable de Quebec.<\/p>\n

Lepire has worked with his son Marc since 1998 and both have taken part in competitions all over the world.<\/p>\n

His daughter said his grandsons are also involved in what has become the family trade.<\/p>\n

Renee-Claude said her brother Marc was on the site Monday night preparing mascot Bonhomme’s palace, noting her father would have wanted it to be completed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother was back there last night working to make sure the palace would be delivered on time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Quebec festival long associated with Lepire said it was devastated by his sudden passing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur thoughts are with the large family of sculptor Michel Lepire, the pioneer of ice sculpture as we know it today and a proud and indispensable craftsman of our Carnaval,\u201d Carnaval director Melanie Raymond said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur many years of collaboration will remain etched in our memories while knowing that his heritage and know-how are alive and well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quebec ice and sand sculptor Michel Lepire, the man behind many of the elaborate ice palaces at Quebec City’s annual …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":145222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[42648,4088],"class_list":["post-145220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art-and-culture","tag-michel-lepire","tag-quebec","mauthors-sidhartha-banerjee","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}