The Winter Arts Snow Sculpting Festival offers a free, family-friendly gathering with hands-on activities, food and beverage vendors, and People’s Choice voting in Washington Park and inside the Dubuque Museum of Art from 12-4 PM. Activities include a community snow sculpting area with preformed blocks of snow and tools provided for anyone to try their hand at snow sculpting.
Throughout the week, teams of professional, amateur, and collegiate sculptures will compete for a $1000 prize by carving giant snow creations from 6x6x8 blocks of solid snow. All teams will have the chance to be crowned the People’s Choice Award-winner on Sunday, which comes with a $300 cash prize.
The Winter Arts Snow Sculpting Festival is an annual celebration of community creativity, and coincides with more than the Super Bowl this year. The 2025 festival also serves as the closing event for DuMA’s landmark exhibition, Dubuque by Design: Celebrating 150 Creative Years. That exhibition inspires this year’s theme: Creative Community. We believe the act of creating together inspires us to push the boundaries of art, strengthens our community, and is just good fun.
Winter Arts is a community festival produced by the Dubuque Museum of Art (DuMA) in partnership with the City of Dubuque’s Office of Arts and Culture. For more info, visit www.cityofdubuque.org/winterarts or call 563-581-6988.
Showcase your creativity in the heart of Dubuque. The City of Dubuque and the Dubuque Museum of Art invite professional, amateur, and collegiate teams across Iowa and the Greater Dubuque region to apply for the Winter Arts 2025 Snow Sculpting Festival, happening Feb. 6-9, 2025, at Washington Park.
Prizes:
1st Prize: $1,000
People’s Choice Award: $300 (determined by community vote!)
Submission Deadline: Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, by 5 PM.
Spring temperatures have arrived early in Dubuque this year and Dubuque’s 2024 Winter Arts Snow Sculpting Festival has been canceled due to the warmer than normal temperatures.
On Sunday, February 18th, gather in Washington Park and celebrate our community’s creativity at the 7th Annual Winter Arts Snow Sculpting Festival.
Inspired by the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra’s performance, families, friends and first time sculptors are invited to sculpt their own masterpiece on the theme of love. Accompanied by music from the DSO, stroll among giant snow creatures carved by teams competing for a slot at the U.S. National Championships.
Inside the Museum, Senior High School curators invite you to the opening of the annual K-8 Student Art exhibition featuring work by over 200 students from neighborhood and school in town. Warm up with fried chicken from Birds and hot cocoa served by the Community Foundation’s youth philanthropy program, the YAPPERS.
Winter Arts Snow Sculpting Festival 2024 Dubuque Iowa
Celebrate the bounty of fall, the power of community, and the opening of four new exhibitions. The day includes family architecture workshops, artist conversations, and a block party. Admission is FREE with donation of a non-perishable food item to the Dubuque Food Pantry.
Come downtown and celebrate the past, present, and future of our community.
10 A.M. – 1 P.M. Children’s Workshops
1 P.M. – Gallery conversation: Roberta Condon, Lorraine Ortner-Blake and Beth Hoffman
2:30 P.M. – Gallery talk with Katie Schutte
4–6 P.M. – Block party and community workshop with DuMA’s architects, Paul Schulhof and Az Rashidi. Live music and food trucks hosted with the Bluff Street Neighborhood Association, on 7th Street
(SOLD OUT)Community Day begins with a children’s architecture workshop with Az Rashidi and Paul Schulhof, the architects designing the new museum campus. Participants will share their ideas for the new Museum with Az and Paul and build their own models that describe their vision. Space is limited for this free workshop and advance registration is required.
Also at 10 A.M. is a drop in pumpkin decorating and mask making workshop, which is open to all.
At 1 P.M., join Long Time Passing artists Roberta Condon and Lorraine Ortner-Blake inside the Falb Family Gallery for a conversation with Beth Hoffman, author of Bet the Farm. The three women will discuss the changing rural landscape, the struggles and joys of life on the farm, and how their experiences inspire their art. At 2:30 P.M., artist Katie Schutte will discuss Distorted Recollections in the Kris Mozena McNamer Gallery.
Also opening are the Dubuque Camera Club’s Rural Life and a showcase of work by students from the University of Dubuque’s Department of Digital Art and Design.
The afternoon culminates with a block party from 4-6 P.M. on 7th Street that includes food trucks, a community workshop with Schulhof and Rashidi, live music by Joie Booth Wails and DJ Charlz, and autumnal décor from local farmers.
The 2023 Winter Arts Snow Sculpting Festival will take place Thursday, February 9 through Sunday, February 12, with community festivities on Sunday from 12 to 4 PM.
This free, family-friendly event is produced by the Dubuque Museum of Art in partnership with the City of Dubuque’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. Teams of professional, amateur, and collegiate artists sculpt for four days, transforming 288 cubic feet of snow into masterful works of art. The winning team receives a cash prize and is offered the opportunity to represent the state of Iowa at the 2024 U.S. National Snow Sculpting Competition in Lake Geneva, WI. A People’s Choice selection is also chosen through online and in-person voting from noon to 4 p.m. following the call for ‘tools down’ on the Sunday of festival weekend.
Birds. food truck will be available for purchase. The community sculpting area will feature themed blocks inspired by Saint-Saëns’ whimsical musical masterpiece “Carnival of the Animals,” in conjunction with Dubuque Symphony Orchestra’s spring family concert.
Toast the beginning of summer with old friends and new artists. Gather in Washington Park for an evening of fashion, craft beer and wine, artful desserts and artist demonstrations inspired by DuMA’s Craft Invitational.
Tickets include Museum admission, all artist talks and demonstrations, music, a Bavarian pretzel from Chew on This food truck, desserts from Pastry by Sandrine, and your choice of a beer flight from Jubeck New World Brewing and Dimensional Brewing, a glass of wine, or a soft drink. Additional food and beverages will be available for purchase from local vendors. AMIDST will offer free digital magazine for event attendees.
This event will take place rain or shine.
All sales are final.
Members: $20
Non-members: $25
Under 21: $10
Members under 21: $8
In partnership with Fidelity Bank & Trust, DuMA presents Movies At The Museum at dusk (approx 8:30 pm) on Saturday, August 21st with a viewing of Moana staring Dwayne The Rock Johnson & Auli’i Cravalho.
Grab your lawn chair, blanket, snacks, and bring your friends to Washington Park to enjoy an outdoor movie night.
Moana (PG/2016/Animation) – An adventurous teenager named Moana living on a Polynesian island in ancient times sails out to sea on a daring mission to save her people. During her journey, Moana meets the once-mighty demigod Maui, who guides her in her quest to become a master wayfinder. Together, they sail across the open ocean on an action-packed voyage, encountering enormous monsters and impossible odds. Along the way, Moana fulfills the ancient quest of her ancestors and discovers the one thing she always sought: her own identity.
The Dubuque Museum of Art, in partnership with Voices Productions and with additional support by Trappist Caskets and Humanities Iowa, is hosting a temporary exhibition of Dana Harrison’s I Am A Man mural at the corner of Bluff Street and 8th Street in downtown Dubuque.
The Museum will host a free community conversation in Washington Park on Sunday, April 11 at 1:00 pm between the artist and Museum Curator, Stacy Gage Peterson. The rain date is April 18.
Attendees can purchase lunch from the Happi Hibachi food truck, which will be at the park before & during the event.
Painting, weather permitted, will begin Saturday, April 10.
