[from CBC Arts News]

It's not quite J.R.R. Tolkien's North Pole, but the 5th season of Quebec City's Ice Hotel will feature the work of a British sculptor and commercial artist best known for her work on Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Natalie Staniforth is swapping duct tape and styrofoam for ice and snow to be the first guest sculptor at Quebec City's Ice Hotel, due to open early in 2005.

Her Quebec work is a departure for Staniforth, who's sculpted for the advertising industry and for films like the Harry Potter series for years. She is preparing an ice and snow carving of Maud Watt, wife of a Hudson's Bay Company factor in Northern Quebec.

The hotel's season runs from Jan. 7 to April 2005.

Published January 1, 2005