Randy Finch and Derek Maxfield are the coolest guys you’ll ever meet. No, they aren’t football players, internationally touring DJs, or even cruise ship captains: they’re professional ice sculptors with their own reality TV show.

Finch and Maxfield are the stars of the Food Network show Ice Brigade. Airing Thursdays at 4 a.m./3c, the show follows Finch and Maxfield as they and a team of sculptors race against the clock to complete sculptures before it all melts away – literally.

“The Food Network has been wonderful to work with,” says Finch. “The past year has been the highlight of my life.”

With more than 20 years of experience, Finch and Maxfield own Ice Sculptures Ltd., a company that created ice sculptures. But Finch and Maxfield’s sculptures aren’t just pretty to look at: they’re interactive. In other words, they move.

A pool table with pool balls, a working pinball machine, a fully functional DJ booth, a carousel, a hookah that automatically blows smoke rings, and a playable grand piano. Awe-inspiring as these designs may sound, it’s all part of the challenge for Finch and Maxfield.

“Every sculpture we created on Ice Brigade [has] had challenges unique from the others,” explains Finch. “Making a pinball machine that works out of ice had altogether different difficulties than the playable full size piano with ice keys.”

According to Finch, designing an ice sculpture can take anywhere from one hour to several weeks. However, they all tend to melt in about 8 to 12 hours – making time of the utmost importance when sculpting.

Finch says it’s even worse making sculptures during the summer, where he was once designing a piece in a tent when the air conditioning broke. “The air conditioning had broken,” he says. “It was a sweat-box but the ice lasted about eight hours as it was pretty thick.”

From Michigan to the Food Network

Yet dealing with adversity is something both Finch and Maxfield are used to.

Raised in small town Michigan, Finch and Maxfield both studied culinary arts at local Michigan colleges. Later, they met again, while serving as apprentices under Chef Dan Hugelier at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Mich. Often staying late to improve their skills, the two realized their mutual affinity for ice carving, which would inevitably lead them to pursue a career in the business together.

After a few additional job transitions, traveling and endless practice, Finch and Maxfield started carving ice and selling it locally using their car trunk as a makeshift studio. They would drive to a hotel or banquet hall, open up the trunk filled with tools, and sculpt a block of ice on location. To support themselves, they worked long hours as full-time chefs to fuel their passion for ice sculpting. In 1994, with hardly a penny in the bank, the two invested everything they had and opened Ice Sculptures Ltd.

From the beginning, Finch and Maxfield were known for out-of-this-world designs. Some of their earliest sculptures included swans, hearts, and buffet pieces made for country clubs throughout Detroit and Grand Rapids.

Eventually, the Food Network took notice.

“We have been featured on national television several times and eventually caught the producers’ attention,” explains Finch. “As a chef being on the Food Network was always a dream.”

It’s a dream that, according to Finch, keeps on getting better.

“This year we were contracted to do 10 days of live performances at the Super Bowl [in Indianapolis],” says Finch. “Every time I think it can’t get any better, something like that pops up.”

Pushing the limits through support

The success of Finch and Maxfield is one that’s been defined by their passion, but support from fans hasn’t hurt.

“The questions we get from the children and e-mails from our younger fans are the most inspirational,” explains Finch. “Kids whose imagination hasn’t yet been crushed by the weight of the world still believe anything is possible. This is the mindset we have to have every day if we want to help raise the bar for our industry.”

Raising the bar has also allowed them to push the limits of what’s possible for ice sculpture.

“For Ripley’s Believe it or Not! we made a working double Ferris wheel and full size pool table complete with balls, a bridge, and even the chalk out of colored ice,” says Finch. “This project was what helped define us as a company and launched the trend of interactive kinetic ice displays that we’re starting to see more and more.”

Many of Finch and Maxfield’s techniques are shared in Ice Sculpting the Modern Way, a book they co-authored with Chef Robert Garlough in 2004 that’s now used worldwide to teach ice sculpting. And they were the first in the industry to fully incorporate computerized ice sculpting technology (commonly known as an “ice-carving robot”) into their work.

They also thrive off competition: they have placed among the top 25 in Artprize – the world’s largest art contest held every September in Grand Rapids. They also coached the ice sculptor on the U.S. pastry team that won “Best Ice Sculpture” in the 2009 Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie in Lyon, France.

“I’ve met so many awesome people,” says Finch of his experiences thus far, “And realized so many of my dreams in a short amount of time.”

18 years after going into the ice sculpting business, Finch and Maxfield’s projects just keep getting bigger as the chainsaw-wielding team creates out-of-this-world ice sculptures for countless clients and special events. Their motto sums up Ice Brigade almost too perfectly: anything worth doing is worth overdoing — even if it’ll be a puddle by morning.

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