LA Ice Art

Sponsor of the 14th annual LA Music Awards

Rex Covington has been an accomplished artist in the LA ice scene for 25+ years. Having grown up in a family of successful artists, Rex took to ice sculpting quite naturally. His sense of artistic design, skill and innovative techniques has launched him to the top of the field in his craft. His sculpting endeavors continue to be an excellent outlet for his creativity. Rex’s sculptures are an integral part of the elite LA party scene as well as the film and television industries.

Ice Sculptures and the city of Los Angeles
LA ICE ART is a Los Angeles based ice sculpture company created and run by ice artist Rex Covington, who has lived in California all his life. In the ice sculpting business for more than twenty-five years after starting out in a Beverly Hills Restaurant called RJ’s, Rex now sculpts and delivers all type and size ice creations to cities in and around LA county and beyond. As a center point of geographic operation, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Century City and Culver City represent the core of an affluent area whose parties utilize all types of ice sculptures including luges, ice bars, logos and centerpiece ice decor. To the west, with iconic landmarks such as UCLA and the Playboy Mansion, are Westwood, Bel Air, Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Venice, Topanga Canyon and Malibu. Elegant parties with ocean views make ice sculptures look right at home and deliveries up the PCH alongside the ocean make a beautiful place to be working. Not to exclude the other beach cities of Los Angeles that LA Ice Art serves with sculptures like ice luges for pouring drinks down, there is Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Hermosa Beach and Marina Del Rey. These areas have many yacht clubs, country clubs, and ocean facing hotels that cater well to upscale weddings, Barmitzvas and other special events that so often require a beautiful ice sculpture to punctuate the importance of the occasion.

“A special event is an opportunity for fun that lasts a lifetime” says Rex Covington. “Ice sculptures, when done right, are the most memorable part of parties.”

Since the early days of making ice sculptures in LA, the behemoth known as Hollywood has been calling with interesting requests for ice props, back drops and ice sculptures. Things like a 9′ tall butterfly for a Mariah Carey music video or ten Richelieu lions to be exploded by machine gun fire in a scene from the movie Spawn are two examples. “The industry, as it’s called in Hollywood, is really the most fun and exciting part of my business,” says Rex. “And most ice sculptors love their job.” Industry studios in Hollywood, Burbank, Universal City, Studio City, Glendale, and Santa Clarita represent a few of the places that have filmed ice sculptures by LA Ice Art. Others cities with sound stages that have created a variety of media applications with ice sculptures are North Hollywood, Silver Lake, Hawthorne, Los Feliz, Echo Park, West Hollywood, Canoga Park and Northridge, amongst others. When the studios include custom ice sculptures in their media, thousands of people across the US see them. This makes industry credits for ice sculpting companies, like LA ICE ART, all the more gratifying. Such was the case when the season finale of Desperate Housewives, an ABC/Disney production, aired in June 2008. Interestingly, 19 cherubs were identically crafted for the episodes’ production. The multiple scenes that connected with the ice cherub plot proved to be very funny, and, coincidentally, not far from the reality of ordering a wedding ice sculpture. (Short video on this site, edited by Randy Rogers.) The Grammy Music Awards, that aired in 2012, which featured larger than life classic man sculptures on stage with Katy Perry was viewed by 39 million people. Filmed at the world famous Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, the stage performance video is on this site.

Wedding ice sculptures will always be popular because brides and grooms love them. Some times the groom wants his favorite movie characters in ice, like R2D2 & C3PO from Star Wars. Sometimes the bride wants an ice sculpture of two leaping dolphin or a three-tiered ice cake with strawberries frozen inside, but many times it’s one of the parents who decides that the kids need a traditional ice heart with monogram or two large graceful kissing swans lit in pink and blue. These special events take place everywhere including the LA mid cities such as Gardena, Commerce, Bell Flower, City of Industry, Costa Mesa and the LAX area. I take beautiful ice sculptures to the inland cities all the time as well. Trips to Pasadena, Eagle Rock, Montebello, Palmdale and even further to San Bernardino, Riverside, Arrow Head, Palm Springs and Joshua Tree happen frequently, and why shouldn’t they. Not only the affluent can afford Ice sculptures. Twenty Nine Palms, a small city in the high desert just east of Joshua Tree has the largest marine base in California. An officer called LA Ice Art for a 4′ Marine logo honoring the Generals visit. Rex Covington spent the entire day on the base with machine guns and heavy artillery equipment all around. “It was uncomfortable, but the general was happy and that was my purpose,” quotes Rex.

As a business practice, LA ICE ART has tried very hard, over the years, to keep the ice sculpture prices fair and competitively priced. There are 5 or 6 competent ice sculpture companies in and around Los Angeles, which includes Long Beach, Anaheim, Newport and Huntington Beach. Like any business, there is occasionally competition over jobs. These companies do good work and they all make a living. You can decide the importance of the artistry from the photos for yourself. The reality is that ice sculptures are heavy, fragile, and they melt, so shipping and long range transport becomes impractical and at best, expensive. Most large cities throughout the USA have ice sculptors, so if there is a choice, the closer ice artist that meets your needs makes a lot of sense. LA Ice Art is proud to be centrally located in Los Angeles, and defines Hollywood, Downtown, Santa Monica and Redondo Beach as “local” deliveries.

The natural evolution of ice sculpting, at present, has led to the use of CNC technology. LA ICE ART had featured hand carved, 3D sculpting for well over two decades. Everything was done with calculated artistry by way of straightedge, tape measure, compass and protractor. But as the demands for precision, such as corporate logos, have prevailed, LA Ice Art has evolved to accommodate. This company now employs the use of computer-controlled routers for precision related sculpture cutouts and logos. “The art form of ice sculpting has sort of taken a knife to the back by CNC,” says Rex Covington, “but I now see it (CNC) as another tool in my belt that artistry will ultimately steer and control to the most creative end. I’ll always be an artist, but now I can be a technician as well.”

The location of the icehouse and carving studio for LA ICE ART is Inglewood. Almost across the street from Randy’s Donuts, a Hollywood movie landmark on Manchester Blvd., this fully equipped ice sculpture studio has a great centralized location for a spread out place like Los Angeles. Being centrally located and near a major freeway (405) is a tremendous advantage. The area is zoned for light industrial work, which ice sculpting is considered, and provides a convenient launching point for ice deliveries to famous locations in Downtown Los Angeles like LA Live, The Staples Center, The Nokia Theater, the Athletic Club or Alvera Street. Having a closer proximity to events makes deliveries of large or fragile ice sculptures much easier. Hancock Park and West Hollywood, as well as to the south bay cities like Torrance, San Pedro, Rancho Palos Verdes, Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport and Laguna Beach are all within the reach of LA Ice Art. “Being close to my house in Westchester near LMU doesn’t hurt as well,” says ice artist Rex Covington. LAX is also a convenient neighbor to Inglewood so the many hotels and convention halls are 3 minutes away from beautiful ice sculptures being delivered to their doors.

Ice sculpture blocks must be clear and that means using Clinebell carving blocks, or a Gen 3000 ice maker. These perfectly clear blocks of ice are 300 lbs. and measure 20″x 40″x 10″, which is the typical size of a one block ice sculpture like a swan or cherub. You could say they are the industry standard and so LA ICE ART is equipped to manufacture enough to meet our demand which usually doesn’t exceed our manufacturing maximum of 20 blocks a week. Of course we house 50 or so ice blocks in the walk-in freezer so that we’ll always be ready for a large scale event or film premiere party like Superman Returns that may require two or more large ice bars, and an ice fortress or a Van Halen video that requires lots of ice furniture and sculptures to simulate the ice hotel in Jakkassjarvi Sweden’s Ice Hotel.

Large ice sculptures require grafting ice blocks together and then refreezing them to form massive blocks which are then sculpted into polar bears, ice bars, large animals, and occasionally, a Lexus RX400h automobile.

Aside from the glamour of Hollywood, Los Angeles has a very populated and thriving sister community that we affectionately call “the Valley”. The San Fernando valley, which lies 30 minutes to the North and uses a whole lot of ice sculptures, includes cozy and well to do cities like Van Nuys, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Whittier, Reseda, Chatsworth and Hidden Hills. There are ice companies with ice sculptors that favor the valley, and they do quite well. For our part, the LA side will always rule because it has the culture, the glamour, and the famous venues where ice sculptures just seem to belong like the Sky Bar or House of Blues on the Sunset strip. We do, however, deliver to the valley all the time because a good ice sculpture company will be called upon to deliver their ice creations far and wide. Supply and demand tend to the marketplace. LA ICE ART delivers ice sculptures to all these cities mentioned, but often reaches further to Woodland Hills, Granada Hills, Canyon Country, Agoura Hills, Porter Ranch, Sylmar, Westlake and Oxnard, which is in Ventura County.

Long-range ice sculpture deliveries usually require refrigerated trucks or freezer trucks. These rolling storage containers keep our precious cargo well below the freezing point and enable deliveries of exquisite ice displays, ice bars and luge ice sculptures to places like Santa Barbara, Ojai, San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield and San Francisco to the North. Ice sculptures delivered far to the South include San Diego, Temecula and La Jolla. For a large or interesting job, we’ll be happy to travel. Please feel free to call LA Ice Art for information or a quote, or click on the contact button to e-mail the ice artist, Rex Covington.