The Bartz Brothers’ 2014 Snow Shark and Earlier Sea Creatures

Austin, Connor and Trevor Bartz gave their New Brighton yard a spectacular marine visitor: a huge shark sculpted from snow. The people beside it make the scale clear, while the mouth and fins supply the character.

The silhouette does much of the work

A recognisable profile reads from the street before a visitor sees the smaller details. Evening lighting then gives the same sculpture a second appearance.

The 2014 shark and earlier snow sculptures

The original account reports a 2014 build and weeks of work. It also compares earlier walrus and pufferfish sculptures. Those previous creations help show a developing interest in snow art, without needing an unsupported claim that the shark is a world record or the brothers’ latest project.

Explore more: smaller snow sculptures with comic personalities; a family snowman inspired by Frozen.

Video: Snow Shark Progression (published by Bartz Outdoors).

A New Brighton yard became a large sculpture site

Austin, Connor and Trevor Bartz gathered snow, including material from neighbours’ lawns, for the shark described in the original account. The reported build took about ninety-five hours across three and a half weeks and was described as roughly twenty feet tall. Those are the feature’s historical measurements, not a current record claim. The people beside the finished animal provide the clearest immediate scale in the photographs.

The walrus shows an earlier stage

The preceding winter’s walrus was reported to have taken around one hundred hours. Its presence in the gallery matters because it shows the shark as part of an ongoing interest in sculpting marine animals from snow. Comparing their outlines reveals how recognisable features can be built into a large white mass without requiring the fine surface detail of a smaller sculpture.

Puffy the pufferfish has a different starting shape

The earlier pufferfish began, according to the account, with a large rolled snowball that formed its main body in about two hours. That simple round starting point contrasts with the more extensive shark project. The distinction helps explain why the reported build times are not directly interchangeable: different forms ask for different amounts of shaping and assembly.

Night lighting gives the work another appearance

The evening lighting gives the shark a second life as a street-facing display. Details that depend on daylight in one photograph are picked out differently after dark, while the pale sculpture separates from its surroundings. The progression video adds the work leading to that result. Together with the walrus and pufferfish photographs, it presents an evolving family project: successive marine animals, different starting shapes and an increasing amount of effort in a familiar New Brighton yard.