Preserving Real Snowflakes
Each snowflake is captured one at a time! When snowfall begins, we set up and wait for the perfect moment. The conditions must be just right—temperatures need to be freezing for snowflakes to form their beautiful dendrite structures. Once they begin to fall, the collection process is a race against time!
My art studio is kept as cold as possible during collection, but there’s a catch—UV rays, movement, or even ambient heat can damage the delicate snowflakes before they’re ready for preservation. To handle them without causing harm, I’ve found that a paintbrush is the best extension of my fingers for gently manipulating these fragile crystals.
Once a snowflake is chosen, it’s carefully transferred onto a microscope slide, where the preservation process begins. After weeks of curing, the snowflakes are harvested from the slides, and I use various glass and resin layering techniques to create the final piece of art.
A Brief History of Snowflake Preservation
Wilson A. Bentley, the famous "Snowflake Man," took the first-ever photographs of snowflakes over 47 winters in Vermont. His passion for snowflakes led to his groundbreaking book, Snow Crystals, which continues to inspire. Bentley captured his first snowflake photograph in 1885, and his work showed the world the intricate beauty of these frozen wonders. As he wrote:
"The wonders and beauties of snow,"
"The snow crystals... come to us not only to reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in nature, but to teach us that all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade away. But though the beauty of the snow is evanescent, like the beauties of autumn, as of the evening sky, it fades but to come again."
In 1936, Japanese physicist Nakaya Ukichirō made history by growing the first artificial, laboratory-grown snowflake. Later, in 1979, chemist Tryggvi Emilsson captured and preserved the first snowflake using superglue!
The method of preservation has evolved over time, but the scientific concepts remain the same. The glue used, cyanoacrylate, contains monomers that bond with microscopic forms of anything they touch. When exposed to a trace of water, these monomers link together, creating long polymer chains that harden, capturing the intricate beauty of the snowflake for eternity.
Learn More About Snowflakes
For more information on the history of snowflake photography and the various preservation methods, visit:
Preserving Snow Crystals - Caltech.edu