Stephen Montoya
There’s nothing quite like the elegant look of a transparent piece of ice sculpted and molded to support an event. And no one knows this better than long-time Fort Worth-based ice sculptor Paul Miller, founder of Stellar Ice Sculptures located at 3329 S. Jones Street. You might not be familiar with Miller’s name, but there’s a good chance if you’ve attended an event in the DFW area that had an ice sculpture in the vicinity, it was one of his.
Since 2013, Miller’s created frozen art for institutions like the Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Stars, and Dallas Mavericks to name a few. Miller has also worked with pretty much every high-end hotel in DFW, even supplying ice sculptures for the Country Music Awards hosted here in North Texas earlier this year. Outside of the DFW area, Miller has created ice sculptures for clients that stretch across the region, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rocky Mountains. Not bad for a small business that came about almost by accident.
The way Miller tells it, he was turned on to the world of ice sculpting when he happened to see a senior chef at a high-end restaurant he was working at, carve an eagle out of a block of ice.
“I was 21 at this time, and I watched him start to finish carve this eagle, and I was like, ‘you know what? I want to do that,’” Miller says.
After telling this chef he was interested in pursuing this skill, Miller says he was told to practice with bars of soap, which are almost the same dimensions as a block of ice only on a smaller scale.
“A couple weeks later, I brought him six little figurines of these soap carvings and he's like, ‘OK, you're serious about it … [the] chainsaw is yours,’” Miller explains. “So, he just handed it over to me and that’s how I got started in ice sculpting.”
Miller says his first attempt at creating a swan went poorly, which made him hungrier to get better at this new artform he was dabbling in.
“I enjoyed it and it was a hobby, and so I was trying to get better. I was always champing at the bit, anytime there was a chance for Thanksgiving or Christmas to carve some blocks and practice,” he says.
Not long after this, Miller says he had a chance to continue practicing his ice sculpting skills at the Worthington Hotel, carving pieces for its Thanksgiving and Christmas displays.
“I got in with them and eventually started taking over their ice department,” he says. “So that was a way for me to practice and home in this skill.”
Still working as a full-time executive chef, Miller says he would carve a piece every few months, eventually taking a class from a professional ice sculptor in Dallas.
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“I remember in my twenties working hard for the man, ‘chefing’ sacrificing every weekend, holidays, and nights cooking. And then I would lay in bed and stare at my ceiling and think to myself, ‘wouldn't it be cool if one day I could just carve ice and that would pay my bills?’” he asked.
Miller’s dream would eventually get the boost it needed when he took an executive chef position at the Colleyville event space Piazza in the Village. This one-stop wedding chapel and reception hall provided Miller an environment where he could hone his ice sculpting craft at a rapid pace.
“I used ice carving to help get me these executive chef positions because all executive chefs can cook, but what separates me from the rest of them, I can also carve ice,” he says. “So, I would use this opportunity to help carry me up in my career.”
According to Miller, Piazza in the Village offered its clientele a premium diamond package for weddings that included ice carvings. And wouldn’t you know it, everybody bought the most expensive package, making Miller a very busy sculptor. For the next seven years, Miller would bang out anywhere between two to five ice sculptures a week.
“I really got to home in my skills there because it was nonstop every week,” he says. “And then I started getting exposed to competitions. I went to Alaska and competed.”
Last year, Miller brought home the silver in the 2023 World Ice Art Championship in Fairbanks, Alaska, for a piece he carved titled, “Fight Back.”
“When you compete, you're pushing yourself to 120%,” he says. “You're giving it everything you've got, and then you're going up against 10 other people who are better than you and you're like, ‘oh my gosh, I'm humbled. I thought I had a killer piece.’ And then I saw everybody else’s and was like ‘back to the drawing board.’”
These competitions helped Miller stay on what he calls the ‘razor’s edge’ of learning, picking up new skills.
Eventually, Miller would buy his first ice making machine and place it in his garage, so he could have fresh ice blocks to carve out his creations at the Piazza in the Village. His ice blocks were so clean, the venue would pay him for them, which gave him some extra scratch to invest back into his ice sculpting passion.
Stephen Montoya
“I saved it up and ended up buying a small freezer that I also put in my two-car garage at home and another block maker. Basically the moment that I bought a block maker in one year's time, I quit working for anyone else and continued to work for myself,” he says.
Twelve years after taking his first leap into the world of ice sculpting Miller was now doing it full-time. His dream had become a reality. Currently, Miller and his team of two employees are busy filling orders out of his warehouse space on the south side of the city.
However you put it, ice and art seem to culminate at this locale. Even the outside of Miller’s warehouse made the rounds on social media when famed Fort Worth muralist Juan Velazquez stopped by to paint rapper Vanilla Ice on the business’ front wall. Miller says he picked Vanilla Ice as a tongue-in-cheek homage to his bustling ice sculpting business.
“I've been doing this every day for 12 years now, and I feel like I'm living the American dream,” Miller says. “I'm doing what I love to do. I'm working for myself. I'm not getting burned out. I'm passionate about it every day, every project's new, so it always stays fresh.”
