Overview

Until late 1995, my sand sculptures gradually gained weight. Bigger was better, more visible, more impressive, and most of the sculptures I made were six feet tall. My forms were designed for that height: a four-foot main section, and a new 30-inch extension that needed testing. The test was quick and easy, a pile of sand ready to carve in just minutes, it felt. I also tested some new tools. It was delightful.

Big sculptures are impressive, but they're exhausting. They require a complete commitment of work and a full day. They go on the schedule well in advance and I prepare myself, ready to be dog meat for a day afterward. If one falls over, I lose a lot.

The new small sculptures suggested something else: fun and play. Further experimentation showed the truth in this. Afternoon sculptures, done for fun, and with little time invested the cost of failure goes down. This small revolution put a new spark in sculpting.

The result is plain to see. I started 35 sculptures in 1996 and all but three of them were small ones. At first I treated them as quickies, studies for "full-scale" sculptures, but by April they were taking just as long as big ones. The difference was apportionment of time. Instead of three hours packing and four hours carving, small ones got an hour and a half for packing, five and a half for carving.

A big sculpture starts with a pile containing about 34 cubic feet of carefully packed sand. Short ones require 5; with an extension for added height, it's still only 7 cubic feet. As the year progressed, I changed techniques until "small" sculptures were up to 10 cubic feet. An increase, yes, but still small enough that I could pack more carefully, thereby making a better pile, which resulted in better sculptures.

Some notes on the entries: All sculptures done with a form get a start number, sequential from the first one I did in 1983. Completed sculptures get a build number, wherein "F" represents form, "M" means Multiple (more than one pile) and "P" means free-pile (no form). Sculptures that aren't completed get a failure code: CPF for Complete Pile Failure, CCF for Complete Construction Failure. Partial failures sometimes go to completion, so there'll be a PPF or PCF entry. Sometimes a sculpture will get a name, related to the way I feel, the sculpture's shape, characteristics of the day or a passerby's comments.

Technical notes

Forms and Filters

At the start of the year, I was putting unscreened sand into the 19" diameter by 30" tall form, and filling a 15X20 extension on top. Starting with LS74 I screened shells and such out with quarter-inch hardware cloth. It wasn't fine enough, so I made a new one with heavy window screen, testing it on 96F-8. It didn't work, but I built and still use the improved model box filter.

Starting with 96F-11, I used a bigger extension made from a trash can. Extensions take time and cause joint problems, so I had a sailmaker make a new one-piece form, 21X54, from dacron sailcloth. Its first test was 96F-18, and has been my solo standard ever since.

Tools

I also experimented with tools. I won a surface trowel at Santa Cruz (96M-2) but found it didn't do much for me. With a friend's help, I made some ceramic tools: fingertips, little scrapers. The fingertips didn't work well, but the scrapers did. I plan to make more.

I bought a big wooden potter's rib, a scraper with six different curves; it was great for making concave surfaces but wore out quickly. Its handmade aluminum replacement works well, but may be replaced by ceramic. Ceramic tools are easy to make in any shape.

Principles

Beyond that, it has been a year of refinements. I learned more about sand and where to find the good stuff, and I pack it more consistently.

A remaining challenge is to figure out a way to pack it well while keeping the various sizes of grains together. My piling technique sorts the sand into coarse and fine layers, and that causes structural problems because the coarse layer doesn't hold together very well.

About photography

In 1994, resuming sculpting after a 7-year hiatus, I started photographing in black and white with a medium format camera. This produced beautiful prints, but they were hard to share with a group. Starting with 96F-4 I shot 35mm B&W slides, on Agfa Scala film. It does a good job.

By 96F-8, I was short of money, so I switched to 35mm color neg from the medium format. I soon missed the big negs so started shooting that again, in addition to 35mm. I also realized my main interest was sculpture, so I shot fewer photos. Now I use three cameras: big one for B&W exhibition prints, 35mm SLR for slides, and a borrowed compact for utility prints. My friends Rich and Lorna help with photography, shooting while I work. [October 2000 note: All that photography got to me. After many more changes I've settled on medium-format black and white, and video.]

Public Relations

My friend Don wanted practice making World Wide Web sites. I had materials to make a site, so we did it (HTTP://members.aol.com/sandhands) For it, I produced an information document. Seeing a good thing, I typeset it and made copies, handing them out on the beach. [October 2000 note: the old Web site is still there, but text only. It's a set of stories collectively called "Hands in the Sand," from which Don derived the site's name. When I made this one, I registered the name.]

The information sheet is popular, and has had much development. It has 8 pages of detailed information, covering most aspects of making sand sculpture, along with some ideas and philosophy. [October 2000 note: the information sheet has grown, and fissioned. The full document is 12 pages and I hand that out to people who don't have Web access. I broke out the FAQ section and that's now the standard 1-page handout.]

People

Being on the beach so often, I've met some interesting people. They're the regulars who come down to watch the sunset, the surfers, the lifeguards, the ones who like to walk. They make sculpting more fun, and add their energy to mine, making the beach warmer. Sand sculpture is a performance art; many people, some of whom I never see again, contribute to the sculpture. It's interesting to watch people looking at the sculpture. Even hard-core gang types soften--I can see their faces change--and wonder about it.