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98H-1 | ||
| Having about had it with traditional holiday hysteria, I look around for alternatives. When my eye alights on the tide chart and finds all four days possessed of tides favorable for sand sculpture, a plan suggests itself. A small sculpture each day, four in a row, a miniature sand sculpture vacation. |
| Build number: | 98H-1 (lifetime start #148) |
| Date: | November 26 |
| Location: | Venice Breakwater, on the flat |
| Start: | 0800; building time: 7 hours; depart 1630 |
| Height: | 3.5 feet (short form with free-pile extension) |
| Base: | 1.6 feet, cylindric |
| Photography: | half a roll E100S-135, with WR |
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Thursday comes up cool, calm and sunny. All over the city, electricity is being turned into hot turkeys. I practice turning some into new images and then realize I'd misread the tide chart. Today's sculpture needs to start, um, now. The lightweight kit makes the ride go quickly.
For small sculptures I use either hands or my short form. It's lighter than the tall one and holds half the sand, just the thing for short winter days. It's a little short, so today I intend to make a free-pile extension. The idea is for some sort of tower rising out of... something else. Whatever turns out, it shouldn't take too long. There's fairly good sand available at the low tide line. With the next high being low, I choose to put the sculpture on the flat above the storm drain. Building goes quickly, even with Jim Lowe coming by to chat. There aren't many people for him to guard yet. When the form is nearly full, I get two more buckets of sand and make slurry in the black plastic tub. Making sure there's water atop the sand in the form, I rapidly build the extension, running out of sand when it's about 1.5 feet tall. Good enough. It's small enough that I was able to be careful and the sand is well consolidated. The style is reminiscent of 1996, when this was my standard kit except for using a small form for the extension. Today's free-pile technique has an advantage in that its base spreads, enabling blending with the main form. This suggests a shape, a broad concave wing curving down and back. With water to north and south and the surf booming against the rocks west of me, this is my favorite place to build. It's about as close to being on an island as is available here. Around from the wing I carve some tighter curves that meet in defined cusps that should make nice shadows. Below the wing's lowest corner a surface goes back into the pile, intended to connect to something. The tide creeps upward. I hope I'm high enough. When Jim drives by to check on progress, he makes a similar comment. So do the passersby. Well, I ought to know this place well, and it turns out I'm just high enough. The afternoon tide comes within three feet horizontally, even with the relatively big surf that has brought out hordes of surfers. I should have been finished by now. That was the plan. The sand had different ideas, and I tend to carve as long as there's daylight and sand left. By now the sculpture's heart has been revealed, large spaces connecting in the middle. An Asian boy walks up, camera in hand. With gestures and broken English he gets his desire across. "Go ahead." After a few minutes his parents come ambling south and they stand by, watching. The boy starts digging. His mother asks if this is OK. "No problem." The next thing I know the adults are gone. Baby sitting is a new function for me here, but this boy is no problem. He just borrows tools and works while quietly talking to himself. I simply make sure the tools don't get buried. Eventually the adults come back and sit on the sand, talking and laughing. The sculpture has developed far beyond what I expected. It's the obvious descendant of those early 1996 works, but just as obviously modern in its complexity. The lesser engineering demands enable more design freedom, which I exploit until there's not much more sand I can safely remove. It looks good as is, so why push any harder? Yes, there's still daylight, but enough is enough. There are very strong elements sweeping up and across. There are also delicate curves coming and going, in and out, starting inside and coming outside. There's less sand to carve, so more time to consider how the various parts fit together. I expected the free-pile extension to be soft and more difficult to carve smoothly, especially where it joined the main pile. This didn't happen; it acted as any other extension does. The only clue to its origin is its lack of strong horizons. Seven hours later, timed by a passerby's watch, it's finished. Roughly double what I planned, but the result is very good. Less obviously an extended form than most of its ilk, it has a harmonious wholeness that I like a lot. Seven hours. A couple of years ago, a serious effort took about five. Well, all things are relative; now a serious one takes over ten hours. What about this one? I'm confused. Let the results speak for themselves. It certainly makes an impact on the many passersby. One fellow stands silently, looking, then moves to a different angle. More people stop and talk, the usual comments about permanence coming to the fore. Tim stops by, the first time I've seen him in a year, trying to get me to sell tickets to his ocean biology cruise. A means to an end. These people just don't get it. Sand sculpture is the end, the doing of it, the sand on my hands. The sculpture itself is just an indicator of how well the process went. This one stayed together, and I like it, but I'll still try again. Not tomorrow, however. This one took too much out of me. I pack my kit back in the bike, balancing it, wishing I had another arm or two. What a day. Far beyond what I expected. Maybe this is what separates art from engineering: with art, surprise is almost essential. | ||||||||||
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Original: 98 November 27
All contents copyright 1998 by
Larry Nelson | ||||||||||
98h01rpt.htm 98-December-31