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98H-3 "Fond Wind" | ||
| I stand on the doorstep, feeling a fitful breeze that brings scents of traffic and cooking from the east. Santa Anas have blown for most of the week; will they build up today? Santa Ana winds are warm and very dry, pulling water out of a sculpture faster than it can be replaced by spraying. I put the chance at 50% and load up. |
| Build number: | 98H-3 (lifetime start #150 |
| Title: | "Fond Wind" |
| Date: | December 12 |
| Location: | Venice Breakwater, on the flat |
| Start: | 0915; building time: 6.5 hours |
| Height: | 4.25 feet (short form with free-pile extension) |
| Base: | 1.6 feet, cylindric |
| Photography: | half a roll E100S-135, with LX and 85mm |
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Sunlight fills the air to bursting and draws hard shadows beyond buildings and trees. The air is so dry my skin crackles, yet now and then I can smell the sea. The issue is yet undecided. The coming high tide is only 3.6 feet, leaving me plenty of room on the natural stage formed by sand piled up around the storm drain. Good sand isn't far away. The form fills quickly. Sunlight on water exerts a magnetic attraction. People amble by, ask questions and amble onward. One family hangs around, the father reading a newspaper, the mother off doing something, leaving the son looking for stimulation. In accordance with the "active toy" theory, he gravitates toward my intense activity, watching and even helping by carrying buckets down to the borrow pit. When the form is full I start a free-pile extension. This time I agitate the sand to get all the air out, then build. The tub doesn't hold enough slurry for the whole extension. After the pause for refilling, I use extra-wet slurry in thin layers to get the pile wet enough for new sand to stick. This seems to work. The pile spreads as it goes up, producing a rather head-like shape. Its extra weight on the narrow neck causes a lot of vibration as I pack. Suddenly the breeze turns straight offshore, and hot. I'm too far along to quit now, so I get three buckets of water and fill the sprayer. I may spend most of my time with it. To keep evaporation under control I leave the form around the lower part of the pile as I carve the top. With the obvious anthropomorphic hint of that head, who am I to resist the obvious? A passerby suggests carving a face, but the shape itself suggests something more subtle. An outer shell enfolds another rounded shape that curves away downward. It all requires frequent spraying under the hot sun and dry electric wind. Suddenly the temperature drops 15 degrees and the air is full of salt. The humidity becomes far kinder to my throat and the sculpture. It never gets stronger than a breeze, but the sea wind has overwhelmed high pressure inland, saving the day for me. I unwrap the lower part of the pile, very grateful. On the inland side, the top's inner part drops in a long curve to meet a wing rising. I work at making the surface connecting wing and curve continuous but this is only partially successful. The wing looks good, but I have no idea what to do below it so I move around to another place. Tim, the local oceanarium promoter, comes by in a real dither. I never know quite what to make of him, so keep my distance. We talk of clams, prompted by the big shell I picked up earlier in the year and modified for carving. Rich comes around the berm built around the storm drain relief. Good. I was afraid I'd forgotten to tell him; I'd intended to call last night but got involved with Virginia, Dean and Steve and didn't get home until too late. The warm day has brought out many people. A few surfers ride the rare good wave that booms against the breakwater. The top's outer shell continues downward on the seaward side, undulant, then ending against a shelf. This is a start, based on an idea I've had for some time, but isn't enough. I cut a space behind its southern edge, punching through to the big hollow through the center. More small cuts define the round panel. Around to the north, under the big hollow, I cut and trim, making a sort of cradle for the rest of the sculpture. It looks as if the whole upper sculpture is resting in a socket. This could easily go on to take more time than the day allows. There are more places in need of detail, but the sun waits for no one. The area below the wing never does come together; I'm afraid to cut all the way through and it wouldn't look all that good even if I did. I should have done something differently here. Well, there's always the next time. Sunset watchers come out in force. Shadows come and go from waves smashing into the breakwater and tossing spray high, scintillant in the yellow light. I clean up the sculpture and start photographing, working around the many passersby. I like this piece. It's another in the recent series of voluptuous sculptures, feeling good to both eye and hand, but this one has more going on. It has some sharp edges, but they flow with the rounded parts. It seems to evoke more from people than others, containing hints of many things. Some see a madonna, others snakes, others a mother and child. What one sees depends upon angle of view and attitude, and this one has many different appearances. Near sunset, rosy light paints the sculpture's top, concentrating on the anthropomorphic element. It's about as close to a "topless" sculpture as I've ever done, meaning that the top of it looks as if it belongs instead of just being where a bunch of loose parts ended because they ran out of sand. It's graceful. I like it. The sun gone, Rich and I load my bike and push it to the path. People still wander the beach, collecting condensation from the sea's kind breath.
A note on the images: | ||||||||||
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Original: 98 December 12, 13
All contents copyright 1998 by
Larry Nelson | ||||||||||
98h03rpt.htm 1999 January 2