98P-12 "Lighthouse"
98P-12 "Lighthouse" | ||
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"All right, you guys." They're lined up on the sand, shining softly in the cloud-bound light. "It's not good enough to just be shiny and new. Can you hack it in the rough and tumble of real-world sand sculpting? Production is what matters. Are you ready for some serious business?" The pile is there and we go to work. |
| Build number: | 98P-12 |
| Title: | "Lighthouse" |
| Date: | September 6 |
| Location: | Venice Breakwater, south side |
| Start: | 1300; building time: approx. 2 hours |
| Height: | 3.1 feet (monolithic tower) |
| Base: | 4 feet X 2 feet, teardrop plan |
| Photography: | approx 30 exp. E100S w/Pentax WR |
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The day came up gloriously cloudy and cool. Low tide was scheduled for about 1600; would the day stay nice? I kept an eye on the weather while doing other things. The clouds stayed. Anything is great when new. Just because I made these tools didn't mean they'd be effective for more than experiments. This was to be a regular production sculpture. All I really knew is that I wanted to avoid the block-with-tower look. This pile started as a long crescent, but spread into a teardrop tapering upward into a single tall tower. Maybe it was that session playing "Myst" the night before. With the big surf pounding beyond, the lighthouse connection was natural; this one's for Nita. The tower had interesting knobs and humps, and a pretty serious uphill lean. I'd have to work around that. The seaward face of the tower's top became gradually rounded, tucking in about six inches lower, where another panel bulged outward. The landward face was hollowed out behind a long vertical rib. Some panels came together below that, wrapping around the uphill side.
A man stood beside me, watching. A long ramp crossed the base, rising from right to left, then wrapped around. At first this looked bad, but I worked with it and it became a very strong element. Where it hooked around the tower's base, I dug back deeply. Then I dug underneath the ramp and enlarged the space behind. Two panels joined at the top of the space and I continued their curves down and away, making the cave an integral part of it. On around the uphill side I carved a deep vertical slot that widened as it descended, leaving a leg on the left. The space became bigger as I carved into it from the downhill side, shaping the leg into a series of twisting scallops and bulges. Inside the space was angular, with a dagger point hanging from the ceiling. Through all of this the tools performed in a workmanlike way, each doing its assigned task elegantly and fading into the background. They were extensions of my will, reaching into places in the sand I'd never felt before.
"I have to go meet my friend now. Thanks for the lesson. I'm Rich." I shaped the uphill side of the tower, working with its bulges to make more panels wrapping around each other. Then I carved the base, digging deeply with the heavy-duty tools. The simple plan here was to define the sculpture's place, but the base work became part of the sculpture as I carved and curved broad panels blending gradually with the part I'd raised. As a finishing touch, I poked a space through from the big one to the little cave that was behind the ramp's end. I then continued its separation into a long groove behind the ramp. The ramp got some shaping. The upper end was rounded, then cut back slightly and undercut to give definition. I cut the lower end off rather than blend it with the beach, undercutting the end so it looked like a broad, flexible piece lying there. Flexibility was the main effect. As with 98F-16, sand twisted and flowed. I don't know what held this one together. I worked around it, defining and polishing with the soft brush. When complete, it didn't just sit there. It wanted to spring upward off the beach, its stack of convex and concave parts seeming about to fall over, caught in a moment of balanced grace. I tried to walk away, but changing light as the sun sought thin spots in the cloud cover brought me back. Light played with this sculpture, and I kept photographing, covering the flash with a thumb so it wouldn't flatten the light. It was delightful. What's amazing is that it was handbuilt. A couple of years ago I couldn't have gotten this kind of complexity into a form-built sculpture. It's the first free-pile sculpture I've ever made that didn't look massive. The others had good shape, but were earthbound. This one builds upward in a balanced group of elements, like a big sculpture. This one's finished. It's time to go. I keep turning back to look as it gets smaller with distance. Other people have been at work in the beach. There are forts, towers, holes, lakes, an alligator. One stops me in my tracks: a long wall, with a passage through the center. Leading from the passage is a trench that ends at a dome. The forms aren't spectacular, but the decoration is. The maker used seaweed, rocks, finger impressions and anything else for elegant accents. I photograph it carefully in the attractive light, and continue up the beach. | ||||||||||
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All contents copyright 1998 by
Larry Nelson Original: 98-Sep-7
HTML conversion: December 6 | ||||||||||
98p12rpt.htm 98-December-6