98P-14 "Touch Too"

This was to be an all-out attempt at making a free-pile sculpture with as much complexity as a formed sculpture. There had been hints of this in earlier handbuilts, but for various reasons it didn't quite happen. Today there was time and I was ready. Schedules have a way of slipping, however.

Build number:	98P-14
Title:	"Touch Too"
Date:	September 19
Location:	Venice Beach
Start:	1430; building time: approx. 2.5 hours
Height:	4 feet
Base:	1.5 feet X 1.25 feet, monolithic tower
Photography:	approx 18 exp. color neg w/Alvin's Olympus IS100

Alvin Lee was in town for an electronics show, and was staying over the weekend so he could spend some time on the beach. First he wanted lunch. "Asian food! I need it! Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, I don't care. There just isn't any in Colorado." I met him at Harrison in 1996, when he lived in Singapore. Now he lived in Denver, far to the north of the only good Chinese food I know about, China Sun on south Colorado Boulevard. I'd told Ken that I'd be there, but we were running late. I got the fidgets as we ate, wondering if we'd ever make it to the beach. One reason for doing solo activities. We did make it, the tide was completely out, and Ken walked up as I was looking for a place to build. He used to work with me in the ATSAC Control Center, adding greatly to the atmosphere of the place with his smile and encouragement of punning. Good sand was everywhere. Alvin had brought my bucket and shovel, so I used those to get started while he returned to the motel for his wallet: dig a hole, fill it with water, use the loose sand for building. I decided to make a single big tower, tall enough to set a new height record for handbuilt sculpture. With the good sand, and plenty of water provided by Ken with the bucket, this should be easy. In an attempt to have better compaction in the pile's periphery, I pressed inward with my arm as I patted new additions of sand. This helped, but not as much as I'd hoped; the peripheral sand still was soft and tended to come off in chunks as I carved. I quit piling when I could feel the whole tower sway as I patted the sand. Measuring with the Vertical Roadgrader showed it to be a little over four feet tall. Now it just has to stay up. The pile tapered to about eight inches across at the top. I started carving there, using the new modified supermarket tool. Intended as a spatula, I ground its blade to a shape better for cutting sand, and then sharpened it. My sharpest tool, it cuts very cleanly and can remove very thin layers of sand if I control it well enough. Engineering a sand sculpture is easier when all the elements come together in the same place, but this gives the piece a constricted look. I wanted this one to be more fluid, so worked at making the various elements end at different levels. One panel tapered and curved around the top, which was cut to a narrow ridge. The north side became a thin panel, cut through behind, with some internal structure that became a panel below. Sharp tools enable this kind of thin detail, cutting the soft sand away without tearing. The sculpture turned into a complex set of overlapping panels, rather like the snow-covered tree one passerby likened it to. From the base, panels curved upward. Tunnels and caves behind them helped define the shapes. The basal panels tucked into the lower ends of the next set. Some upper panels spanned spaces between lower ones, and some of the spaces went all the way through. Below two base panels I cut into the beach, hollowing out bowls, then outlining their edges. I found myself using the Supermarket Slicer a lot; the sharp edge makes for good cutting, and its broad blade was good for clearing sand out of cut areas. I even used the convex blade for scraping, to smooth out toolmarks. The beach was fairly crowded. Typical for a September Saturday, especially for being at Venice Beach proper instead of at the Breakwater, which is a longer walk from the parking lot. Lots of passersby came by with questions, including one fellow who went to get his girlfriend. Still, by summer standards there were few people. With the reduced crowds, the regulars are beginning to come back. This is one thing I really like about working in the off-season. It's an odd sort of relationship, seeing someone once every two weeks, but still adds a lot to the day. Any source of energy is appreciated. Michael Sommers came by to chat; he's determined to get some of his students out here to try sand sculpture. The German fellow whose name I've never learned was there, and I heard that Terry was at work building pyramids. The new season is off to a good start. While I was at work, Alvin was building a demonstration castle using his "Beachworks" molds. These are pretty slick. They're the basic components of a castle, so the builder can just keep adding things. Walls, towers, all the rest. With a little imagination the result looks good. Alvin built mountains, put castles on top, then built walls to connect them. He complained that the sand was too fine and wet; it stuck to the molds. This proves that no one thing suits everyone. I figure if he'd used drier sand from up the beach it would have worked better. Alvin invited all interested passersby to join him, but few took him up. The boogieboarder whom I've seen down there before spent a lot of time with him, and a few other children, but no adults.

I finished my sculpture as the tide began to creep up. Complexity made it hard to polish, so I did the best I knew how with tools. The result was still fairly rough. Still, it raised an echo from the past. In the fall of 1984 I had lots of time, so I made a sand sculpture kit and went to Santa Monica two or three times a week. I learned a lot, doing that, including the basics of packing sand and using a form. After about 10 sculpture attempts, I thought I could do one that incorporated everything I'd learned, fill the form to the top and make something spectacular. The first try fell before I even touched it with a tool. The second failed during construction. The third stayed together, and as the sun set, 84F-9 "Touch" stood there in the damp cool air, nearly four and a half feet tall. Tall, slender and simply elegant, it's still one of my favorites.

"Touch Too" was tall, slender, but not simply elegant. Considerably more complex than "Touch," it still shares ideology and its location at the cutting edge of technology. The state of the art doesn't stay in one place, which makes this even more fun. This was a handbuilt sculpture that could be proud in the company of its form-piled brethren, and it showed great promise for the future: turning panels on edge, making sculptures within sculptures, continuing to develop skills with tools. It's wonderfully freeing to be able to do sculpture without so much industry. Alvin started a "Name That Sculpture" contest among passersby. Interactive sand sculpture. Somehow, people expect more of a name than just "98P-14." One woman came up with "Swirling Petals." Another suggested "Christmas Tree." There were many more. They had fun. Alvin is a lot like Bert Adams: shamelessly good-humored self-promotion, including people. It's interesting to watch this. What crowd there was tended to gather more around his building site than mine. The tide crept upward. Waves, near the end of their run, gently washed the sculpture's foot and ran under Alvin's bridges. Several people, passersby and builders, stayed to watch the end. Two men were deep in conversation when mine fell over like a tree, all in one piece, splat into the borrow pit. Sand and water went everywhere, including onto their clothes. It was as spectacular an end as I've ever seen. Alvin and I sat on the beach as the tide rose, talking about sand engineering and sculpture ideas. The sun buried itself in a fog bank and the ocean utterly erased the stumps of our works. We headed out and had dinner at a good Chinese restaurant.

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