98P-21 "More Than Larry"
98P-21 "More Than Larry" | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"You need to dig deep enough so that water seeps into the hole. What you want is this really wet sand. When you get it, pile it like this." I take a double handful and plop it onto the beach, patting it. I add more layers. That's all it takes. The students split up into groups and get to digging. To help them get started, I get two buckets of water and walk around the site, filling borrow pits. Leslie and her friend are also engaged, industriously patting sand. My demonstration pile stands there, forlorn. All the students are busy with their own projects, leaving this calm center to a whirlwind of concentrated construction. They don't need me at all. What should I do? |
| Build number: | 98P-21 |
| Title: | "More Than Larry" |
| Date: | November 20 |
| Location: | Venice Beach |
| Start: | 1300; building time: approx. 2.5 hours |
| Height: | 2.5 feet |
| Base: | 5 feet X 1.25 feet |
| Photography: | approx. 15 exp E100S w/Pentax WR |
| Related pages: | ||
|
As I continue building this tower, part of it slumps. It's irreparable, so I scrap it and start over, being more careful about agitation. The sand down here is pretty good, and a tower rises swiftly. Around me, inexperienced hands are building domes. To some I explain how it's almost essential to add horizontal layers, then carve to the desired shape.
My simple tower becomes undercut and leaning, with the top leaning back for counterpoise. A narrow slot cuts through to the lower edge of a curving panel. "Dolphins!" The word spreads along the beach. Much closer than usual, just beyond where the waves start to break, three dolphins gracefully arc and breathe. Far beyond them, a big splash announces a pelican working on dinner. More of the graceful birds fly north, having to work because there is so little wind. Sailboats pass slowly. The group south of me has produced a good-sized cone, into which they've carved narrow canyons. Some of the canyons connect beneath the cone's top. Spread along the broad crescent of dark wet sand revealed by the dropping tide is a series of growing sculptures. Leslie and her friend are carving their low dome into small arches and loops. Others are working on similar plans, with different outcomes. It's all happening with surprising quiet and concentration. Rather than waiting for instructions, students go and select tools from the common pool, then carve. I'd have expected them to just clown around on what could easily be taken as a holiday from school. These people want to learn and experiment. Yeow, what a refreshing bunch to watch. I wander around photographing the works in progress. One student has made a shark, a fairly predictable subject, but he has taken a novel approach to making the necessary teeth. Rather than dripping or making pegs, he's carved sharp ones with a kitchen knife. A little higher on the beach is a dome with interior spaces. Many of the students have almost instantly realized that you can do more with a pile of sand than just decorate the outside. It has an inside, and some structural capability that can be exploited in architecture. Many professional sand sculptors still don't understand this, or choose not to work this way. It is, to me, one of the best reasons for working with sand. Other materials are much harder and so discourage deep delving such as is so easy with sand. Of course, some of them have trouble with the corresponding ease of collapse. Pieces fall off here and there, the cavities being incorporated into the design. I watch some attempts at repair work, but these work no better than mine. Sand just plain doesn't like to stick to an existing pile unless the failure surface is horizontal. Sand packs downward. At least the failures aren't catastrophic as they would be with bigger sculptures. Leslie calls time. Sandy knees come up off the beach. I get builder photos, hoping I catch everyone. I wish there were some time to talk about what they've done, but schools run on schedules. A group of smiling students walks up the beach, gathering their things. One thing I always hated about having visiting teachers when I was in school was the usual statement that "This person has made a lot of effort to be here today, so let's be respectful and appreciative." Dutifully, we looked up to this stranger. I didn't want anything like this to happen, and it hasn't. Leslie made no pronouncements. Still, the students come to me as they leave, shake my hand, and thank me. Whatever they're doing at that school, it works. The afternoon is cooling. There are some people walking the beach, past our temporary sculpture garden. I resume work on my free-pile sculpture, polishing parts and adding definition to its panels. It seems incomplete, so I enwrap its base with a curving low panel, and add a low tower to its north end. This becomes a leaning crescent. On the other end I make another small tower leaning the other way, with a space inside. It ends up conventional, but still attractive. After photographing it, I return to the formed sculpture on the beach's cusp.
Lorna is working patiently with the "medallion" left over from a start on a formed demonstration pile. She's a study in concentration, almost meditation, as she slowly polishes grooves in the coin-shaped pile. Four pelicans fly north, moving faster than the few sailboats still trying to coax a ride from the slight breeze. Waves transilluminated by the nearly set sun break and foam over the gradual beach. The usual sunset watchers have gathered, stopping where they are as the sun touches the horizon and spreads red light over this scene of such industry. The little sculptures cast long shadows over footprinted sand, their interior spaces glowing warmly. Rich and I chat as the light changes. The beach in winter is a relaxed place, and three men who stop to visit agree. One has just moved over from Hollywood after years of thinking about it. With a last red spark the sun is gone and the beach turns grey. There are no clouds to diffuse late light down here. Lorna leaves off her sculpting and we walk back up the beach. It seems like a good night for tom kah guy, so we adjourn to the local Thai restaurant. The boardwalk, as I ride past, presents its usual uninviting cacaphony and competing buskers. Give me the beach. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| Top of Page | ||||||||||
Original: 1998 November 21
All contents copyright 1998 by
Larry Nelson | ||||||||||
98p21rpt.htm 99 February 13
